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Live Reads / pact_livereads
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JayManiac 11-Apr-19 08:17 AM
I always regretted not doing a twig liveread since I just constantly had things to say about it, and now im thinking of starting Pact tomorrow, should this be a Thing? I mean, part of why I couldn't shut up (to myself) about twig was just my obsession with everything Sy said and did, so I'm not super confident that a liveread of pact would be interesting; also I've never done one before...I dunno, thoughts?
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A bird 🐦 11-Apr-19 08:20 AM
I don't know about your specific points, but I'm always keen for another Pact live read
Commit to live reading the first Arc, then see how you feel?
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Seregraug 11-Apr-19 08:21 AM
You can do as much or as little as you want.
I wouldn't recommend doing a full one (quoting every block) unless you have a lot of time on your hands. (edited)
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A bird 🐦 11-Apr-19 08:22 AM
Though to be fair, I wouldn't recommend picking up a Wildbow story unless you have a lot of time on your hands
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JayManiac 11-Apr-19 08:23 AM
Commit to live reading the first Arc, then see how you feel?
I like that idea, yeah. We'll see how compatible it is. As for time...meh, I'm not reading much except ward right now and I need more
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A bird 🐦 11-Apr-19 08:24 AM
Also I would like you, Jay specifically, to read Pact
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JayManiac 11-Apr-19 08:25 AM
👀
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A bird 🐦 11-Apr-19 08:25 AM
On top of wanting people in general to read it
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JayManiac 11-Apr-19 08:25 AM
very iiinnteresting
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Seregraug 11-Apr-19 08:27 AM
I did it while quoting segments of chapters and a few longer posts over ... a month and a half?
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JayManiac 11-Apr-19 08:28 AM
Alright, that sounds reasonable, I'll try to do all of arc 1 tomorrow...failing that, at least all of chapter one? Probably not a whole arc actually, and I don't know how long they are (twig arcs are long, worm arcs are short-ish, ward arcs are books, so maybe something medium length).
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Seregraug 11-Apr-19 08:28 AM
Pact arcs are similar to worm arcs I think.
And not to Twig and Ward arcs.
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JayManiac 11-Apr-19 08:29 AM
gotcha, that's a bit of a relief
I do need some semblance of an ending every once in a while to keep me sane
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A bird 🐦 11-Apr-19 08:34 AM
Hmm
Pact arcs do tend to flow directly into one another
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JayManiac 11-Apr-19 08:36 AM
s'alright, never thought i'd be sane reading a wb story anyhow
lol 2
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A bird 🐦 11-Apr-19 08:37 AM
But yes, most of the time each chapter is pretty contained, and if not, it's just in the middle of something big that takes a few chapters to finish
Are you planning on listening to Deep In Pact while you read, or after?
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JayManiac 11-Apr-19 08:42 AM
Haven't decided, might do it WGWorm style where I listen to the DIP arc by arc, or I might just listen as I read
I figure it can't hurt
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JayManiac 11-Apr-19 11:12 PM
Alright, Where doing it man, where making this happen. I can read for like the next 50 minutes let's see how much that is.
'Bonds 1.1'. I assume that by 1.howevermanythereare the value of this arc will have slowly appreciated
I'm sure this is a wish you were careful about
First line is punchy and indicative of the kind of story we're telling, like twig's or ward's
Symbolic, really, of everything that had gone on for most of my life. Symbolic of everything I had walked away from.
Wonder how old Blake is? 18, moved out?
House seems important, I haven't seen this much description in wbow stories since Victoria dissed someone's outfit last week
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Kyakan 11-Apr-19 11:21 PM
Not sure if this counts as a spoiler he says he’s 20 later (edited)
(His age^)
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JayManiac 11-Apr-19 11:21 PM
I figured somewhere around there, he's got a motorcycle
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Kyakan 11-Apr-19 11:21 PM
Vroom
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JayManiac 11-Apr-19 11:23 PM
It fit, somehow. No consideration to the guests, only self-aggrandizement.
I just got back from visiting my racist grandma so I'm feelin ya on some of the family stuff man. I mean he's probably being too hard on them and stuff but ill let him internally vent
“Fuck you, Irene,” Ellie practically spat the response at her aunt. “You don’t know anything. Uneducated bitch.”
wow maybe he isn't, actually
lol 4
“Hi Ivy,” I said. She responded by pressing her head against our mother’s shoulder. “Busy soaking it all in, kiddo, so you have some good stories to tell your therapist, ten years down the line?”
Oh, I like you.
I love how we slowly work up to how significant this event is for him, how emotional he is about it. These are the kinds of thoughts and the kinds of responses I regret having had.
There was no explaining just how bad it had been without having to explain why I hadn’t gone home
I don't know what happened but im curious and sad now.
The worst types of people. I still had scars. Some were physical.
Oof. By which I mean, aaaaaaaaa this is horrible and I just want Blake to be safe and ok. This is the beginning of the story wtf
“You hear about twins eating one another in the womb,” Peter said. “Maybe I got some of your brains, huh? Because that’s fucking stupid.”
see, now that wasn't even good. Maturity level exemplified by insult-capability
Molly,” the man at the door said. “She’s asking for you next.
with all the umbrella academy vibes I thought person had already died, whoops
“I don’t give a flying fuck, you disgusting, evil, rancid cunt.”
Oh okay we're doing that then
😆 2
“I would argue they are at the roots of their individual problems. I didn’t make them petty, I didn’t make them greedy,” she said.
tosses bottle to alcoholic "well I didn't make him an alcoholic" yeah, but you knew he was. (kind of a Mattian framework to compare alcoholism and straightup greed but shhh)
I don't think my angriest statement has like one tenth of the venom Blake musters here, I'm impressed
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PitaEnigma 11-Apr-19 11:51 PM
Chapter 1 of Pact has Blake living out my wildest fantasies
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JayManiac 11-Apr-19 11:54 PM
“Molly,” my grandmother said. “No,” Molly responded.
and that was that. She died, blake went wherever home is and we didn't dive headlong into horrible horrible shit
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Kyakan 11-Apr-19 11:55 PM
:)
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JayManiac 11-Apr-19 11:55 PM
My grandmother and her cat were both dead.
uhhhh...okay!? That's weird, but sure. looks like Im 1 for 1 so far
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PitaEnigma 11-Apr-19 11:57 PM
I feel like a complete fucking idiot for not getting the significance of that line
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JayManiac 11-Apr-19 11:57 PM
The door swung shut. My view of her and the lawyer in the background narrowing, then disappearing entirely.
I don't trust it the house is gonna eat molly
I'll have you know I watched monster house twice, the second time to prove I wasn't scared of it anymore
I opened my eyes, and I didn’t see my bedroom. I could feel my body in one place, sheets still hooked over one foot, my chest heaving, and I could see in another place.
luv me some creepy dream sequences
ugh, I'm starting to think I can't just hate this grandma for being a bitch...she's got like, motivations n shit
I'm sure I'll know what all these dream things are eventually and I'll have some really insightful shit to say about it but at this point who the fuck knows
“‘Lo, stranger. Listen, I don’t think you should believe what any of them say about me. If you need help, I can offer it.” “For a price,” the dog added.
I already believe what any of them say about you Rumplestiltskin
It wasn’t my face in the mirror above the sink. Nor my body. A girl looked at me, her forehead creased in worry.
we just went from zero to ten real fast
Molly’s dead,” she said. “You’re next.”
and there's fifteen
The house is in your custody now, and so are all of Grandmother’s enemies. Understand? She has a lot. The house is sanctuary, Blake. Molly died because she panicked, and she left the safe ground. Don’t make that same mistake. Move. Run.”
What the fucking fuck man
aaaaaaaaaa this was such a good chapter im ready
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JayManiac 12-Apr-19 12:10 AM
I have a feeling I'm gonna know what they mean when they say twig is 'slow'.
mmkay just one more chapter
Bonds 1.2
It was stupid, maybe, crazy, to dismiss it. By all right, my worldview should have been turned upside down by this.
when you're running for your life worldview can take a breather
I felt a twist of worry, and a fair bit of anger. Why hadn’t she called me?
Blake's anger is a multifaceted being
bridged the gap between being family to being friends.
Ilovethis
If it was even possible for things to make sense with talking animals and twisted mirror-cities.
according to Brandon Sanderson, it is
I really like Joel and hope he doesn't die horribly. I mean I've liked three people in the story so far and one of them has presumably died horribly so it sets a precedent
I'm glad at least someone is on hugging-blake duty
“No. I think I’m you. Your- our parents named me after her.”
Um...what?
secret sister?
“I’m you, with one fundamental difference,”
mmkay, so much weirder
Placing the two and twelve year old in the list before Paige? Placing me in the running?
okay, so I'm getting the 'game' i sometimes talk about. There are rules to this shit, but Grandma just cheated, so now Blake deals with the fallout...or is the fallout.
(edited)
Im guessing it's not by favorite grandkid either
I remember everything about my life, but I don’t feel like I experienced any of it. You know?”
what did grams do to twist the game in her favor? what did she make!?
Move out. She didn’t know about me leaving home.
Okay I guess we're not gonna trust our sister from another histor-y then
“I’m not your enemy, here,” she said, and her voice was harder, angrier.
if there's one thing i've learned so far blake, it's don't piss off you
Assuming Rose is...accurate, there's a lot the book could be saying about how gender affects your upbringing, and also how environmental changes like being trapped in a void watching the world through your twin(ish) sibling(ish) could make someone feel....♑
did you almost just leave rose so you wouldn't break Joel's car? I don't know how to judge you for that, actually
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Kyakan 12-Apr-19 12:35 AM
Rose is the best
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JayManiac 12-Apr-19 12:35 AM
This is slipping into horror. Like I'd be holding my headphones away from my head and squinting through one eye if this were tv
It's so cinematic now that I think about it, the hushed voice coming from the mirror, the glimpse of the thing following, the walking down a dark road while it stalks behind you
here were tears in my eyes when I opened them. Totally the wind.
Hhh, Blake seems like a supermasculinedude™ who doesn't cry at shit, so this gets to me
I couldn’t bring myself to stand beside the side of the road and get cold.
Blake would die first in a horror movie
which is concerning
since this is a horror movie
“Molly was clawed to death,”
I didn't really need to know that but thanks
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Megafire 12-Apr-19 12:44 AM
You sure?
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JayManiac 12-Apr-19 12:44 AM
Molly was partially eaten, too
gesticulates wildly. Stop!?
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Megafire 12-Apr-19 12:44 AM
I'm sure there's more gory details to give you, if you're int- and there it is.
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JayManiac 12-Apr-19 12:46 AM
It dawned on me. That mask was going to be mine.
NOPE NOPENOPENOPENOPE FUCK
Every last part of me hated to sit still, was restless in the face of stress
we've hit this beat a bunch of times, and I have a feeling it's gonna pay off a bunch more
The ice didn’t break beneath them. My heart sank.
I thought this was gonna work too so im with ya buddy. except not really I'm at my computer wrapped in a blanket eating mac n cheese. but in spirit. Not a literal spirit like your mirror sis though.
It lay there for a good ten seconds before the ice broke. I watched as the things plunged into the water.
I laughed. I just picture the masks looking at the rock, looking back at blake, he stands awkwardly for a few seconds, crack
“I don’t want you haunting me or anything, and I don’t want lawsuits either. I don’t make that much money.”
sensible dude. Also thank fuck he found something i was gonna go crazy
Was that a rule, here? No monsters after sunrise, or no monsters when others could see?
That's what my ten year old self was sure of, and therefore it's probably the rules of reality
To look this drained… she’d broken the ice, or she’d helped it along. A bit of an extra push
ROSE IS CLUTCH!? aw man I didn't make that connection but it's really obvious in hindsight
I saw a man in the corner with an oddly crooked stance, leaning against the wall as if his limbs wouldn’t hold him up, the whites of his eyes too white as he tracked us with his gaze. Staying out of the way, almost out of sight.
👀 🦉 👿
I'm super excited, but I think I'd better stop for now. That's a good precedent for how fast I can probably finish these
I heard a bunch of stuff about pact like 'oh it's not as good as worm or twig' and 'wildbow's worst story' but like..this is really really good I'm all hells of into it. I think it's grabbed me faster than Worm did, Wildbow's make-me-wonder-things skill is in full effect- though that might just be that i like figuring out magic-, I love Blake's POV, even if im not Sylvester levels of obsessed with his character. Im excited, I'm terrified, good first two chapters
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JayManiac 12-Apr-19 05:23 AM
It's my favourite, pending Ward finale
woah, really? I love your take on how the stigma came around, even I admit that I think twig (which I currently like a little more than worm and a little less than ward, it's a 95% vs a 97% as Scynths points out) would actually be a bit less enjoyable if I read it serialized.
(edited)
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A bird 🐦 12-Apr-19 05:30 AM
Yeah I struggled more with relentlessness in Twig than Ward, and Ward than Pact. Twig is less consistently relentless, but Twig spoilers Sy spending arcs losing his mind and his allies in increasingly self destructive ways got to me more
agree 1
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JayManiac 12-Apr-19 05:33 AM
I also think that every time it looks like Sy is going to find a 'status quo', a peaceful part of his life, it gets upset and he has to start over with a fraction of the allies, plans, and resources he'd worked so hard to get. That's a kind of relentlessness that does get to me
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A bird 🐦 12-Apr-19 05:35 AM
Did you say you didn't read it serially?
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JayManiac 12-Apr-19 05:37 AM
I didn't, but it still hurt
I was like this is where the story is going he's gonna build a resistance force and- oh, nope, can't do that no more. W-wait, maybe now he'- nope
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A bird 🐦 12-Apr-19 05:44 AM
Yeah, that process artificially drawn out over years was tough Reading something serially is fundamentally different in terms of experience
One of the reasons I am extremely interested in the response of the inevitable wave of readers once Ward is done
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JayManiac 12-Apr-19 05:49 AM
I have several friends who straight up refuse to read it serially hhhh. I'm interested in binging the entire thing once it's done too
it also occurs to me that im past the point of being able to work on art/music/writing rn, so I think i'll be gearing up for 1.3 in a second here once i microwave myself a taco
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LiterallyBismarck 12-Apr-19 06:09 AM
Nice, looking forward to it
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JayManiac 12-Apr-19 06:10 AM
Right on time, I just got back! Bonds 1.3: begin
I closed the car door, making my way up to the front of the house. There was something like a bike lock attached, with a container built into it. Four digit combination.
The password to unlock your powerful magical safeguard must contain a number, a letter, three firstborn children newly murdered, and a 'special character'
Near the center of the living room, Molly had set up blankets and pillows on one couch.
we didn't know molly all that well, but the things that sentences like this make you think of just serve to twist that knife further. I can imagine a lonely afternoon, settling down with a book, and then thinking 'fuck it, I got this whole god damn house I can sleep where I want' and just curling up surrounded by your newest reads and- wait why the hell am I doing this to myself?
“It didn’t hit me until I saw you back there,” Rose said. “How different we are. I wasn’t even in any direct danger, and I couldn’t think of what to do.”
I can't help but wonder if this is just a gender difference, if it's "what if these two parents had a daughter instead", what the difference between those things would be, etc. Hoping we get to compare more notes.
She’d been cooped up in this house, and she’d barely touched anything? The living room, kitchen and this bathroom suggested she’d spent some time here, but how had she managed without losing it?
think the answer may well be 'she fucking didn't
“A means of opting out. Not joking this time.”
oooooo
I mean, there's no logical reason not to at this point, and blake doesn't seem like the 'im obviously the chosen savior of the universe so step aside' type unlike some🕷 people i've 🐛 read about.
Meaning he may in fact risk his life and go through hell because of the cost of that opt-out, which might be losing a friend he's known his entire life but also like 4 hours...
call that a...let's see, scott has speculations, matt has meditations? musings?
can't think of an alliterative one, but we'll call it one of Jay's Theoray's until we inevitably don't come up with something better
unless...unlex we do?
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Lexicon 12-Apr-19 06:33 AM
Jay's Jguesses
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JayManiac 12-Apr-19 06:34 AM
You wouldn't believe how close I was to suggesting that i had it typed out and everything
it's fate, Jay's Jguesses it is
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Lexicon 12-Apr-19 06:34 AM
Woo!
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Funky 12-Apr-19 06:36 AM
Chiming in to say that I'm lurking and enjoying this a lot
sharkhi 2
same 5
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JayManiac 12-Apr-19 06:38 AM
When Rose replied, her voice was quiet. “I have to disagree with you there. They support me. Supported me, past tense, I guess.”
this is so fascinating, it's got to be the second beat in the "our parents had a favorite sibling across time and imaginary(?) space" series and I'm interested to see where it goes
mostly because uh, Blake's general disposition towards his family can be...a smidge...explosively violent sometimes, or at least silently 'fuck you'-ing
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Wildbow 12-Apr-19 06:40 AM
Is it the second or the first?
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JayManiac 12-Apr-19 06:42 AM
I counted the first as being I don't mean to be pedantic But they’re our mother and father.
“Okay, fine,” I said, pushing that idea out of my head
the notion that his parents weren't just assholes who would've treated anyone this badly is not one that Blake is especially keen to entertain
“One second. Can’t take the map and the mirror with my hand like it is.” “Okay,” she said, but she didn’t look happy.
it's by no means the Capircorn situation that I compared it to earlier, but I could see this limitation causing a similar kind of strain on their relationship. I could see her slowly build a resentment if this keeps happening, not saying anything because she knows that just cuz she's trapped with nowhere to go doesn't mean her brother should have to be, etc. Luckily I think they're both the type to say what they're thinking, and Rose has been good about voicing her disagreements and not letting them fester so far.
(edited)
Mostly, I tended to eyeball things, and maybe that was a factor in what had kicked my instincts into motion in the first place, when the rooms had felt small, despite all evidence to the contrary.
good sense of the world might actually be a weakness when your sense of the world is subject to unknown-terrifying-shit, but also now that I think about it it might equip Blake with a sort of Spider-Sense. Anyone else might just succumb to the effect, whereas he knows when he's being messed with
It took me two tries to find the keyhole
Also it lets him Sherlock things apparently. Which is to say, it gives me the same kind of feeling as watching Sherlock solve something, but doesn't fall apart under logical examination of the story and is a relatively limited and believable competency, especially given the backstory we got a couple paragraphs ago
I'd love finding a magic-book library so much
Jokes from the Faerie Folk.
I don't care if these books would kill me I would still love them
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Seregraug 12-Apr-19 07:01 AM
Optimistic to assume it would be merely death. 🤔
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Wildbow 12-Apr-19 07:01 AM
Pshh, they're fairies. Mirthful little things with butterfly wings.
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Seregraug 12-Apr-19 07:02 AM
But with Taylor controlling them...
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JayManiac 12-Apr-19 07:04 AM
I mean several of these titles suggest fates arguably worse than death so fair...You know I'm just going to believe that Fairies are just precious, childish, cute little humanoid creatures that wouldn't hurt a fly (possibly out of fear I mean those things are a lot bigger to them) until proven otherwise
Observations on Bacchae interacting in Modern Society
I wrote a lot of comments on this before realizing that didn't say 'Bacchus' and proceeding to delete my musings on the greco-roman pantheon
Still tho, might be sentient grapevines strangling people left an right
Wait maybe Bacchae are just roman-mythology things that I don't know about. I mean, the rest of these are fablehaven-esque things yoinked from cultures around the world so who knows?
google does, just googled it and I knew about the Maenads but not all their akas im gonna go back to reading the story instead of just dicking around with book titles now
The barrier to understanding was a reason to stop, where I might have kept walking and reading indefinitely.
but did you have to though?
I’d gone from having no answers to having too many.
the solution here is to sit down and read things until you're twenty five
I sat back while I watched her take it all in. In the frame of the mirror, she turned and walked over to a bookcase, picking up a book. No effect on my end, I noted.
See you'll get through them twice as fast! Im wondering at the implications of this though, in a very spy-y sort of way. Like, if you had to open a book or look at the other side of a piece of paper without leaving a fingerprint or turning it over, would it still say the same things if Rose looked at it? I mean mirror-dimension, which I'm gonna call the Backwards, since the Upside Down was taken seemed to be omniscient when it came to Blake's life and also the ripple effects in how changing things in that life would affect the world would affect the life etc. so it can probably "know" anything that's written in a book, barring any Contessa/Endbringer blind spots.
If you find yourself here and are already injured in body, mind, heart, spirit or other more esoteric departments, you may need to jump straight to instruction number one in the list below, sacrifice sleep to see it through, and then move on to a great deal of research.
I'd sacrifice sleep just to read this book and figure out what's going on. Hypothetically.
(edited)
Also, 'more esoteric departments'? I write tons of fantasy-comedy for fun and this struck me as something I'd throw in as a joke and never mentioned it again unless I wanted to extend that you had a metaphysical 'asshattery' as a fundamental part of the self or something, but here it reads as more, to the point where I'm almost sure Blake is going to be stabbed right in his asshattery.
However, all things have a price, and it is impossible to become rich, powerful, wise or strong without paying in some form.
that said we have a monkey's paw in the basement that you should really take for a whirl. Also this is maybe my favorite brand of fantasy. To quote a show that did a handy disservice to this concept: "all magic comes with a price, dearie"
For this reason, among others, practitioners rarely ascend to any great status and remain there.
I doubly like it when there are actual metaphysical reasons everything is so story-y and no one has become god or solved all the major problems yet (in case you don't know me already)
Perhaps this seems unfair, but modern standards of fair and unfair are just that: modern.
Grandma Thorburn is real good with those "actually it's the world's fault I'm such an asshole and that means I don't have to apologise"s for someone who claimed to be 'doing without the excuses'
Also yo: I knew no family could have the name Thorburn without selling at least six souls
"my last name is Hebert Lambsbridgevestatinglyintelligen Dallon what's yours?" "Oh it's fucking T̢͙̮H̵̨̥O̕͏̸R̵̻̳B̯̗U̺̲R̴̙͘N̤̜͞"
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Seregraug 12-Apr-19 07:35 AM
Isn't that what Loki does?
lol 1
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JayManiac 12-Apr-19 07:35 AM
Not particularly ominous per se, but it's got the words 'thor' and 'burn' in it, and in my opinion that just makes it sound really cool and like you have a legacy of magically fuckin people up
My diaries can be found on the shelf behind the desk. I welcome you to read them if they might shed light on matters.
was just playing will you press the button at the same time as my liveread somehow and what a fuckin coincidence
To demonstrate the gravity of this, know that you may lose custody of the property if you do not address these tasks. On a graver level, you may well doom yourselves and the bloodline with your failure, depending on how it plays out.
Well, wouldn't want to lose the property would we!? (I'd find this really funny if I wasn't already biased against anything Grandma says) (I still find it funny)
Read Essentials. It sits on the book stand. A novice’s guide to the most basic things, it outlines the steps to awakening yourself. Be warned, these steps open the door to becoming Other, in a respect.
all new, our trigger events come pre-packaged and leather-bound! Try one out!
Should you lie, you may well forfeit your power for a time.
remembers all the times protags had to lie about things, and also just all the lies I've told in the past 24 hours, none of which were particularly meaningful or hiding some great secret, but all of which served to greatly smoothen the path of life
2. Study and enact the ritual noted in Famulus. The familiar is your greatest ally, and will serve as a tool, a wellspring of power, an ambassador to dealing with more abstract things, and will be a lifelong companion.
Guess that explains her cat randomly coincidying
also ready for The Wacky Adventures of Me, My Alternate Mirror Being Self, and Fluffles
3. Study and enact the ritual noted in Implementum. Your choice of tool will shape how you interact with this world, your craft, and will be your badge in the eyes of many.
5. Find a good man to marry.
Well, you heard the insufferable grandma looks at Joel
“I think I’m faced with an issue, here,” I said. “You can’t sit through meetings?” Rose asked.
This would be my issue here. Also I'm realizing that Blake is like 20 and yet he's being forced to make all of these decisions that will permanently change his life and the way people look at him and whether he succeeds or fails, dooming himself and the people around him. Good thing 18-22 year olds with minimal life experience never really have to make those kinds of choices
(edited)
(which is to say, I'm seeing ways that the magic can represent and abstractivfy the real world and Im loving it)
“They’re not friends, Blake. Resources, maybe, but not friends. We should think long and hard about when and why we contact them.”
in terms of intelligence, I like how Rose and Blake's dynamic works, because they have different specializations but can pretty quickly get each other on the same page. They're like the perfect partners and im sure it'll stay that way forever
Making a bargain with an Other to learn Sumerian may be novel, I know, but it is easier to ask for it to be translated aloud by a servant or summoning.
all magic has a price and it got us into this whole mess, but you ain't got time to study french sell your asshattery for that shit
I really hope no one's just jumping in mid liveread
that'd be a weird thing to open on
lol 1
“I don’t like these answers,” I said, raising my voice a little. “That old bitch.”
he has slightly depressed the button and already regrets it
“Can we verify, again, that you’re really a female me?”
!!!!!! I've been waiting for something like this since Rose became a thing-person-backwardsian
okay well nevermind then
Her face settled into a serious expression, as cold as mine was heated. I was breathing hard, and my sutures were hurting where I clenched my hand.
but we immediately contrast them and oppose them in this small way; they're not the same
also im jumping back at the same time as reading-slow but
“It doesn’t sound like she had a lot of choice,” Rose said.
while this is true, she could've been less of an ass about it. Maybe years of dealing with demons gives you a no-nonsense forget-other-people-have-feelings-attitude or something, but there's always some kind of choice, if not in the action than in the delivery. And if magic meddling does turn you into an asshole, that's something we should be paying attention to going forwards.
These books? They each had the same set of initials on the spine. R.D.T. She’d written them.
Oh. I take a little bit of that back. Okay no I take none of it back but I give her credit where credit's due.
side note: I love how Blake and Rose continue to notice most of the same things seconds apart
ANYHOW that was the third chapter! It feels like I've already read more than that, is this how scott feels all the time? god this is going to take me a long time to read but it's so engaging and fun to experience
Hope you guys are experiencing some of that fun vicariously!
💯 4
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JayManiac 12-Apr-19 08:24 AM
Woo! Well, i think that's gonna do it for tonight, considering that took me checks time uh, two hours to read, but hopefully I'll find some time tomorrow to continue! (I'd like to mention that this is an entirely unsustainable pace and that I'm currently on spring break)
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JayManiac 12-Apr-19 03:42 PM
Alright, I'm up at what some refer to as the asscrack of dawn (the sun hasn't actually started lighting up the sky yet) and I'm addicted to Pact now so I apparently need it instead of coffee. I doubt anyone else is up, but I think livereads in general are just as fun to binge read anyways so let's goooooooooo
lol 1
Bonds 1.4
I could see Rose’s reflection, her hair pressed flat where the back of her head pressed against the other side of the mirror, looking the other way.
So does Rose's reflection just replace Blake's automatically or does she choose to? Thought the latter, but also then why is she choosing to be present when he's showering?
Having someone, something like Rose nearby.
haha that's a great way to think of your sister/sole ally in a world that's trying to kill you.
It's interesting that I'm maybe more willing to accept that Rose is who she says she is than Blake is at the moment. Maybe my default is 'trust' and Blake has had that beaten out of him at this point (which might serve him when he's dealing with the less-trustworthy dealmakers of magic world)
No reflection, using different soaps and shampoo that made me smell different, no longer having the little trinkets and touches I’d surrounded myself with over the past year or two, it all made me feel less like me.
guess that maybe answers my question. I do wish we could've seen a bit more of Blake's apartment, if only to establish what he feels he's lost and bring us closer to it, even if it's just small things
Rose said, “I know Molly about as well as I knew Callan or Roxanne, which isn’t much at all. Then the ‘granddaughter only’ thing came up, and that was that. We were rivals.”
This is kinda sad, but maybe more for blake, who thinks of molly and paige as kind of the only emotional rocks to cling to when it comes to family. Rose's family wasn't as bad for her, she didn't need them for that, but hearing that she never had them like he did might [verb that I can't think of right now] blake
f we weren’t dealing with a situation, we were reeling from the last one. Ways to weaken me, to take me out of the running, mom and dad sort of keeping it going. It kind of soured all the rest of it.”
so Rose's version of their parents aren't sounding great either
“That one was Ellie, I’m pretty sure. She made a comment, then alluded to my brake lines, and I basically stopped driving after that. When I think of family, that’s the first thing that comes to mind.”
in fact, she seems to have had more experience with the horribleness of auxiliary parts of the Thorburn family than Blake has
I couldn’t imagine giving up that independence. We were supposed to connect as we interacted, but I could only feel the differences between us getting more pronounced.
See i see this as something that puts Rose more similar to Blake in my mind. It's obvious why he sees it as a difference, but still. If I were stuck in a room with Bonesaw's clone of me I don't know if it would be the differences we would fight over
(edited)
Also, spending that amount of time with someone, no breaks, isn't going to be without its arguments and conflict, especially if it's not really by choice
I preferred to bleed and be clean-shaven over the alternative
we've hit this beat a few times, in the same kind of way as "i'd rather move and get myself killed than sit still"
Heavily relate to both neuroses btw
“But I can do this. I have a good memory. I struggled at school because I don’t have a lot of patience.”
I was going to add 'heavily relate to [can't sit still] because ADHD but didn't want to imply blake had ADHD. Now I'm wondering, though
(edited)
Then again, there's a difference between ADHD, which you're born with or acquire through physical head trauma at a young age, and developing restless instincts adaptively, and I don't know where blake falls on that particular wavelength
although watching rose for clues might be helpful, since ADHD is extremely genetic (something like 80% I think)
“Apparently I don’t sleep,” she said, and she sounded somewhat distant, even disconnected. “I don’t get hungry. I don’t really breathe. I barely have a heartbeat.” “You were up all night reading?” “More or less.
Lucky!! I want to be a barely-alive magical figment trapped in the void so I can read all night!
I could see this knowledge divide widening between them, which is a good thing if they can work together but a bad thing if they can't trust each other
Like, I'm reading "the birth of tragedy" and that's the longest introduction I've ever read, something like a sixth of the book. Assuming that generous rate, she reads six books in the time it takes him to read one (which makes sense, since he's her means of interacting with the world (or acting upon the world I guess) and she can't really do anything else while he's asleep )
But like, if she has information he doesn't then that puts him in a position of having to take her word for things he doesn't know yet, and if something bad were to happen (crazy thought, but it's possible) like [Rose makes the best call she can and plays the 'trust me i kno mor' card but they still end up failing] then that could drive more of a wedge between them and they lose that advantage
I always love when stories have character/personality-based limitations to competence
(eg. Amy being afraid of her power and thus not using it to become Nilbog 2: Electric Boogaloo)
I was bothered, that she was ahead of me, that she would likely stay ahead of me, without a need for sleep.
luckily they already love and trust each other enough that that clearly won't be an issue
All of the most foolish and brutish Others have been captured, slain, consumed, driven off, or tricked away. Recognize all Others for what they are, and know that they, by a process of elimination two thousand and six hundred years in the making, are cunning by nature, they are slave to those who are, or they were made to be cunning to better serve in their duties.
Oh fuck. They're the only new players in an rpg that came out in 1996 and doesn't respawn its npcs
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JayManiac 12-Apr-19 04:28 PM
Others were liars. What was Rose, if not an Other?
Jesus, dude! I know you may in fact be totally right and she'll absolutely betray you either by naivete or malice but still! As a dude who definitely shouldn't be trusted (but who I trust anyways) once said: "Once, maybe I would have thought you a fool, but...well, that's kind of what trust is, isn't it? A willful self-delusion?"
that was Kelsier from mistborn, which everyone should read. Not as everyone as "everyone should read worm" but pretty everyone
I looked down. Small birds perched on tree branches, in pale grays, whites and yellows, against a backdrop of reds, in watercolor hues. “Thank you.”
He is sort of like a bird, isn't he? Always flitting about from one perch to the next, potentially pray to anything, and just starting to learn to fly. Kind of like some people are like collective hives of bugs, and some people are like lambs, and some people are like double-traumatized, tenacious, information-savvy superheroes working with version 2.3 of their forcefield because the internet went down before it could update. Yknow. Kinda like that.
(also Blake is holding a bird in his r/parahumans banner art and they seem quite Familiar with each other)
(if scott gets to use banner art for his speculations I get to use it for Jay's Jguesses)
Were we similar in some respects? In tastes? Or was this a manipulation from a cunning Other?
duuuuuuuuuude I get that u might've been betrayed once or twice but honestly if you can't trust the person you see in the mirror you're gonna have a shitty fucking time anyways.
That sounded significantly more profound out of context, for a change (edited)
But like, this is Jayscel's wager, and only comes with some of the fallacies associated with its namesake: If you believe in your soul sister here and it turns out she's been real all along then you only reap all the benefits. If you're wrong, horrible shit. If you wager the other way and you're wrong, this will drive you insane and you'll wind up clawed to death and half-eaten because there's no escape from your own paranoia. If you're right, it's the same outcome!!
of course, Pascal presents a false dichotomy and the idea that belief is a choice, and those critiques apply to my argument too. Blake will go middle of the road here, and I can't say which middle
“I’m not patient enough for that. Give me a letter? Or, better yet, point me to the section you want to talk about?”
see? working together has its benefits! You have limited time to familiarize yourself with the material, but Rose can sort through and find the most relevant sixth of information so you know you're getting the good stuff.
We learn what we need to learn in order to survive. We circumvent this whole situation.”
well you were twisted into this situation so it's only fair to twist yourself out of it
then you do the hokey pokey and your turn your life around, that's what it's all about?
I wonder what price Grams paid to insert Plan B(lake). I also wonder if she paid it all, or took another loan from the "if you die don't worry we'll just kill ur grandkids" bank
“I get that, but the most basic, number one step? The one I’m supposed to use to awaken myself… there’s a cost associated with it. I give up the ability to lie. What that one guy said in the vision? There’s always a price. Become a Witch Hunter, and you face obligations.”
let's make all these decisions that incur permanent sacrifices yaaay
Rose was getting more into it as she argued. “We can minimize the effect. Follow the letter of the law, instead of the spirit.
If I know genies, gods, and rumplemotherfuckingstiltskin that's the otherest thing you've said so far. I'm gonna not be an other by jumping through linguistic loopholes and exploiting the system.
“No, Blake. We can do this, we just need to do it safely.” “I don’t think this is a situation where we can do things in half measures. We can’t be half-heir and half-witch hunter.”
I always end up multiclassing, myself.
But also like: if making these big decisions is a parallel with real life, then indecisiveness can be the worst decision of them all. I've got to go to college next year, and that means picking the conservatory or the college. if I pick both, I'll overwork myself and see no worthwhile results, you've got to make that choice ColtImeanRose
She spoke to me from the toaster. “I get a say in this, you know.”
really? cuz it sounds like you're speaking from the kettle🍵
also: do you? I mean, you probably should, equal representation in governing decisions that affect you equally and all, but is Blake willing to give up that power? Does he have the trust to do so?
“You get a say, but it’s ultimately me making the decision and paying the consequences, isn’t it?” “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m kind of attached to you, metaphysically. You die, I’m going to be a goner too.”
wow hey maybe I should like read the next two lines before I open my big fat keyboard here
“At least you’re alive,” she retorted. We were interrupted by a pounding series of knocks on the door
getting interrupted in a dumb argument is a good thing, defuses the situation. Not so much when it's about an actual recurring issue and you leave things on bad terms
“We’re attached to each other. I’ll back you up. Go.”
but also it doesn't have to be resolved through argument, and this is kinda sweet
“You’re alone, Mr. Thorburn?” “Only person in the house,” I said.
I wish he was already ritualed so I'd know how honest he thinks this statement is
The inconsistency of my actions, he must have thought I was on drugs.
but haven't we all had that experience of having an officer think we're on drugs because of our actions that seemed logical to us but really don't when you explain them and also we have that kind of long hair that you normally associate with hippies but really you've never touched a non-prescription drug in your life and it's just the nervousness of being around cops that's making you look like a crackhead?
Right guys?
...Guys?
The way I understand it, the house would pass on to me, if Molly was dead. It’s my property, it’s my say. Not without a warrant.” “This isn’t reflecting well on you, Mr. Thorburn,” the RCMP officer said.
I take solace in the fact that Blake is in way deeper shit
“I believe you’re innocent because I know who killed Molly Walker.” “Who?” I asked. I was getting colder, now. He only shook his head. “I can’t say. It will probably go unsolved, the media will report it, but it won’t be sensationalized. Good officers will most likely put in a genuine, honest effort and find nothing.”
every John and David need their Arnie....
“In this scenario, we’ve got a situation involving a number of countries. If you will, there’s America. I’m rather interested in America for the purpose of this discussion, but that’s just me. Powerful, perhaps overly proud, large, keepers of the peace.” I glanced at his uniform. “Sure.”
I like this guy. Not sure if he's anything Other than what he seems, but he seems a lot less bullshittious than a lot of people you can find yourself dealing with. Sort of like officer littlejohn
“Too new and too small to be a serious threat. Self deluding, even, dealing in things she doesn’t fully understand. A complicated situation. I’d call her a terrorist before I called her a local power.” “Fair enough. Can we call her Maggie, or is that mucking up the metaphor?” “We could call her that. Maggie Holt, I believe.”
Finally, someone who has answers and isn't an awful grandmother! I mean he might be an awful some-Other-things but hey
also I remember something about Maggie Holt...is there a reference to her in Twig or something?
“In this little story, the dictator died, and a successor was assassinated in short order, let’s say. Now another one has taken the helm, and nobody is entirely sure what type of person the young man is… which is very concerning, considering the weapons he has at his fingertips. He could be reckless, he could be mild mannered, he could be a merchant, a politician, or a student, but he’s an unknown quality, and appearances can be deceiving.”
Ilovethis
This whole magical scenario exists as metaphor that you can extrapolate out to real consequences and events, right? So metaphors within and without of metaphors are making me dizzy with intuitive connections
I also understood that the ‘metaphor’ was making it very easy for him to outright lie, but that was a given.
depends on how truth works I suppose
to me, a story/metaphor is a willful acknowledged irreality that conveys truth and thus counts as truth
I'm reading truth, but I'm not reading real events
“So it isn’t really friendship, is it? It’s… buying time. Then there’s nothing to stop America from crushing the little country.” “It would be a temporary alliance, I’m afraid. I don’t believe there’s a way around it.”
still like this guy, for different reasons. He's super interesting as a character, incredibly dangerous apparently, america-like, but also a little awereica-like
“I suspect the poor bastard is as good as dead already,” Laird Behaim said. “I am sorry. If it helps, I don’t think I’ll enjoy the part I play in it.”
hooboy. How's that for a forecast? This metaphor works both ways, too. If america makes a decision about a small nobody country's leaders and sacrifices them for the good of the rest of the world, no big deal. But if it's Blake, I care about him and want him to not be assasinated pls.
Anyhow, great chapter, i really gotta go cuz I didn't think we'd take this long, but really fun as always, I'll see when I can read next!
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JayManiac 14-Apr-19 07:11 AM
Gonna go shower and then it's 1.5time!
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JayManiac 14-Apr-19 07:29 AM
Let's get goin!
I could connect the dots. Blonde girls… they might have been among the ones I saw while tossing and turning in bed, before waking up to all this.
Since the blonde girls were all girls in his vision, I assumed that they were the generations of previous custodians
I wasn’t sure what color I was going, but I could feel a sick feeling in my chest. The smells of the coffee were getting more intense. Too intense. I’d known she’d been mauled. I’d known she’d been attacked, and that she’d been scared, but this was the worst bit of all. Tools? How did one use tools? “Do you need to step into the washroom?” Laird asked.
Uh that's a yes from me sir
“No, thank you,” I said. I still felt a little ill. Tools had been used? What did that even mean? Knives, scalpels? Or hammers and saws?
confession: I listened to the first few episodes of Deep In Pact
just the first two, actually, not even up to where I am
They kind of frame blake as just jumping to 'avoid conflict' with his thought process, which I don't disagree with. I think it's very birdlike, and I hadn't noticed it before. it's probably the most valuable insight the cast has provided for me so far
that said, the fact that he's not jumping away from this is...troubling
there's no inner monologue between the first thought of Molly's murder and the second and the third here, but there's a lot of dialogue, so it's possible he's trying to do his little flitting away thing again and just can find a hold
Laird reached for his wallet, to pay, and James refused him. The ease with which Laird accepted that suggested it was a regular thing. “Corner booth?” Laird asked me. I nodded.
Then again, he doesn't resolve the issue in his mind, he does just jump to the next thing with no cue to himself
the reflective surface wasn’t facing the wall. Rose wasn’t there.
speaking of leaving things unresolved...is she just not showing up on purpose? Is she being blocked? aaa
“We tend to learn a few tricks, because it’s expedient. This one is a bit of shamanism. Many of the circles here and there will look down on someone for dabbling. It’s dangerous, and it leads to more mistakes. It’s better, many say, to specialize, do one thing well. The Duchamp family there seems to hold to this idea. The Behaim family doesn’t.””
So, is the whole town in on this already? that's a definite change from the gravity falls/riftdale/JDATE method, and I think I like that. It's a lot more interesting to me right now than "keep everything a secret, for the normies must never find out". I mean, if we do that too Im still game, but magic as just a part of life in urban fantasy like this has a lot of untraveled avenues to explore
There were periods I was more serious about it, points where it faded into the background, and I raised a family.
like this, it's so human for who I assumed had to be an Other, utterly inhuman. He's just in the know, he's got a little bit of Other in him, but so will Blake in a little bit. He's certainly dangerous, but he's just a guy. this is way cooler im sorry I'm just kinda blown away by the particulars of the premise here
“Do you know the reason we discourage people from owning guns?”
this guy's into his weapon metaphors, books being nukes and all. Don't know if i agree with him about the parallels exactly, but I like to look at how he thinks.
Here, I make a meager food offering, create a sign to indicate what I want, and draw from the reputation I maintain with local community spirits. A bonus of my position. The spirits play along, because they know it keeps people safer and helps to keep the community safe, and because they know I’ll make a better offering later, a habit I’ve established. The end result? They turn people away before they sit nearby, and we can talk without fear of eavesdroppers.”
A lot of magic nowadays is a vending machine. Mistborn's for instance: there's a cost in the form of metal flakes, you input the flakes and burn them, and out comes the effect, which varies depending on the metal. Or Sympathy from KKC, kind of a self-checkout aisle: input strength of will and energy cost-----desired effect. So I love that Pact's is always overseen, even the most miniscule of effects being an agreement that two parties have to agree to, a...pact, you could say. It's a much more marketplace-y situation, and that appeals to me.
More grotesque imagery. It made me think of Molly’s fate.
I think it's not that he flat out doesn't address his problems, choosing to fly away from them, it's something a little more nuanced and intriguing than that: Blake needs his issues dealt with in small doses. He returns, he takes an opportunity to think of something else, he returns.
Whether this actually ever leads to dealing with the problem and resolving the conflict? Um. Not yet, at least with doubts about rose and thoughts of molly
He can't sit still, but he can pace back and forth, returning to the same spot
he isn't just walking away
The locals will then clean up, and they will be upset with the culprit for the inconvenience and the risk
and here's the thing: you still can explore all the keeping-secrets-n-stuff, but the net of people doing that isn't some secret organization whose life purpose is hiding the supernatural from the innocent and ignorant, it's a bunch of people living their lives and all in agreement (just whenever I say agree or contract or exchange assume Im thinking pact) that should this shit get out bad things be doin. It's a functional community, and that allows us to explore a host of new avenues
I'm interested to see whether Elliot makes the same connections there and feels that subversion in the same way I did.
We may be enemies, but that doesn’t preclude trust and respect, much less an open dialogue.”
I like this guy, and I'm gonna love when he turns into more of an antagonist at points. I love how he thinks about conflict, and how he sees the town as being this place with its own unwritten rules of consideration
we only know about the town from him so far, so who knows if it's right, but the fact that he believes it is cool in its own right.
“I take it that’s your implement,” I said. “And my familiar,” he said. “After a fashion.”
uh, cool
I mean yeah, I guess everything magic needs an other as its conduit and familiars can be on a sliding scale of completely ethereal to being a cat
“Implements can be familiars?” I asked. “Unconventional,
introducing the rule via the exceptions, introducing familiars via the unconventional one. it's both more interesting and more informative, in my opinion
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JayManiac 14-Apr-19 08:23 AM
“Chrono… time?” “And omens.”
I'm gonna draw so much fucking homestuck fanart for pact at some point
The little black book says that grandmother thought the watch was a zeitgeist. Not in the pop culture term, either. A literal zeitgeist, a spirit of time. Those are his tools, the means he uses, so if he’s going to try something, it’s going to work in a way related to them. Both concretely and abstractly.”
learn your opponent blake, he Marches to the beat of his own drum
“With implements, the shape it takes is an indicator in how the practitioner works. A wand is very direct, pointing to things, aimed at specifics. A staff is more dramatic, cumbersome. A fan might be more personal, an accessory, directing things inward. Pens are focused on labels and premeditation.”
I like my comparison of Tools from Paranatural better and better
I spoke my thoughts aloud. “A badge. It’s a really nice watch. Maybe there’s more to it? Nuances? It’s old fashioned, which ties into the whole ‘mucking with time’ idea. It’s beautiful, attention getting, a status symbol.”
Blake shut up ur in a story stop analyzing stories that's our job. (okaybut seriously I like stories that do stories as magic and so understanding the magic to its fullest is understanding the story if you haven't noticed)
I mean hell yes, teach us to read you, book! it's telling us what to watch out for, telling us how to use symbolism, I want to spend a year teaching Pact to an english class pretty pretty please
@A bird 🐦 mentioned he had a theory like my Worm Premise theory; I haven't seen all that lends to whatever they have in mind, but I'm seeing tons of it already and I'm really excited. Wildbow's main focus in talking about Pact was how much he learned while writing it, and I think this book is as much a documentation of that process and the journey he took as an author as it is a documentation of What Happened To Blake That One Time.
as someone who identifies strongly as a writer, sacrifices sleep and other obligations to write for hours a day, and is captivated by anything related to the art and form of storytelling, this is a big part of what I'm here for, with any story I'm experiencing. Everything Wildbow writes is a lesson on how to write if you look for it, and if you balance that structure and expression with your own, compare and contrast and see what works for you. And by you I mean me. Reading Pact really inspires me to write- even if it's just a short thousand word blip of an exercise or exploration or expansion- every time I read a chapter
“Influencing crowds, people, and perceptions,” I said. I stood from my seat. “With time at the heart of it, as his primary focus?”
reminds me of the sorting hat chats, where you get placed in a primary hogwarts house for your motivations and a secondary for your methods. I'm a slytherin primary and a ravenclaw/slytherin secondary http://sortinghatchats.tumblr.com/post/121904186113/the-basics
“Small town,” he answered. “Eight’s late enough.” Eight. My eyes searched the crowd. The college girls, the truckers. An entirely different group from before. I’d just lost four or five hours. Laird was nowhere to be seen. He’d stranded me.
oooooooooooo. Clever use of clockblocking, Larid.
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JayManiac 14-Apr-19 08:54 AM
“We can even make the birth painless. An exercise in joy, rather than pain, without blood or sweat or tears,” Ev said. “Something beautiful that could be the centerpiece for a party. Architecture and dances and music, all around one singular event, with a moment of crescendo-” “This rose is male,” Keller said. “Men don’t give birth.”
I've just been enjoying the dialogue here and not really commenting but this is awesome. Practitioners are one thing, but this is anOther. Larid seems so human, so down-to-earth, these guys are Ferulian, Doctor Manhattan, Gods,Titans. They're actually a bit how I imagined the Shards before I was wrong. It's a very different way of approaching the inhuman than Shards are, and very different still from Twig spoilers inhuman intelligent language-capable entities like Helen and Ashton
“Ah,” Patrick said. He glanced between us. “I like this.”
Me too, pat! Me too! Hey...wait a minute...
“You were dealing with Maggie Holt,” I said. “Weren’t you?” “That,” he said, raising a finger. He let his arm drop, “Wasn’t one of the things you saw. I’m positive.”
but...it was tho
“None, for them. I had a minute to read their entries in the little black book, but I was winging it.” “Good winging.”
🐦
“Faerie?” I guessed, eyes straight forward. “Once upon a time, they would have fallen under that label. I think they’ve dallied in the very courts that have exiled them now, as a matter of fact. They even have some of the same tricks. But classifying Others is a dangerous thing. Better to call them what they are.” “Which is?” “Men and women who are desperate to entertain themselves over the course of a very long, long time,” he said. “They get bored as easily as you or me.”
The border between Other and Human is a key interest for me. Larid is a little Other-y but you can't even really see the trajectory to becoming Padriac. it's inhuman, as I said, but is there a core of humanity there?
“No,” I said. I grabbed one of the books from the coffee table. “Anger is good.” “Good?” “It keeps us moving. You read the book on implements, I’ll read up on familiars when I’m done Essentials.”
like you have a problem moving, blake.
Great chapter! And I thought Worm taught me to appreciate stories again. If that's the case, I'm in for a real helluva lesson, if my explosion of Ward appreciation a couple hours ago is any indication. I just love that I get to read this. I love books, guys, and this has the inklings (no pun intended) of being one of my favorites. But I've said enough! and kept going anyways! So it's time for me to bid you good night, I'll probably start another chapter in the morning (but don't quote me on that)
Ilovethis 1
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JayManiac 14-Apr-19 05:27 PM
Of course! I think there's a lot to the storytelling/magic parallel here, and I'm sure I'll write the equivalent of hundreds of essays on it here!
I'm gonna be busy for the rest of the day, so I'm gonna dig into 1.6 now!
I paced. The Demesnes text in hand, I walked from one end of the living room to the other, then walked back.
I talked about Blake mentally pacing last chapter, so it's great that this one starts with physical pacing
Most were normal enough I wouldn’t have looked twice. A handful weren’t. One little boy, separate from the others, kept scratching at his head, face, neck and arms, his fingers coming away black with his own blood, or so it appeared in the gloom.
I'm glad I only read one chapter last night, I needed some sleep
A car passed down the length of the road. I tried to use the headlights to get a better look at the things, but the headlights revealed a mostly empty sidewalk, no Others
This is so effective at capturing the 'horror movie' tone, it's really freaky
I let the curtain drop, then resumed the pacing. I’d read the same page five or six times.
It's possible that Blake doesn't actually progress with his movement, like I suggested before
he's coming back to the thing, but always in the same way, never letting himself absorb what he needs to in order to move to the next point
Like Molly's death. He basically just thought about that, avoided it, thought about it again in the same kind of way, avoided it, and so on without making any progress, which is what he's doing here
“You’re making me nervous,” Rose said, startling me. “You’ve been pacing the entire time I’ve been gone?”
have you met your brother!?
Apparently she had running water, on her side. That was interesting, considering there wasn’t necessarily anything for the pipes to connect to.
I've sorta been assuming that any physicality Rose has is an illusion, a collection of sensations that remain consistent enough to seem real. The difference between that and reality is that I doubt the water bill goes up if Rose leaves the shower on forever. Doesn't mean she isn't real, but it might mean her body isn't
“Why did you order pizza?” she asked. “Because I’m hungry?” I responded.
Blake would die first in a horror movie (and he's in a horror movie)
🍕 1
kidding, btw, this is actually good thinking
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agenderGorgon 14-Apr-19 05:42 PM
Mirror World Utilities Bills.
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JayManiac 14-Apr-19 05:42 PM
The wifi is an illusion, and therefore free
but actually wifi would grant rose the same benefits as blake despite it not being real so it should cost the same amount
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agenderGorgon 14-Apr-19 05:43 PM
My wifi is practically an illusion, and I still have to pay for it.
lol 3
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JayManiac 14-Apr-19 05:44 PM
pfft, I bet Rose doesn't have to call mirror-comcast every other saturday when it goes out as you're trying to read the newest ward chapter
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agenderGorgon 14-Apr-19 05:44 PM
Her Ward chapter stars Victor.
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JayManiac 14-Apr-19 05:46 PM
the internet: is obsessed w/ genderswapping everyone pact: beats it to the punch, because pact is the internet
“It’s hard to keep track of time. My sleep schedule’s all over the place, my eating schedule’s off track, and the days are short. It’s dangerous, and it’s going to fuck me up. Need to get back in the habit of sleeping at night and eating on time.
Blake's been essentially treating this as crisis mode. When I have a huge essay or Youtube thing or something due, it's crisis mode; eating and sleeping aren't important, I can get them whenever as long as I finish what I'm supposed to. Same with life or death situations. But this isn't a crisis; a crisis is such because it's fleeting, this is a new permanence, and I'm glad Blake realizes this
I mean, he's probably had to adjust to what would normally be a crisis becoming his new normal before
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agenderGorgon 14-Apr-19 05:47 PM
Oh god.
Is "Pact is the Internet" going to be the next hit Jay video?
Cos Jay videos are slick and sick.
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JayManiac 14-Apr-19 05:48 PM
😊 💛
Is "Pact is the Internet" going to be the next hit Jay video?
only if it's preceded by two videos to acclimate you and get you used to thinking my ideas aren't insane (possibly unlike my delivery)
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agenderGorgon 14-Apr-19 05:50 PM
The best part of every Twig liveread is I only need to wait two arcs to show off the lonsheep art I commished of my fav character.
With Pact I've gotta wait 14.
Just know I'm like, hovering and waiting eagerly on this one.
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JayManiac 14-Apr-19 05:51 PM
well im almost done with the first one, so there's your pacefine
also that was you!? I looked it up and found sub-rosa, I'd seen that pic on the wiki before!
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agenderGorgon 14-Apr-19 05:53 PM
Yeah, that was me prodding lonsheep.
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JayManiac 14-Apr-19 05:53 PM
an excellent thing to sponsor into existance
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agenderGorgon 14-Apr-19 05:54 PM
I liked her the most, felt she had a solid design and a creepy feel. Her arc's a solid one too, the last proper "Monster of the Week" story before Twig begins to go full Twig" (edited)
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JayManiac 14-Apr-19 05:56 PM
I kind of forgot that I liked the episodic nature in the beginning, before that fades to the background. as the Lambs become accustomed to it, the story skips ahead so they're never in stasis, which I like
it becomes oh like that thing we fought that one time where we were all there and most of us recall and sy kinda remembers
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agenderGorgon 14-Apr-19 05:57 PM
Dunno, it gets weirdly skippy and everyone just sorta disappears into the next arc before the current arc ends
Plus every episodic villain BUT Sub Rosa reappears.
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JayManiac 14-Apr-19 06:00 PM
That struck me as odd too, especially in a Wildbow story. I mean, most 'bow stories play out day-to-conflict-heavy-day for the vast majority of the plot until Worm's timeskip or the current [Ward] three week one
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Wildbow 14-Apr-19 06:00 PM
Sub Rosa reappears
(Twig spoil)
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JayManiac 14-Apr-19 06:02 PM
(okay boota imma go back to reading now but feel free to continue in #twig_spoilers if you want!)
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agenderGorgon 14-Apr-19 06:02 PM
Soz.
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JayManiac 14-Apr-19 06:02 PM
you're fine, I just get distracted easily!
“My body’s always the same. Stable, steady, there, but not doing anything except… I dunno. Maintaining appearances?” “But you get nervous.” “My brain gets nervous,” she said.
interesting that the water keeps up appearances better than her body does
“Yeah, deceptively simple,” I agreed. “You stake out the area, the magical equivalent of drawing out your borders and planting a flag, you say a few words, and you invite anyone, everyone and everything that objects to come and challenge you.
No Vending Machine Magic! It's so much more clever and interesting! I love this!
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agenderGorgon 14-Apr-19 06:04 PM
One day peeps will have a nickname for the new username.
What's a Vending Machine Magic?
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JayManiac 14-Apr-19 06:06 PM
in my last chapter liveread, I explained how a lot of magic (Kingkiller, Mistborn, Eragon, Stormlight, etc.) is a cost-system, but one where you put in the cost and it returns the magical effect automatically
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agenderGorgon 14-Apr-19 06:06 PM
Ah.
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JayManiac 14-Apr-19 06:06 PM
Here, even the smallest magical acts are Pactified, which is to say pactified
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agenderGorgon 14-Apr-19 06:07 PM
I just sorta show up to these.
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JayManiac 14-Apr-19 06:08 PM
That's fine, I should clarify a little more. I like the idea that we're always at a merchant's cart with this magic system, and never at a vending machine. There's a thing operating the other end and the variability is more than 'is the metal arm gonna get my drink stuck between the rack and the door again'
“Or it necessitates a compromise. We pick one front, we make it easy, like you suggested, go with the bare minimum. Do one thing badly, use the leverage we gain to do the next thing in a mediocre way, and then use the two things to do really well with the last ritual.”
I've made the comparison between Blake's life changing decisions that he has to make at a really young age (tool, familiar, etc) and my life changing decisions I have to make at now, and that's holding up so far
you can't focus on everything, and there's an opportunity cost to choosing to go to Oberlin over Kenyon for college, for renting an apartment before you get a job, for whatever you do
They have backup, I imagine,” I said. “A mom and dad who are willing to sit in on a meeting with a familiar and vouch for them, or maybe even have a familiar arranged from early on or before the kid is born, things ready-made, a space set aside.” “Magical trust fund kids,” Rose said.
See, whereas in other books you have the Soos who knows the trick to the vending machine, here there's no trick, if some people get better results it's cuz their dad was like "ay Oscar you know me! I'm a regular, my kid's the best you hear me?"
favoratism magic requires more individualized, nuanced approaches
“As his demesne? The book talks about it in the context of rooms, of houses at the most.”
just as with implements/ familiars the first example we get is the odd 1 out of the bunch, the exception to the general rule. It's a clever piece of storytelling and worldbuilding that I'm totally stealing I can learn a lot from analyzing
(edited)
Rose didn’t reply. When I glanced her way, she was nodding, a serious look joining the general exhaustion on her face.
Rose doesn't sleep, she doesn't need food, she isn't incurring 7 years of bad luck very regularly, what's making her tired?
She said, “He doesn’t have a family. He had nothing given to him in advance, as far as we know. But he managed something.”
he also has horrible fucking wounds
“I can’t. I need you to rotate the mirror in the study. Damn it, listen, there are things we can learn to do that don’t rely on familiar, implement or demesne. Like Laird’s shamanism.” “Okay,” I said. “I’m very on board with that.”
but even that might require some clout with the spirit worlds, Larid's a horse they can bet on
Can we compromise? Maybe focus on getting this wizardry crap down, and we’ll look at the witch huntery stuff later, as the side project it is?”
don't start multiclassing your first campaign, just read the player's handbook and give it a preliminary go
This time, seeing the vehicle approach, I could see how the Others moved out of the way of the headlights. Stepping literally into shadows, or stepping to a position where they were out of sight.
I knew monsters just hid behind lampposts when we were looking!
A moment later, so fast I couldn’t see it, the boy slammed the delivery guy’s hand down on the railing. The man screamed, dropping the pizza, hand impaled on the spiked railing that ran along the top of the short wall.
aaaaaaaaaaa!?! SWEET SEETHING SCION I THOUGHT THE PIZZA GUY WAS IN ON IT WHAT THE FUUCK
“Blake!” Rose’s voice, from the living room. “You have to help him!” I took a step forward, then stopped as the faceless woman continued her work. Her fingers wriggled and crawled across the man’s scalp, just beneath his skin, burying his hair, reaching down to cover his ears. Trapping him in his own skin, so his own flesh was a hood over his face.
don't follow the sounds of crying children blake it's a trap holy shit this is terrifying and awful but there's really nothing blake can do aaaaaAaA
“Blake, salt is a purifying material, cleansing. It can work against certain Others,” Rose said. “There’s a ton in the study, if you can’t find any in the kitchen. Go and throw it at them!” I didn’t move. “Blake! Please!” She sounded desperate, now.
the guy who can't stop moving just got deer-in-the-headlighted
I saw the delivery guy lurch, tearing free in a mess of blood and ripped skin. His dislocated jaw hung down his teeth a bloody ruin. He laughed, and it wasn’t a human sound.
so he was in on it? I mean, it isn't really clear one way or the other, but I'm gonna let myself believe it too
“They wanted me outside,” I said. “The house is a sanctuary, the property isn’t. Staying behind the railing like they were, it was meant to mislead us. I might have fallen for it, if Laird hadn’t come all the way to the front door.” “They’re clever.”
Ilovethis The book made a promise that its opponents won't be pushovers, and it delivers on that, as I knew it would
“No. But we have each other,” I said. “You had my back last night, with Padraic. I might not have made it home in one piece without that. Thank you, by the way, if I haven’t already said.”
I hope this means Blake is beginning to believe in my Jayscal's wager (that if rose is evil he's screwed and if rose is good but he doesn't trust her he's so very screwed so he should trust her and not lose his sanity)
It’s just pizza, I told myself. “Fuck,” I said, as my annoyance bubbled to the surface.
your problems aren't cackling inhuman monstrosities, they're your neighbors, people with their own interests
“Being a decent person and hating our guts isn’t mutually exclusive,” Rose said. “Fuck,” I said again, still annoyed.
^
“Blake. You know that moment in the horror movies, where you’re screaming at the actors? ‘Don’t go up the stairs’, ‘don’t touch the glowing skull’? Don’t read the book.” I frowned
like, don't...but...I wanna know
It didn’t take long for my eyes to see it. A pair of shears, no doubt fallen from the table, impaled a line in the innermost circle of the diagram on the floor. Nothing stood within.
Oh Molly, oh no.
Alright, that's it for that chapter, I'm terrified of whatever this thing is, I'm excited for the awakening, and book do smart thing lots language!
Ilovethis 3
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JayManiac 17-Apr-19 03:09 AM
Do you think I have time for a chapter before Wgw starts recording?
Alright I stared at the title of the chapter until I talked myself into it let's gooooo!! Bonds 1.7!
Damn it.
If I sold a part of myself to demons every time blake started a chapter like this, how many apologies would I be left with
“You don’t go running off to check if you haven’t read about it in depth. There’s material on this guy.” Her voice was rising as she talked.
I like that we're drawing out this comparison between them. It might not even be because of any inherent nature that they've fallen into these roles
It's just that her primary role in helping blake is information-based, since she's incorporeal, and when he makes decisions without the information she could feel like he's disregarding/ignoring her when she's trying to be useful in pretty much the one way she can; I hesitate to say the same dynamic would occur if their roles were switched, but it might
“What Laird said… I had the impression this thing might have killed Molly, and that Laird was misleading us when he said he knew what killed her. By saying that, he leads us to think the threat is from out there, and that way we have our backs turned when the threat from within comes after us.”
seems like a laird thing to do yeah. Blake is a little reckless and can't sit still, sure, but he doesn't run on instincts either (as shown during his first interaction with Joel)
“It doesn’t,” I said. “Which puts me in the funny spot of feeling more sure that it’s in that room, than I was before.”
But things do feel off to him
he didn't survive on the streets by instinct, he keeps a good head on his shoulders, but that's not to say he didn't develop any
This is the sort of thing we need to read before you go to places like that.” “Rose,” I said. So much for that bit on emotional and mental footing. “I don’t want to let this opportunity go by, because it needs saying. First you go off with Laird, and I have to pull your ass out of the fire, and now you go-” “Rose!” I said, louder.
Im more scared of this argument than I was the first time. I'm also a little more with Rose here (although that's probably just personal bias), because she Saved Your Ass with the Power Of Reading, and maybe she deserves a say. Like I said, maybe developing a bitta Byron Syndrome, feeling disproportionally empathetic to the twin that's locked away, but she's got a bit of a point
“We can’t do this,” I said. “You second guessing me at every turn. This arguing. I’ve been through some shit-”
Well, if you want to work without clarifying and second guessing constantly, you need to have a consistent system that you both agree to so that you can make decisions quickly.
“Before,” I said. “Before any of this. I’m talking about when I was seventeen and newly homeless and picking the wrong spot to settle down for the night, only to find out that a local gang thinks you’re staking out their stash or drop point or something, and you get beat down by a group of six or seven people? Or having a group of teenagers with BB guns come after you because they want a live target and you’re pretty much subhuman to them? The pellets don’t go very far beneath the skin, but one of them hit something, because my arm bruised purple from the bicep to my hand.”
That said, sweet scion
he's been through some shit, I'll give it to 'im
I can understand Blake's feeling that Rose doesn't know what life or death really means yet, that she's used to having time and energy to think things out beforehand, that she comes from a position of privilege that she doesn't understand yet. I get that blake gets that rose doesn't get it.
But
She's *stuck in a god damn mirror*
The only way she can help, the only way her spending nights reading all those books is gonna contribute to the continued survival of both of them is if she's fucking listened to
I made it this far with my instincts. I can’t and won’t abandon them.” “I’m going to be a bit of a bitch here,” Rose said. “I don’t think your instincts are that good.”
Okay, I'll cave, I was wrong. But I think he's at least a little wrong here too. he's not an idiot, and his mind has served him a bit better than his instincts so far. That said, you don't just go from hearing about your mirror-bro's traumatic teenage years and then go straight into being a bitch Rose
“We don’t have time,” she said. “At this rate, you’re going to make a mistake, and we can’t afford mistakes.” “Then help. Continue helping, please. We’re the same, the only difference being that I walked a different path.”
You really do gotta let her if you want her to help, blake.
“I’m going to ask it anyways,” I said. “That you trust me, and that you trust yourself. I’ll talk to you about this stuff more, but I need it to be a talk. Don’t second guess everything I do, or it’s just going to become noise, and the doubts are going to fuck me up as much as anything. I need cooperation, collaboration.”
maybe she wouldn't second guess everything you do if you did a couple non-stupid things in the middle there
In the end, this author used an Ut Vires approach pointing to Contrarium methodology. An abstract entity bound in a rule-defining diagram of geometric lines and Byzantine notation.
This is really cool, I like that this is a magic system unafraid to treat more abstract things as metaphysical reality. Like...Patterns, for instance (Stormlight Archive reference)
a pile of festering boar carcasses, six feet high, each carved with his name when well into their state of decay, the decay timed using refrigeration to be roughly parallel; seven jars of burning hair, resupplied keep the flames perpetually alight;
I'm sure there are logical and practical reasons to use...uh...all this
but SERIOUSLY WHAT THE FUCK
For more on the reasoning behind this methodology, please see my other work, Dark Contracts, chapter four.
I'm not sure if I'd want to read the reasoning or not
maybe im better off in blissful ignorance
The child was unharmed and largely unaware of what occurred.
No children were harmed in the making of this Demon Circle Place Thing
“Option at hand,” I said, as I turned the page to get a look at what came next, “I guess Uncle Charles or Aunt Irene get offhand mentions in the books.”
the fact that it's probably her baby either makes this a little better or a little lot worse but certainly makes this author a bit of a coldhearted er...hellhound
Barbers were once surgeons, in addition to their other roles. The red on a barber’s pole is a reference to bloodletting.
"What'll it be today Jay-man?" "Couple inches trim, shave, fade on the left side...Oh! And a liver transplant- don't worry, brought my own liver! Both of 'em if you know what I mean!"
Barbatorem is both, a warrior of sorts, acting with surgical precision on whatever target he is directed at.
I unleash my demon upon ur kidneys motherfuckers
This author and three acquaintances have summoned and used him without issue.
But what did they rate him on "Y- Yelp they're dragging me down I don't want to g-"? Did they like their haircuts? Did he take too much off the top? Decapitate you because you should've specified?
The unawakened tend to note a stench of rot, blood or burning hair, or a crude but exceptionally sharp and sturdy cutting instrument found in the aftermath of a grisly event, invariably lost a day or two later.
Barbatorem irl when he's summoned and can't find his shit
Physically, he rends his victims, and the surgeon aspect becomes evident in how he inflicts the maximum damage possible without ever killing them,
Guys I think (ward spoiler) Darlene fucking murdered Barbatorem
his victims typically die by other means like starvation or dehydration, unable to move under their own power or communicate a request for aid, due to a lack of limbs, missing tongue and teeth or...
Yo i be makin jokes but uhhhhhhhhh......I'm happy if we never ever ever meet barbs thanks
It is believed that he can sever his target’s ability to access any higher plane, forever and irrevocably denying them whatever good things might await them after death, and he can remove any ability a practitioner has. He can pass into a demesne without needing permission, though he cannot enter an ordinary home owned by a non-practitioner (see Classifying Others, chapter four). He can evade barriers and typical practitioner’s defenses. This in mind, he obviously serves as a suitable weapon if directed at a practitioner.
He sounds like the Sting of Pact so far if this is what a "suitable" weapon can do what the fuck can a good one do!?!
Previous forms include: a bipedal sheep, largely bald but for sparse patches; a bloated man disfigured to a monstrous point by lash-wounds; a pair of children hand-in-hand; and a legless man on a horse.
yo he's terrifying in a lot of these forms here but also just a sheep
a sheep furry...but not furry cuz bald
actually that's a bit terrifying
Death, mutilation and a lack of hair figure into each form in one way or another
Yo. You can kill me, mutilate me what have you. But if you touch a god damn hair in my head I'm selling my soul to someone who tracks you down and smothers you in their beard
He will offer to extend a practitioner’s natural lifespan by half-again or by twenty-five years, whichever is less, at the cost of the practitioner forever smelling blood, rot, and/or burning hair. He can offer to ensure that one’s blades never dull, in exchange for enough of the practitioner’s flayed skin to fill two cupped hands.
I feel like I'm gonna be making a lot of 'will you press the button' references
in fact im just gonna enter all these in will you press the button
the answer is fucking no
“He has to be in the circle, still,” I said. “Or I wouldn’t still be here. Apparently we can’t sense him until we’re awakened, which might explain why I couldn’t see him. This guy’s spooky.”
thank fucking fuck
but like also if tools were used in molly's murder.....🤷
“Not like that. Like in Essentials, malignant Others are going to react to purifying substances and patterns, like salt and running water. Fresh wood against dead things.” “Iron against things that are born from nature,” I said.
My english teacher and I were talking about this, but where did 'iron dispells demons' start? She was wondering because we came across it in NOTW and I was like "yeah that's totally a thing" but we couldn't really figure it out
“Suleiman. Sorcerer king. He was the first practitioner who really worked for the betterment of mankind and actually made headway. He established rules and contracts, and he systematically worked to challenge the biggest, baddest Others out there that he could, then used them to help get others. It brought about an age where humans could stop being the playthings of Others and start developing as a civilization.”
I'm really interested in this whole world. How does one start associating with Others, without Others on your side?
I mean I assume it's those people in stories who outsmart gods and demons and stuff, get them to agree and then trick the tricksters
I love those kindsa myths anyhow
And then a third, bounding the others. Seven circles.
seven is heaven, three is the magic number, and tree is the magic lumber, amen.
“Holly and holly berries,” Rose said, at the same time I said, “raw iron.” We exchanged glances. I stood up and checked my book. “Why?” Rose asked. “Mine says holly.”
Does the text of the book change for each person!??! That's the only reason I can think of that this would be a thing, I assumed mirrorverse copied perfectly
Her iron ore nuggets were tied the same way my holly was.
Did Molly have a mirror?!? Is Rose not the only one here?
What the fuuuuuuuuck
could hear the faint sounds as she dropped individual berries in her bowl. My nuggets made a clatter.
👂
A dagger. An hourglass. A dreamcatcher. A small silver skull. A coin.
this is the kinda stuff I tried to summon satan with too when I was ten.
don't ask. But also ten year old me would've whooped lucifer's ass
I felt the weight of them in my hand. They weren’t my motorcycle keys, which would have been my first choice, but… they sort of fit. Keys opened doors. There was a freedom. They represented ownership, protecting things, and the fact that my friend’s keys were on there…
Also in this case: responsibility, freedom, distance from your family. I like his choice here too
Clothes off. “One at a time, or both of us at once?” Rose asked. I didn’t know. But when I opened my mouth to say so, I felt myself leaning one way, and pushed myself the rest of the way. “Both.”
figuring out whether Rose and Blake seeing each other naked is weird or not is already a more worthwhile pursuit than I gave it credit for, Ruben and Elliot!
(edited)
Our voices faltered some as we stumbled here and there. For the first four or five lines, one of us would reach the end before the other, pausing a fraction to let the other catch up.
I love this for what it represents about their relationship, about the step they're taking here
The dagger slid into place. There were no words in the book to recite. I could have sworn they’d been there before. The silence rang, heavy. “War,” I said, if only to keep the momentum going. I could hear Rose behind me, taking my cue. “War.” The circle moved, giving me a sense of relief, and a view of the hourglass. “Time,” I said, in unison with Rose. Something we didn’t have enough of, something dangerous, foremost in our thoughts, with its association to Laird. The dreamcatcher, a hoop with a network of threads within. “Dream,” I said. But Rose was speaking at the same time, and she said, “Fate.” The circle moved. The little silver skull. Deceptively small, no doubt valuable. It glittered in the light. “Doom,” I said. “Death,” Rose said. The coin, an old one, from an era before coins had been pressed with exact images. “Fortune,” I said. “Ruin,” Rose said. The lifeless rose. “Family,” I said. “Myself,” Rose said. Then the personal token.
They're building their own magic systems!!! And they have to figure out everyone else's magic systems, and deal with the fact that their magic systems don't line up, and aaaaaaaaaaa this is so coool
“To everyone and everything that’s listening,” I said. I heard Rose start speaking behind me, but my words drowned hers out. “To me, and to nobody in particular, I’ve gotta say, I didn’t choose this. I’m doing this for family, to respect them as they were in the past, when my cousins were also my friends, so the others don’t face what Molly did. I’m doing it to respect stuff in the present, because even if I dislike my cousins, I don’t want them to have to face this situation and get killed off. I’m doing this for the family that comes in the future, so my kids and all our descendants don’t have this debt hanging over our heads. Above all, I think I’m doing this for my real family. For the friends I made who gave me support when I needed it most, so I can demonstrate what they taught me. Past, present, future, and… more abstract.”
"Attention, demon motherfuckers! I am here, I have no fear, Fuck you!"
and of course, I love this! It's just a succinct little run down of all of these things that we already knew were blake's motivations and values
I thought for a second, and then I said, “And I’m doing it for me and Rose. Because I won’t be trapped like this, and she shouldn’t be either.”
not sure if it's just cuz I wish I had a genderswapped mirror-twin, but I'm really glad to see them acknowledge that they care about each other
The lines were larger, more meaningful, and I could see further. I could see the circles attached to each line, like planets in orbit around things I couldn’t make out. A system all around me, that I was now a part of. I felt like Rose must feel all the time. Being there, but not quite alive. My body was only there because my sense of self required it. I opened my eyes, and I came back into my body.
You're a man looking at the world through a keyhole.
I could see birds, flapping their wings, against my skin. They moved, and the branches they were on bobbed lightly. The watercolor background shifted.
I luv my birdboi, he's the second best birdboi ever (sorry, but you can't beat the codename chicken little)
Practitioners fell into categories, depending on their focus. Some carried on this route, learning ways to influence the world that were naturally in tune with their bodies and will. Some practitioners manipulated spirits, getting them to obey or infusing them into objects. There were some who dealt with Others. Many cultures, a long, long history of arts being invented and refined, it made for a wealth of possibilities.
Yeah! You could be a sorcerer, wizard, bard, cleric, warlock
Her voice sounded like it was on the brink of breaking with emotion. “Good night if I don’t run into you before you go to bed. I’m going to take a bit to myself.”
Aw man I'd be pissed too...don't worry, you probably wouldn't've been that useful anywa- I mean, shit, no that's not what I meant
He was crawling out of the shears. Out of the reflective surface, and into the middle of the circle. A brown-skinned man, his pale hair scraggly and long, inconsistent here and there, more baldness than hair. He was old, wizened, with a potbelly, and spots all over his skin.
aaaaaaa no we just read all about how fucking scary this guy is NOOOO
Okay well that, was disturbing but I got a podcast to listen to! Loved the chapter, love awakening in general, excited to explore what it means!
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JayManiac 18-Apr-19 09:20 PM
Alright, gonna do our first Pact interlude since I've been dying to get back to this book.
Bonds 1.x I guess? I dunno, parahumans has interludes which are pretty standard, twig has enemy/lamb which is a little less so, but still structured and cool
Pact has...
OH SHIT
I remember seeing this as I looked through the table of contents ages ago
So much of this book is about books with weird names and information im dying to know and knowledge as power that I should've seen this coming
Dear Diary I am supposed to start with dear diary but daddy is very strict about what I say and how. Daddy said writing this diary would teach me to write better and that is very important but I have to write that at the top of every new part.
This is really efficient at giving us a relative age (or maturity level at least) for this speaker, meaning they (probably she cuz im assuming this is a former custodian) are a child and I already care about them
Daddy said he would never read my diary but if I did not write that part at the top for every new part then he would whup me. I asked how he would know if he never read it and he said he would just know. I believe him.
Maybe ye times of olde had different practices
Maybe he's had a rough go of it
maybe every fuckin thorburn since the beginning of time has been an abusive dickwad and passed the family tradition onto their kids
WOw yeah screw this 'dad' guy
t was when I was playing with Pearl even though I was ixplicitly told I mustnt.
wonder if this is just a typo that was never fixed or another way of hinting at time period?
or just 'this person is yung and does not nou hau tooo spel
They started hitting me over and over and kept knocking me down and would not let me leave.
maybe that's why you were told not to play with her. Still, fuck pearl
I should explain what happened the other time because you are my diary and you do not know anything except what I wrote here.
also thanks kid. As a diary, I appreciate it
WITH THIS BLOOD SHED I PAY YOU FURFUR. EXACT MY REVENGE.
is furfur roomies with Barb?
also is she being bullied for being from the witch family?
I love how...bad the writing is here
like, it misspells certain words but it does it pretty consistantly, grammar and phrasing can be simple at best and wrong at worst, it doesn't use the right 'its', it's very humanizing and child-izing and character-izing and makes you feel such acute rage and sympathy for her awful, awful life
He looked scary because he had that mean and angry look he has sometimes when he whups me and he was wearing the clothes from yesterday and he hadn’t shaved his face.
Okay I know I said fuck pearl and all but like holdup kids can be assholes and not all of them deserve horribly painful death via ghost Barber pls
He looked and sounded danjerous and so did she but in a diferent way.
hhhhhh this kid is so tragic and I just want her to be safe and not grow up to be an asshole...which is to say, a Thorburn
he pulled out all this blond hair tied into a knot in the middle and he put it over his knee.
Uhhh daddy thorburn here doesn't look like he has much sympathy but he might just have Sympathy and that would be worse
Even though Pearl and her family hit me with sticks I felt really bad because Pearl always loved her long hair. Even when braided it was long enough to touch her bottom.
I hope I can just say 'fuck you
in peace
and just hope that her hair is all that she paid for her shittiness
It was only after that was over that daddy whupped me. It was almost as bad as being hit with the sticks because I was already sore. I peed pink after. The peeing hurt and I would stamp and drum my feet on the stepstool in front of the loo to distract myself until daddy belowed for me to stop.
I have decided to name this guy julian for some reason...or like, martin, or something. ANyways, I have very rarely ever felt this much contempt for someone in a wildbow story before
I literally would rather have a friendly cup of tea with (ward)Cradle and fucking Paris than spend twenty minutes with this asshole
He asked me why I needed to listen and I said if I was disobedient and did not listen then everyone would hurt me. He said that was close enough.
Beating your kid teaches them lessons alright, lessons like 'if someone isn't listening you can hurt and threaten them enough so that they will' and 'everyone is out to get you so responding with pure self preservation is always justified'
I did not think it made sense that someone my age could plan a trick like that and plan ahead to have people waiting in the shed like Pearl did.
Kids are dicks, and little miss thorburn here is so innocent and confused and it's taking an emotional toll on me
Me: kids are dicks, they're the worst Anyone: look a kid Me: Protect them at all costs, they are precious and have done nothing wrong, I love them forever
also you can replace kids with cats in all those sentences and it works
In daylight I cannot cry or show weakness. He held me and he stroked my hair until I started to fall asleep and I felt safer. I cryed myself to sleep and I felt better.
aww that's nice.....for a Fucin Asshole that is
Daddy had me pick a special object to me and sit naked in a circle while I read from a book.
I was still trying to figure out what reality was when I was at this-ish age
scary movies, or just regular movies with one or two scary things in them, would conjure demons in my closet and basilisks around every corner. Why would you awaken someone like this!?!
I am not allowed to make friends if they belong to certain families and I am not allowed to make friends if they are already friends with someone from one of those families
Well, they probably were told not to make friends with you either, if the Thorburn Family Reputation is a constant
But there are things that aren’t my age or my daddy’s age or even the age of the house that want to be my friend now. Tricky things and scary things and things that offer me gifts like Pearl offered me the toy before she took me to the shed
see this is why that was a bad idea
if blake being awakened and having to make Adult Decisions is a metaphor for choosing things like college, making decisions about money, etc. Then little miss Thorburn could make those kinds of choices as a 4-7 year old!?
Rose Thorburn
drat. YOU MADE ME LIKE AND SYMPATHIZE WITH HER WHAT THE FUuuuuuuUUUUCk
okay that's all I have time for for now, I'll finish the chapter later today
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JayManiac 19-Apr-19 02:17 AM
I usually love all the hateable characters right out of the gate so this happens somewhat less frequently for me, but as soon as I saw the name it all clicked and I realized what had happened
Alright, it's time for me to start....continuing the chapter I had to pause in the middle of!
March 9th, 1932
my exhaustively close read of the chapter somehow failed to notice that we get dates
just scrolled back up to check and this is a little over a year later
Arsepint lives up to his name. The dirty rotten bastard.
hahahahahahahahaha if I never get a single detail on the sleeper but we get to meet arsepaint I may die at peace
I asked him how to win a victory and he took me to the library and helped me pick out books.
Every father should spend some quality time with their child, teach them all you abusivepieceofshit wisdom, like riding bikes, fingerpainting, outsmarting goblins, chess
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JayManiac 19-Apr-19 02:37 AM
also I love the evolution of language; one of the things I've always appreciated about Wildbow's work --ever since his books inspired me to spend every spare second writing in the first place-- is how he turns a chapter or interlude or portion of a chapter into a challenging exercise for himself. His objective is, of course, to tell us a good story; it's also to challenge himself, and I think the diversity of writing that that creates does make his stories more enjoyable. 9/10 of my favorite moments in his stories are the ones where he's clearly pushing himself, whether it's to write characters with neuroses he doesn't experience himself, characters in social minorities, (twig) Primordials, a character created by Sylvester's psyche with only a tenuous tie to a potential real person, a morally articulate plant-boi, Helen (ward) the main character but evil, a morally good sociopath, difficult-to-classify characters like chris, the fucking SHARDS, etc. or a steadily evolving writing technique and character voice that has to remain consistent but different by a very specific amount, it's simply incredible
Yo, so now that I've written another of Jay's Appreciation Appraisals, imma read
I asked and daddy said that being good at books is not always about reading a lot but its sometimes about knowing where to start looking.
such wisdom, this is a very thoughtful fucking douche
June 18th, 1932
Less of a timeskip this time, just a couple months. Wonder if I can notice writing style changes
He gave me a pat on the head and told me to go read some more, so I would know good ways to use Arsepint.
I'm beginning to see how Rose turned out the way she did: cold, calculating, ruthless, manipulative...makes me worried for Blake, even if he's got more of a sense of self and values than Rose did when she was gettin into all this shit
September 15th, 1939
Who says Wildbow doesn't timeskip?
okay, so seven years later
I guessed Rose was around 4-7yo in 1931, im leaning more towards the 7 side though, which would make her 14 here. We'll call it a 12-15 range
Dear Diary, I am in a bind. I am so sorry I ignored you these past two weeks, dear diary, but much has been going on.
she's certainly evolved her writing style here
They put me in a private school so I could learn more useful languages. It is a very religious school.
huh. I guess when she suggested making a deal with anOther to learn a language quickly she was speaking from experience-- she knows exactly how much work it is.
There’s something witty I’m supposed to say about that but I’m too upset.
when this liveread inevitably gets to a part in the book that just fuckin devestates me
I would explore the school and meet the goblins and ghosts in the darkest corners, but they watch us like hawks watch mice.
rudimentary but accurate similes!!
it's rare that wbow actually writes as a character rather than as a character, but he always fuckin nails it
im thinking PHO chapters, this....Lord of Loss
I’ve been so on guard against trickster spirits and goblins, I’ve forgotten to keep my guard up around other humans.
she dealt so much with Others that she forgot to not be an asshole
I thought I had it settled when I threatened and spelled the girls who took and handed over the book, ensured that nobody knew it was them or me.
she dealt so....
I need the book back, but I have only a few tricks at my disposal, and no creatures of any worth that I might bargain with. Ancient ghosts with little power left, and lesser spirits.
I do wonder what happens after you die, and what the ghostmakin rules be. I mean it's typically spun as unfinished business, but that's also a bit cliche so im sure there'd be some Pactlike catch to it
Some religious grounds are benign but others are dangerous.
guess it would depend on whether your religion is right or not
also I wonder if like, Dionysus is a real Other, or at least if there was an Other worshiped as Dionysus, for example.
were zeus and thor the same dude? what about Fairies and Ifrit, or Prometheus and Jack o Lantern. I don't read much urban fantasy-- most of what I read takes place in a completely separate world
but I like thinking about it!
The faculty keeps saying they want goodness and success to come out of this dark time, and they will see the subject of this book as a dark thing.
history is a dick to devil-consortors
just found out that the new teacher my school hired is named Jonathan Faust and I thought it would be appropriate to share that here
I wonder if being hated may well be better than being a nobody.
thanks for making that unilateral decision for all your grandkids
Oh shit five days later
With a measure of help, I slipped into a cat’s body to spy on the new owners of the book. With learned tricks, I joined the shadows in slipping beneath the door.
I wonder just how capable practitioners can become, and how fast
They were doing things that proper boys and girls shouldn’t do until marriage. Herb with one of Minnie’s friends and Minnie with one of Herb’s friends, and another two friends pairing up nearby.
how old are these kids!?
My father has an eye for justice, or an eye for a lack of it.
clearly
now I have a greater merchant spirit turned mortal turned god breathing down my neck.
what the fuck are Lords and why are they the coolest things ever?!
I have to confront the mundane humans, and I must do it while feeling as if they are somehow more distorted and unfamiliar than many of the beings I read about in my books.
An this is how it be, she's just got a different morality system than the rest of us really
she just seems like a "rancid cunt" to us uninitiated
five days again
I tried, but I couldn’t secure the book before they had a chance to use it. They called a goblin to them, and the ritual gave it power to attack. Minnie suffered the brunt of it, and the rest of us were caught.
How easy is it to do this shit?
also: I confess I might have summoned a demon for funsies at 14
like hypothetically
I told him the truth. That I was given the responsibility too soon. Other families don’t let children have powers. I’m sixteen, but I’ve had powers for almost half of my life.
Yo, that's a good call. Maybe less curious kids would suffer fates worse than death then
And then I swore. I swore I wouldn’t ever make my children go through this. I would let them lead lives untouched by all of this.
I guess that's...actually sort of a mercy? But you didn't say shit about your grandkids, so did you really solve anything?
I look at him now, lying still beside me, and I think maybe Aimon was just as scared and frustrated as I was. A different kind of fear and frustration, but it was there.
I only wish you spent your time reading wildbow books instead of books about summoning demons
With a gun to his head, he refused to say uncle. To relent in the simplest, smallest way. I think that was when I realized we were the same. There was only us.
Oh?
He kissed me, and I kissed him back. Things went to natural places from there.
You don't just fuck people you almost killed three seconds ago Rose! That said, ♠
When I’m writing, dear Diary, I sometimes like to think that you’re communicating with me, when my thoughts clarify and I can jump to new ideas.
hey, me too!
Wow, that was one hell of a chapter. Two or three hells, probably. I don't know when I'll read more, but until then!
👋 3
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JayManiac 19-Apr-19 05:19 PM
Awww guys!!!💛 💛 bulba 💛
I think I'm just about to start....arc 2/16. Sweet Scion, it's been a week. When I was a week into Worm I think I was almost at leviathan...?
I guess I'm just reading better! Or y'know, pausing to type out everything I'm thinking or something
Damages 2.1
Interesting. Wildbow arc names are usually all-encompassing in meaning, so I'll be watching out for that this time
The pen scribbled across the paper.
yup! a to do list is always a productive way to get your life in order. Step 1: make the to do list
Different Others had different drawbacks and weaknesses. Ideally I’d be able to pick up an assortment of weapons in a variety of materials. The problem was, I wasn’t sure where I could get those things.
Can you ever really be prepared for Others? Don'tcha wish they were like humans/KKCFae and all had an aversion to sharp objects/ iron respectively
That raised several more questions. I needed a better way to get information. Internet. I needed a way to buy supplies, if my cash reserve ran out. Money.
if pact was written in 2019: Ancient Magical Entities vs Amazon Drone
I hesitated, then added other points. Joel’s car and keys, which I had borrowed, needed to be returned, if they weren’t already. Rose needed assistance. I needed allies.
Idk if I should be all like: 'priorities dude u cant put joel's car as a need stay alive or whatever' but I just can't; Blake's dedication to paying his dues/his friends is admirable.
The mirror beside me was empty. My reflection was absent, as was Rose’s.
Okay I was wondering about that; so even when rose is gone he doesn't have a reflection, meaning that it's kinda like Rose Sr. took his reflection and genderbent it and gave her agency. Also now Blake's a vampire cuz he doesn't have a reflection oooooooooooooo.
actually what if Vampires in this book totally have reflections but their reflections just fucked off somewhere else and aren't listening to them anymore? I know you can lose your body, mind, heart, soul, and several more esoteric ones. I've made reference to the metaphysical property of your "asshattery" but also maybe you have a Reflection!
Guys what if Rose has to fight a bunch of Vampire reflections untethered to the non-mirror-realm!??!
ahem. Back to reading
But Molly had made a long series of messes in packing up grandmother’s things, leaving the job half done, and her things were still here, untouched. Navigating between furniture and over the boxes and piles of books made me constantly aware of the space around me. When I had some time, I could do some tidying up. For the time being, though, I had too much to do. I settled for a breather.
I somehow doubt many wildbow protagonists have the opportunity to clean their rooms while the story is happening
With my newly acquired second sight, I could make out the spirits that infused everything.
I've been waiting to see how Awakened see things!
One object as simple as a pencil could have a host of spirits inside it, representations of the purposes the object had, its nature, its elemental makeup, ownership, and many, many other qualities.
Luv luv luv this! Reminds me of Spren from Stormlight a little, but obviously more complicated.
YO
I just REALized
Theme of wildbow's stories: symbolism is a thing that people create, not a quality that the universe has
Every time we use symbolism and metaphors in a wildbow story, it's because the character is doing that. (ward) Cradle's Glasses aren't the book's symbols, they're Cradle's. Even powers, with their metaphorical relation to the trigger event, draw upon the characters to create that metaphor. Each metaphysical system is unique, and the creativity that creates it all comes from the characters
which brings us to Pact
A lot of other magic systems would say that "the chemical and elemental makeup of the pencil is the truest part of it, and the part you can exploit with cool magics, Harry!", but not Pact. I said that what DIP called the 'word association game' was the characters creating their own magic system, their own rules for how objects metaphoricaly relate to concepts, and I think the book keeps telling me im right
It's not any one thing, there isn't any one governing system, you derive and see the system that you use depending on the person you are
I'd argue it's one of the fundamental things that make wildbow's work "realistic". His worlds, fantasy-filled as they are, have a system of World for each character, just like the real world does. It's just that in his books, the interactions between those WorldViews are brutal cape fights instead of not-so-friendly arguments
This has been Jay's Appreciation Appraisal, I'll get back to reading shortly
Also who knows which Appreciation Appraisals will turn into fun video essays later!?
Shamans, then, were practitioners who worked more or less exclusively with spirits. They would be able to find and interact with more powerful spirits. Not simply the spirit of one particular stone, but the spirit of all stones for an area.
And Kvothe spoke the Name of the Wind, and then the Wind asked him for one and a half cupped hands of flayed skin
I shut off the sight. The scene I saw without magical aid was an ordinary one, a simple snowfall, with clouds in the proper places.
Yo you can do that!? Cool, I thought you were just Wise to the Whatthefuckian Plane now
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JayManiac 19-Apr-19 05:50 PM
lol bulba agree
Grandmother, it seemed, was more interested in Others than people.
Yeah well you would be too if your only childhood friend was a goblin named Arsepi- wait why am I defending her?
“What do you want, Blake?”
Ohno. I still feel really sorry for Rose. Even grumpy Rose
Also is this a bad time to mention that I'm picturing Blake and Rose a little like the Strider/Lalondes? I'm not conflating their characters or anything, they're definitely different, but I feel like the four of them would get along
“But who are they listening to? Remember how Laird said the spirits of community listen to him because of his role? Out there, they aren’t just listening to you. Their loyalties are divided.”
I bet Blake wishes he had a vending machine
“-a crapshoot,” I said, in the same instant Rose did. I smiled a bit, but Rose didn’t. Her eyes dropped to the ground.
They can still TwinSynch! But that doesn't fix all your problems television
I forget if crapshoot is exactly the word they used to describe rose trying to awaken but close enough :/
Problem was, I didn’t know how to fix this. When in doubt, the strategy was to empathize. As a rule, people wanted their feelings recognized more than they wanted fixes.
See? Blake's got a bit of it figured out; he might just do alright!
“Don’t manipulate me, Blake. Don’t use strategies to deal with me. I was raised the same way you were, up to a point, I know the tricks.”
oooooh
Maybe not then
I do care, Rose. I want to help you. If I’m drawing from what I know to try-” “Blake,” Rose said. “It’s fine. It’s done, you’re in charge, I’m the backup. You want me to keep the criticisms to the most vital points? Fine. You want me to do the research and supplement what you’re doing, fine. You win.”
This is a little-bit-a-lot heartbreaking
“The same page? You got the power, I got… this. How do you have a partnership if things are this unequal? Let’s face it. Look at what happened to Molly. Grandmother is willing to use us as expendable assets. I’m nothing more than a piece in a greater puzzle. I’ll serve my role, and the road ends there. I’m the most expendable one of us.”
There’s something witty I’m supposed to say about that but I’m too upset.
i might regret pulling that one so soon
im gonna regret it, but it's also a renewable resource and I'll pull that quote for as long as it's in the story
The guys who unleash some of the worst stuff out there? The guys who meet the worst ends? They’re in the same category as her. Our grandmother. Over and over, they become monsters. Literally, or generally monstrous people that might use their kids or grandkids as sacrificial pawns to get what they need.”
The worst thing is, i agree. She probably made you as an expendable pawn, the granddaughter she never knew enough to even almost care about. That doesn't mean it's all you are
“There isn’t a book we can read to figure out why I was created,” Rose said. Her eyes were still downcast. “I looked at the earliest diary entries, and the most recent.”
!!!!!! (not the billie eilish song)
Were we reading what Rose was reading?
I'll be watching out for that in another three months when I get to the next interlude
“I’m up for it,” she said. She met my eyes, but that only made it clearer how worn out she was.
I reiterate: what's wearing Rose out? She's a noctis cape, and she hasn't broken any mirrors, so is it just all the work? does she need to take a break?
I could see her expression change. Barely restrained frustration, slowly but surely being covered up, hidden behind a mask. “We’re not. Nevermind. I got carried away. I’ll meet you downstairs in a bit, and then we’ll go?”
Get along, you two! Just because one of you is trapped in a near-void experience while the other is out there making decisions that influence both of you doesn't mean you cna't get along
I did like the look of the ice picks and hatchets. Prices on the picks hit the hundreds, while I could manage a hatchet for as little as forty. Wooden baseball bat, a touch less expensive.
Ready to fight some motherfuckin zombies
Cheap side-mirrors were about four dollars for a pair, round mirrors about six inches across. I checked that I could see Rose inside and grabbed twenty.
if Blake buys 20 side mirrors and has little to no money and three centuries of karmic debt to repay, how much does he have left?
I think she might have actually smiled, when I glimpsed her.
bulba
If I couldn’t get a gun at this point, the bow and arrow set stood out as a tempting alternative. It helped that there were Others who were vulnerable to wood and not metal.
Your name is Blake THORburn, not Blake Hawkeyeburn
Hammerkind is the best kind
agree 1
(But also I support your decision to become Robin Hood)
When I approached the counter to pay, I got stares. It made me wonder if the process of awakening had changed anything about me. Or if they were enemies.
Maybe it's cuz you bought 20 side mirrors Blake
“Your parents said you were homeless. I bet you fucked up, and this is the only place you have to live. Squatting in my sister’s house before her body’s even cold.”
Aren't chance family gatherings just heartwarming?
“She wasn’t your friend,” Aunt Irene said, and her voice had that accusatory hardness that Christoff had picked up. Her eyes narrowed, an expression to match her tone, “Every other second I look at you, I wonder how you’re responsible.” How, not if. “You keep saying you’re sorry, and I believe it a little less each time,” Callan said. “Tell you what. Go. Don’t ever fucking talk about my sister again, just go, and we won’t have a problem.”
Gods, I know you're grieving but also Fuck you? UGH this family is such a fucking mess!
I dropped the basket. “No. But I’ll leave, without buying, without incident. You win, Callan.”
Blake is maybe better at avoiding conflict than I thought? Guess you can't pick every fight on the street
The sound of running footsteps made me stop. The expressions of the cashiers to my right clued me in. I reacted, half-turning, bringing my arm up. The arm wasn’t in position to deflect the worst of the hit, but I was more or less ready as Callan did his damndest to sucker-punch me.
On the other hand
Three of the ribbons stood out from the rest. Too straight, too narrow. They were like spears that had penetrated Callan, Aunt Irene and Christoff and plunged into me. Forced connections between us. Too direct to be natural. Someone had aimed them at me.
Figures. Uncontrived Contrived conflict is my favorite kind of conflict
“Are you getting smart with me?” he asked. I shook my head. “Only stating the truth.”
"guess I should say good morning officer cuz I'm awake now, booyah!
The girl smiled, giving me a look. Confident, brash, if I remembered right from the vision. Her brother kept his eyes straight forward, watching the ground for slick patches and lumps of snow he might stumble on. He was burdened down with bags of stuff, while she strutted.
super efficient characterization for these peeps we maybe sorta met in a dream sequence I barely remember the details of
What were enchantresses? Essentials had filled me in on the basics. They would be focused on altering relationships. Influencing people, influencing things. An object could have its owner reassigned, so it might find its way into someone else’s hands, or be tethered to a location, so it would continually end up there.
Can you do that to my earbuds? That's super fuckin cool. And, yknow, terrifying
A middle-aged aboriginal woman sat alone, and nobody sat near her. Mara Angnakak. She straddled the line between practitioner and Other. When Jacob’s Bell was first settled by colonists, she was already here.
Reminds me that I'm still hella curious about that particular relationship. Was Padriac human once or nah!? Can Jafar really wish to become a Genie? What's a Lord and why?!
Grandmother had written out suspicions that she was illiterate; arguing it would explain why her talents seem to be limited to what she could teach herself. Centuries of such teaching and experimentation, but limited nonetheless.
wow yeah that's a big one. I thought you could learn things like language and presumably reading by conscripting spirits to do it?
A girl slouched in a seat. Her familiar wasn’t in its mortal form, but was ethereal, with all of the mass of a grizzly on the front end, and a tail end that looked like that of a fish, the features an incoherent blend of different animals and plants, different features being emphasized as I looked longer.
Pantalaimon is that you?
She had contracted with a familiar too powerful for her to handle, creating something that was less a partnership than a practitioner dominated by the spirit. The bear-thing would be the familiar, the stick her implement.
Don't you hate it when you're suddenly a slave to your cool magic pet? Also: I am a stick.
His dog sat beside him, a breed that could easily look silly, given the chance, but it managed to look noble. It helped that the lights behind the dog seemed somehow brighter, the rest of the room darker by contrast.
In one of my favorite webcomics-- Paranatural-- there's this character who can manipulate light with his cool spirit powers, and he uses it to give himself dramatic lighting at all the right times.
But we couldn’t be wilting flowers, bowing over if someone so much as looked at us the wrong way. I could do that for Callan, but not here.
is that an intentional burn on what Rose labeled 'herself' or....
also the StriLondes comparison allowed me to determine that Blake is a Knight of Breath and Rose is a Page of Light
There was no murmur of conversation as I walked down the aisle. There were hundreds here, but most were Others, and they were all exceptionally good at being quiet.
creepy as hell
But you need to know, that thing so many of you are terrified of? That I might learn enough to summon something problematic? It’s already summoned.”
I'm grabbin the popcorn cuz this is a hell of a show
This was not run by Rose thoroughly enough, methinks
“Some of you have been baiting me, trying to get me to retaliate. I don’t know why, but I imagine there’s something at play. I’m not going to do what they want. I’m going to make you guys a deal. I’ll make three deals. If you approach me and offer a ceasefire, an agreement you won’t attack me or help anyone who might, if you make a good offer, I’ll take the demon off the table for you and yours.”
Oh that's dirty. This is an evil play. And I fuckin love it.
So lots of setup, but it's the kind of setup that just makes me super excited and that I'm just as eager to devour. Feels like we're progressing
And that's the chapter! I took way too long again so I must bid this book a temporary adieu, but I'll still be around to chat around the server n stuff!
Ilovethis 2
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JayManiac 20-Apr-19 05:37 PM
Alright, I've got an hour to read Dangers 2.2, y'all think it's possible? Maybe if I didn't get carried away typing an essay about every third line this wouldn't take me as long
But also of course I won't try to rush too much cuz...im bad at that and it doesn't work
I could see the looks on their faces. The adults had damn good poker masks, but even they were showing that my words had had an effect.
if you told me that the nuke was already in orbit id probably react to it too. Then again, I'm here to react to things
A woman in the Behaim circle reached for her husband’s hand, without taking her eyes off me, as though she thought she were the only one reaching for a measure of security. Except almost everyone had a little clue like that. The kids most of all.
Damn. Kinda feel for all these people who hate Blake's guts
also does he know for sure that Barbatorem is one of the superdangerousnukes? I mean of course he believes it, he's telling the truth, but there's a lot of room for him to misunderstand the information
Somehow, with the how of it to be negotiated when I’d done more research.
You didn't think about this one little bit did you?
Who was most insecure? Who was more secure? The responses they offered and the scale of those responses told me a lot.
it's almost like the whole church is a box of bugs, and if you want to know things about the bugs you shake the box. I'm sure that never ever goes wrong and gets you stung by capsaicin bugs
Idk if that counts as a spoiler but ill wait for someone to get the reference and tell me it is
“Hey, that sort of sounds like a threat,” a girl said. I turned my head to see the witch hunter. She held a gun.
It does, doesn't it? I mean it was kind of 'not my fault im threatening you' but yeah
“No, Eva,” the boy said. “It wasn’t.”
I feel like it was tho
“Someone say the word,” Eva said. “Threatening people, could be out of control. Say the word, tell me he’s too dangerous to leave alive.” “No,” Laird cut in. “Not with the things Rose might have put in place. If there are special measures at work, we can’t act.”
I mean I feel like it wasn't sweet scion don't fucking shoot him
“I have help,” I said. “Help my grandmother left me.”
The ways this could be parsed may not work in Blake's favor
“A vestige,” Laird said. Vestige?
I thought she said she's not just a vestige! Also what the hell's a vestige
“Of Rose?” the North End Sorcerer asked, his eyebrows raised. “Yes,” Padraic spoke out loud, at the same Laird said, “I don’t think so.”
Padriac you couldn't even figure out how impregnations work I don't think that this is your area of expertice
“There is something else out there,” she said. “Back in the house. It’s not cooperating with him at this point in time.” Damn.
yeah well he's not cooperating with it at this point in time either
“That’s not reassuring,” Johannes said. “Just the opposite. A mad dog running rampant is often scarier than a dog on a leash being set on targets.” “It depends on who’s holding the leash, doesn’t it?” I asked.
yo I thought you weren't being threatening! This is fucking threatening
“…I’m making one more offer. An altered version of the deal I just gave you. I’m willing to do what I can to protect you against any of my grandmother’s demons that happen to run rampant, and I’d still give you free reign to come after me. I’ll protect an enemy, if my condition is met. Identify the person responsible for my cousin’s death. This deal, obviously, is off the table if you did it.”
He's not bad at thinking on his feet. Well, he is. He's like pretty bad at it, and he could do with a few more minutes thinking on his ass first, but this is kinda clever and I think it mainly works to his favor
Maybe I was disarming myself, on a level, but I still didn’t want to use the devils. If I could ratchet up the paranoia or turn them against one another, it was worth it.
I don't know what it would take to get me to loose Barbs at someone, yeah. Although I do like my cousins so 🤷
“Well,” he said. “Let’s get this out of the way. Who’s interested in taking the deal?” Wait. What? “Not seeing any raised hands,” Laird said. “It’ll be good if we get this out of the way, before it gets messy.”
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha
Im rooting for Blake here, obviously, but Laird is so entertainingly competent at seeing through his bullshit that I can't help but smile
“Maggie, was it? You perked up when he made the offer.” “I sort of am,” she called out, from beside me.
I like Maggie, I think. it could just be that he's one of the only people close to my/Blake's age here, the fact that I know she's entertaining enough to warrant her own book in a world full of superheroes...
Can't help but wonder if there was a Boil version of Pact with her in the driver's seat before Blake crashed the party with his motorcycle
“There have been cases where small towns disappeared after one got loose. Outsiders were called in, the offending Others were dealt with, and the areas were written off.
see now this doesn't feel like Barbatorem. Sure Barbs was scary as shit but not Chernobyl scary (also im assuming Chernobyl was one of these areas written off)
“I’ve seen something like that happen before,” Maggie said. “But it wasn’t… whatever you’re talking about. Small spot, bit of a disaster, everything cleared out. Now there’s an entire area of town people avoid.” “I believe many of us know what you’re referring to.”
🙋 I don't!
“Let me help you understand. Many of us here have discussed options, with the Thorburn family in mind. We’ve grown up with this danger in mind. I’ve talked about it with my wife,” Laird said. He paused for a second, glancing at his wife. I could see her move, her arm going around her children or relatives. Two boys, two girls.
Laird 👏 is 👏 such 👏 a 👏 good 👏 antagonist 👏
“If it came down to it and Blake Thorburn sent something like that after my family, if I didn’t have measures in place, or if I didn’t feel my measures would hold, then I would use gun, knife, bludgeon, or whatever I had at my disposal to kill my family before that thing could reach them. Because I love my family too much to do otherwise.”
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAaaAAAAAAA. This one does make sense for it being Barbatorem. At least if his family was straightup killed, it could be painless and not dying-of-dehydration-despite-horrible-wounds. Plus he could send their souls to wherever they were supposed to go...jesus Barbs is still terrifying
If Crone Mara, you and the woods girl take the deal, most of us are protected. Blake Thorburn is rendered impotent, or he makes a mistake and removes himself as a threat
Blake is just getting shut down here.
“When the house’s occupants are gone, the woods and marshes there are mine,” she said. “In what sense?” Laird asked. “In every sense. I want it like Johannes has the north end.”
Gladesgirl is great
“My rose has done what she aimed to,” Padraic said. “You’ve offended two of us, Aimon Behaim. Johannes and me both.” “I’m not Aimon, my name is Laird,” Laird said.
see yeah you're not so good at this shit Pads
“Eight hundred and seven years, for your extended family? Paltry,” Padraic said. He made a face, “In terms of the years I’m expected to live, I’m much more important. Yet you dismiss me.”
I marvel at the utter butchering of utilitarianism we've done here
I clenched my hands in my lap. Had I set Laird back, here? A small success?
I love how this is the best he can hope for in this moment
The remainder would sell us out to Toronto’s Lord or try to sell us out to Ottawa and inform us. For the time being, we’re the only individuals in play, here.”
Putting a pin in this for future reference when I forget
📌 2
“To sanction the use of the Jacob’s Bell witch hunters to execute Maggie Holt, please vote,” Sandra Duchamp declared.
I love how little this matters. Also I wonder how much the witch hunters are subject to the rulings of the practitioners, how much they're of their own accord. Eva seemed to ask for permission to shoot Blake, so maybe they're more of an adjacent force than I'd realized
“Not a bad result either,” I said. “Do you object? Bad plan?” “No. I would have liked more time to consider it, but there are worse ideas
I'm at least glad Rose doesn't think this was as dumb as I do
I agree there are worse ideas
but there are always worse ideas
“Something else we need to talk about,” I said, “Is this vestige thing. It’s the… second or third time I’ve heard it, and I’m pretty sure you referenced it, one of those times.” “Talking to yourself, Mr. Thorburn?”
Damn it all when are we gonna get some 8answers
“I’m talking to my companion,” I said. Might as well admit it. “Yes. You are,” Johnannes said. “I’m liking how quickly you’re picking this up. The language, turns of phrase used to redirect, to mislead. You’re talking to your companion, yes, but you’re not denying that you’re talking to yourself.”
I'm not even sure Blake meant to do that, but ill take it. So Rose is a Vestige of Blake, with a few alterations, im hesitantly guessing.
Maggie said, “It’s like he lives his life by the ticking of that clock of his, orderly, tidy, neat, but he thrives on controlled chaos.”
not quite like anyone else I've met in a Wildbow story or otherwise. Laird is quickly becoming one of my favorite characters, which is...interesting, to say the least
“A very good question, miss…?” Johannes let the question hang. “I don’t know if I should answer that.”
but also betraying your ignorance like that definitely shows that you're not a vestige of Grandma, right?
But yes. I lose nothing of substance by helping, and I could see Laird Behaim unseated, removed or disconcerted. I like that,” Johannes said.
ugh, Politics (im kidding I enjoy these parts in books)
“If the danger is a vote of execution,” I said, “We could theoretically win over enough people that they couldn’t get the majority.”
Time limit, goal, drive, plot. Of course, since this is a Wildbow story I expect the stakes and the goals to change well before the month is up, but it's nice to have something to look to anyways
“If it’s not a vote of execution you face, having any or all of the named individuals helping you would still protect you against the family. Win each of us over, use us.” “Be used in turn,” Rose said.
Yknow who'd do real good in this world? (ward) Cradle
“Good company?” Rose asked. “You’re an Other,” Maggie said.
is she? I mean, I suppose she's not exactly human, but she could lie
“I can’t put it to words. I feel dumb if I say it out loud. But power helps everything. Knowledge is power. I want knowledge and power.”
does power really help everything? I mean, just cuz Michael Foucault might say so...
“You want to deal?” she asked. “Maybe,” I said. “If my companion doesn’t object and-” “I don’t object,” Rose said.
Baby steps towards working with Rose more...copacetically perhaps?
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JayManiac 20-Apr-19 06:34 PM
'there is no good and evil, only power and those who wield it' - no one you want to listen to. Also Michel Foucault, who you sometimes want to listen to.
“We okay?” I asked. “I’m not sure how to answer that,” she said. “Generally? No. I don’t think we’re okay at all. We’re probably going to die.”
at least we have the stunning power of relentless optimism on our side
“Now you’re intentionally misunderstanding me,” I said. I added a quick, “I think.” “I am. Are we okay as a pair? No. We aren’t.”
Maybe you should stop intentionally misunderstanding each other and using Practitioner Truths with each other or something
also I'm glad I came up with that cuz I've just been calling practitioner truths "things that Doc Scratch would say" for too long now
“There are glamours and illusions. Images, but little more than that. Living, alive, pretendings. Ghosts, which are usually emotional or mental impressions made on the world. Trauma, powerful ideas, they leave something behind, that you see out of the corner of your eye. Tied to some glimmer of the person that was, at the time of death, twisted by time and a degrading memory of their self.”
Hey I just asked the ghost question two chapters ago and I already get an answer! It must be christmas!
“Not even a copy. You want to know the reason for my big turnaround? Why I’m accepting my fate as a tool? That’s it. I know what I am now. I know the built-in limitations.” “Limitations?” “Read the book,” she said, from the mirror, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
😢
I scanned the table of contents. The title of one chapter pretty much gave it away. Duration.
Oh no. No no no no. (Twig)I thought once I finished Twig I was done with expiration dates! These are the worst
“Can I just spend a minute or ten feeling like a shitheel?” I asked. “You can, but we’ll need to figure something out after that.”
Ilovethis
“What are they going to do? Try to kill us more?
Uh. Yes.
I thought of how the Behaim kids had done a poor job of concealing their fear and surprise. “It’s dirty,” I said. I smiled some. “Dirty is good.”
is it though? is it really
Alright that's 2.2 in the bag, see y'all next time when Ward's Saturday chapter comes out and I have to read it
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JayManiac 23-Apr-19 05:14 PM
So I took a little break to go to Oregon and visit a college, but I'm back and all I wanted to do was read more pact the entire time!
Jokes aside, I'm super grateful for the chance to go and visit all the places I got accepted; imagine if Blake got like six hours with each of the familiars he was considering before making his decision
Alright 2.3 let's just get right into it!
I groaned a little, grabbing one of the fancy fountain pens from my grandmother’s desk. It was still dark outside. “It’s too early for this.” “You wanted to go on the offensive while he was otherwise occupied.” While Laird was sleeping.
dude, I can't do shit correctly if it's early in the morning. Also how do you know laird's sleep schedule?
“Damn it, Rose,” I said, but I couldn’t help smiling, but I wasn’t exactly amused, either. She’d almost gotten me. “We can’t mess with each other when we’re so busy watching our backs against everyone else.” “I really don’t want to have to read all of that thing,” she said. “And I thought it would be a little funny.”
this is delightful...ly tense and worrying
first, this doesn't help their trust situation
and secondly, it shows that Blake is easily bamboozled, which I suppose we already knew, but still
“We haven’t found anything that gives us an exact answer,” I said. “We probably won’t. Nothing modern. All research does is eliminate possibilities. We get through all of these books, read them backwards and forwards, and we’ll be able to say that we probably aren’t breaking the rules and getting ourselves executed if we mess with Laird’s job and family. Not definitely. Just probably.”
Well I doubt they're playing cops and robbers. more like cops and fairies and goblins oh my
“I don’t trust Maggie. I’m not sure I wholly distrust her either, but I get the feeling that if she could profit from misleading us, she would.” “If you’re being that selective about our allies, we’re going to be very lonely,” Rose said.
agree
speaking of Maggie, when I need to read pact but can't I listen to deep in pact and it quenches the thirst a smidge; I totally didn't pick up on the fact that she can't swear, but I love it
It's kind of the only believable way a normal-ass teenager would get vetted as the protagonist of a childrens book series
I wonder what kinds of kids it's targeted towards; I picture it more on the "magic tree house" level than "Fablehaven" level but maybe that's just cuz I still unironically read Fablehaven and enjoy it
“Bookshelf two, third shelf from the bottom. It’s by the same author that wrote the book on Vestiges. Valkyries.”
please tell me that this means Rose thinks she's a Valkyrie without an expiration date
Meaning I had to climb the ladder up to the next floor, then walk around to the third floor hallway and make my way to the ground floor. A pain. I bit my tongue before I said as much.
Maybe learning that his sister is dying has made him nicer?
You’ve got practitioners who specialize a hundred percent on ghosts and vestiges. A kind of necromancy.”
This is just cool; the enchantress specialization was a really interesting look into how these kinds of things work and I'm so excited to learn more
(edited)
“Right. In this case, you’ve got practitioners convincing warriors, usually dying soldiers, that there’s an amazing afterlife of parties and respect for their deeds waiting for them, so the warriors agree to give up their spirits after death. Use that agreement to help make a vestige or create a ghost, a representation of their skills or their knowledge, their strength, whatever else, and imbue all of that into a vessel.”
well that's dark and depressing. I mean, but it's pact so you gotta imply that there's a cool Valhalla place without actually lying
The book talks about working with ghosts being an option for a practitioner without many resources, in an area where practitioners have already taken hold of everything worth holding, or where the Lord forbids certain practices.
totally thought we were talking about big-G God over here before I remembered what book we were reading. Interesting slipup though, I wonder if each Lord is like acting god of their city
You take a ghost, you imbue an object, and you’ve got…” “A magical item?” I asked.
Sorry, this is not the first or last time I will reference paranatural
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JayManiac 23-Apr-19 05:48 PM
im not convinced Rose is a vestige yet
maybe that's just cuz Im super-in-denial here, but I don't get how a vestige was able to cheat the family system of custodians
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agenderGorgon 23-Apr-19 05:49 PM
I tried paranatural, gunnerkrig, et al.
Only magicy webcomic that ever stuck with me was Zebra Girl.
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JayManiac 23-Apr-19 05:51 PM
That's fair; I hail paranatural as one of the Greats of Webcomicdom, but it's really for people who are already huge fans of comics and webcomics in general
(which is why I haven't recommended it to scott and matt)
I stopped midway down the staircase. I had to shift the books to one arm before I could pick up and move the makeshift mirror-pendant I wore. I could see Rose standing a short distance up the stairs. When I had her in my sights, and vice versa, I gave her a disapproving look. “You mean I’ve got to trek back to the library and go look for some hypothetical book of ghost names?”
Im drawing Blake with a magic car mirror pendant as soon as I have time. Also some minor magical objects seem like a good idea; a way of getting a little bargaining power and showing Others your resourcefulness to get your foot in the door
Sounds like we’ve got some disturbing, soulless freaks of nature to summon. When we’re done that, we can take a break and summon some ghosts.”
I'd like to think that he isn't talking about the lawyers being Others, he's talking about the lawyers being lawyers
“Mann, Levinn, and Lewis.”
if I were in the world of Pact I'd probably do the Bloody Mary thing for fun
the temptation would grow and eventually it'd be too much! I wouldn't last very long.
I nodded. I placed my hand down on the Valkyrie tome. “Since lawyers are off the table, and I’m done with the research for now… You’re thinking ghosts, then? Equipping ourselves, experimenting. This is smart?” “I hope so. We’re going to have to go outside if we’re going to call one and trap it. Grab salt on the way?”
You stand the chance of being pretty dehumanizing here guys. These ghosts are potentially as human as Rose is
I nodded. “Okay. Okay on the ghosts, and okay on the salt. I’m open to this.” She nodded. I saw a glimmer of that doubt and anger in her expression, but she said, “Thank you.”
Finally, everyone these two dipshits were working together
I’d slept, then woken up early in the hopes of catching Laird off guard, while he was deep in sleep.
If I know I have to be awake at five, it's far easier for me to just stay awake till five than wake up at five; this confirms that maybe blake shouldn't be making tons of important decisions rn
although hes deciding to not be a dick to rose, so maybe im wrong
Hillsglade House was situated on a hill, naturally
it is natural, the old creepy mansion on the hill
but the hill wasn’t a single round hump. There was a tail, and the tail disappeared into a sparse tree cover that gradually got thicker as it got further away from the house.
blake I don't know how to tell you this: your house is a giant disguised banana slug and you're gonna have to ride it into battle
im kidding
the house is probably way weirder than that
“Worth a try,” I said. “We need a phone, which is another catch-twenty-two. We need the phone to get hold of the lawyers to figure out when and where we might be safe enough to go get access to a phone.”
It's evolved into, what, a catch-fifty-five at this point?
“Well, having ghost help might make a difference, in terms of being able to defend ourselves if we’re making a run for it. If you’re ready?” Rose asked.
You can't mess with us! I have Nearly Headless Nick here and he's ready to kick your ass. Also, the tension for them to acquire more power is kicked into high gear once we get the stakes that Rose needs more and more power to keep her alive longer
But even then there's no (twig) Black coat professor that has a chance of saving her (that we know of), like there was for Jessie. I was still holding out hope then, and Sy was the one I was worried about
I looked around, half-convinced an Other was poised to leap on top of me the moment my back was turned. But it was approaching daylight, and the back of the house was in view of some of the town.
He still doesn't know if it's sunlight or people oh my god
I could hear her turning pages. I fidgeted, partially to keep warm.
Same Blake. Which is to say both "same blake, there he be", and "same, blake. I feel ya."
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agenderGorgon 23-Apr-19 06:14 PM
TwigIs that the one they kidnap who spends half the arc puppetteering various people, or the one with the chair at the end?
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JayManiac 23-Apr-19 06:15 PM
The first one. yeah he was a bit of a git. That arc made me super uncomfortable with all the puppeteering and sociopathy and Sylvester-ing. But then again, name an arc in Twig that *didn't make me uncomfortable
“Easiest way is to bleed,” Rose said. “If you’re okay with cutting yourself again?”
hatehatehateit. Ooof. When Practitioners and Ninjas and Wizards do this shit in stories im always like "How the fuck". I don't have a problem if Im gushing blood cuz I sliced my hand open accidentally, but I have a strong aversion to doing anything like that on purpose. Not cuz pain or blood, although that too, more just an instinct I can't get past.
I mean Naruto bites his thumb to summon frogs with his blood. I can't even imagine drawing blood from my finger with my teeth, but it's never made a point of
I guess he was raised as a ninja
but Blake wasn't...that I know of...he wasn't even raised as a fuckin wizard and now he has to be one of those fuckers
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agenderGorgon 23-Apr-19 06:19 PM
Any Practitioner would be prepared for what needs to be done if they got a verucca.
fine 1
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JayManiac 23-Apr-19 06:19 PM
hhhhhhhhhhhhh
Blood didn’t bother me, but I didn’t want my fingertips buried under calluses either.
I mean blood doesn't bother me and yet I am bothered
also guessing blake ain't one for steelstring guitar
Which is a shame; he might need to lull a powerful being to sleep with song. That's how humans originally wrenched the first vestiges of power (not a pun but not changing the word use cuz im tired) from Others, right? Tricks and lulling-to-sleep-with-music like in stories?
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agenderGorgon 23-Apr-19 06:22 PM
Dunno. I expect there's also Saint George and such just fucking up Dragons on their own.
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JayManiac 23-Apr-19 06:23 PM
Well but before no lying the Devil could go down to georgia and then say "SIKE BITCH YOU AIN'T GETTIN YOUR dAMN FIDDLE (edited)
Gettit? damn fid- ah nvm
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agenderGorgon 23-Apr-19 06:23 PM
Be a bored devil.
Keep winning like that.
Wind up with too many souls AND idle hands.
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JayManiac 23-Apr-19 06:24 PM
truuuuuuuu
eventually id just give humans shit to challenge me
new pact theory: Every Other is actually Crawler
but yes I expect there probably were motherfuckers who got good enough with spirits and shamanism that they were eventually able to just fuck up lesser Others, then fuck up greater Others with lesser Others and up the food chain till you're trappin the motherfuckers in lamps and magic circles and sending them to cut your enemies hair
huh maybe I should get back to reading maybe that's the point maybe this is why this always takes me two Lord-damned hours
“Blood. Draw a symbol, like you see in the book, the median line running parallel to any line of connection you see between yourself and the ghost. Blood is power, basically the most distilled and direct form you can offer.
so that's why spirits take blood for telekinesis. Gives humans a pretty good bargaining chip in general
but I can't tell if blood is actual metaphysical power in the raw sense, or just currency for Others. I also can't tell if it matters in the slightest
Also also, Ruben, if you're reading this: I love ya man, your cast is really great and you notice stuff that I don't despite the fact that im taking ten minutes to read each line of the fucking book. But you're a little bad at Matt-ing
Like you kinda lead the discussion and have an equal amount of opinions on the work, which is great, but you sometimes say things or hint at things and I'm like: I haven't read the part of the story you're talking about, but I can tell you're a sentence or two from spoiling something sometimes. Maybe it's just my imagination, and maybe Matt wasn't always so good at Matt-ing, but it's my one gripe with the 'cast
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agenderGorgon 23-Apr-19 06:33 PM
I think most people take two hours when they sort their thoughts out line by line and with new info. Its sorta what's part of live reading rather than reflective reading. I'm not a huge fan of live reads tbf.
Or like, really close reads. We've Got Worm was neat, We've Got Ward and Deep In Pact are a little too much content for my taste.
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spinagon 23-Apr-19 06:35 PM
👌 just right for me
The closer, the better
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JayManiac 23-Apr-19 06:35 PM
I can understand that Boota! But also: im still gonna have way too much content in these reads
“They’re not real beings, they’re echoes of major events that happened. Typically painful, sad, or angry events. Sometimes moments of sheer brilliance. Sometimes other things. Chances are pretty good that the ghost is going to have a limited script to work with. They’ll be single minded.
Are....are ghosts shards?
“Right.” Listen to Rose. “Roll with it, except for the big part of this where I shouldn’t roll with it.“
doin a great job of that already. Also we have a name for this Blake did you not listen to Master Stranger Week you heathen?
oh wait he's literally a heathen
Would this same strategy work for finding people? Objects? If I wanted to find Laird, could I call out his name until I could make out the connection?
maybe? but also I bet he has defences, and those defences might be just 14 squirrels he's loosed around town that he's named Laird, I don't know the nuances of how all this shit works
Im thinking KKC-like rn
This was the same thing as the lawyers. Calling their names until they took notice. “June Burlison,” I said.
So Bloody Mary just pays attention
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spinagon 23-Apr-19 06:40 PM
Imagine people just calling your number every hour of day and night
I'd be out for blood too
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JayManiac 23-Apr-19 06:40 PM
also she appears in mirrors, how queer. im still unclear on how ghosts and vestiges diff...uh...diff-ear?
It really calls Kingkiller to mind
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spinagon 23-Apr-19 06:42 PM
Blake is leveling into blood mage https://dragonage.fandom.com/wiki/Blood_Mage_(Origins)
Blood Mage is one of the mage specializations in Dragon Age: Origins. Blood mages employ dark rites, originally taught to mortals by demons, in order to access more powerful magic. They must be...
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❤ 1
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JayManiac 23-Apr-19 06:43 PM
not gonna copy all of it but June's approach is.....chilling ba 🥁 ts
no but seriously we've kinda been underplaying ghosts this whole chapter "oh they're nothing, just little weak Others that we can use for a little more power"
no they're still scary as shit they're fuckin ghosts
“Cumulative,” I murmured. Louder, I said, “June Burlison, I want to talk.” The burning was getting worse. It was getting to be too much, to the point that I couldn’t stand still.
This is not a casual, Nearly Headless Nick kinda ghost
“It-” I stopped myself. I’d almost said ‘it is hot‘. But that could have been a lie. I wasn’t sure if it really was hot or if I was just feeling an illusion of heat. “It does feel hot, yes.”
I think it depends on your personal concept of hot
“Rose,” I murmured. My voice was a touch hoarse. “I don’t know if I’m up for this.” “If it gets to be too much,” Rose said, “Break the line of blood. You can also dash salt on her. It ends the moment you do.”
I mean thats, good. But like these are the weakest, most insignificant of powerful others. You best get used to this, cuz it probably gets a lot worse
“No. But we fight so much. We’re so different. It’s so cold.”
The voice of this character is just so well-done. It captures the perfect ghostly nature of the person, the things they focus on, the trauma, the death
it's just such good writing
Or, the idea dawned on me, am I already being drained by another source? When I thought of what other sources might be out there, the only thing that sprung to mind was Rose.
MASTER STRANGER PROTOCOLS BLAKE
“I read about it, after hearing a joke once. About some idiot sitting naked in a snowbank. Dying by cold, you experience an intense rush of warmth in the end. June was never burned, exactly. She was in the last stages of freezing to death.”
Oh no. Oh no, no no.....Exactly the kind of creepy fact you hear and just have to write into a story.
“She is suffering,” Rose said. “As in, that thing you’re looking at is an embodiment of a moment of suffering. What you see there is all there is. The real June went on to the afterlife. This is an emotional event that hit the world hard enough to make a dent shaped like ‘dying of hypothermia’.
That's dark as hell, but also maybe what (ward) shard heaven is. "you" aren't really there, it's an imprint of your conflict, your trauma, your suffering...maybe it's a little more than that in parahumans case
If you take away the suffering, there’s going to be absolutely nothing there. And maybe the balance of the world is a little better off, things are a little nicer without this memory of one bad moment wandering around the woods, but we aren’t any better off.”
Don't make the joke, don't make the joke. Okay im gonna make the joke
Sweet scion, Rose, that's pretty ❄ cold of you
AH IM SORRY I REGRET IT I REGRET THE PUN
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Vayhle 23-Apr-19 06:54 PM
Icee what you did there
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JayManiac 23-Apr-19 06:54 PM
yknow
that was borderline worse so now i feel a little better about myself
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Vayhle 23-Apr-19 06:55 PM
I'm excellent at not being funny, it's a gift.
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JayManiac 23-Apr-19 06:56 PM
A very valuable one indeed.
“I’m having trouble buying that.” “Why? Because it looks like a damsel in distress?” “Because it is a ghost, only one step removed from being a vestige, remember?” I asked. My tone of voice might have been a little too harsh.
YEAH NO SHIT. But also I was pointing this out too; Rose is being dehumanizing to these things that she might not be too different from, and it's worrying
“I think it’s nicer, accepting this deal, instead of just canceling her out. You can hold her and keep her warm, and except for the moments we need her to be a spectre of hypothermia, she can exist as that one fragment of a memory where she daydreamed about a man holding her.” “Okay,” I said. “I can buy that.”
Blake now has a justification-maker around his neck at all times. Good, good
“We’ll need a way to inscribe the handle, or she can leave any time she feels like it, and she’s liable to go out in one big intense shot of cold the moment you hit something,” Rose said, as I made my way into the hallway.
guys it really does sound like Tools from Paranatural im not hallucinating this
but also unleashing the method of death on someone is fucking metal
if June had died in a fire we might even have
A Fireaxe
“Well, this works as a kind of stopgap measure as a half-implement and half-familiar,” Rose said. “Not sure how you’re going to conceal that hatchet all the time, but it works.”
Cool, cool! You found a way around the Catch 33!
“More specifically, we are Mann, Levinn and Lewis,” the young woman said. Blonde, with a tidy ponytail and a lock of hair strategically draped over the corner of one eyebrow. One of her pantyhose-covered legs was crossed over the other, her hands folded over her knee. “Please, don’t cry while we’re here. I can’t speak for my partners, but I’d be embarrassed on your behalf.”
Oh im so ready to cry while they're here
Oh! That's right! in my Pactless stupor I started reading the 2017 hellblazer comics, so I'll be making reference to those from now on.
John Constantine and Blake share some similarities, I think. He's a Practitioner among things with a lot more power than he is, but he barely scrapes by (mostly by making stupid deals and having to pay for it later, tricking people, or forcing powerful beings to act by playing high-risk high-reward games of chicken)
Chicken's kinda like "who's dumber, the game" and i admire that Constantine is able to use it to his favor as often as he does. Turn your weakness into a strength, man! Good on ya!
anyhow, that's all for this week!
and by this week i meant this session right now
Ilovethis 2
don't know why I said that
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JayManiac 25-Apr-19 06:54 PM
Okay I have roughly an hour to get through whatever I get through in Damages 2.4
scratch that, less than an hour
but first of course im gonna mention that I just google whatever chapter im on to avoid using the table of contents and just found out that Pact is a programming language. Don't know why it didn't pop up the last few chapters I googled but here we are
“But if it helps, we can start the timer from the moment we made eye contact.” The brown-haired young man, good looking enough to be an actor, but for the tiniest scar on his lip, looked at his watch. “Twenty nine minutes and forty seconds left on the clock. For that period of time, you have the benefit of our advice and knowledge, and you can make requests, though we can’t promise we’ll grant them.”
This is a HUGELY beneficial resource to Blake and Rose, provided they can effectively use it
but also haha, classic lawyers
“Are you devils?” I asked. “Demons?” The older man chuckled. With the coarser voice, he did sound a little sinister in that moment. “Some would say that.”
classic lawyers amirite?
“The remainder would call us practitioners,” the woman lawyer told me. “Practitioners like you, even.”
wonder whether these are like the basically-other-already practitioners or just regular-ass practitioners
I don't know what's funnier: that they're monsters and they're lawyers and that's funny or cuz they're monsters purely cuz they're lawyers. Gonna go with the second option to conserve time
“Because we’re in the business of dealing with diabolists,” the older man said. “Why?” I asked, once again. There wasn’t any sign that I was bothering them with this particular line of questioning.
This would be awesome...but also it's really inhuman and economic and creepy
“We’re hoping to include the heir of the Thorburn estate in our number,” the old man told me.
Get studying for the bar, blake. That shit ain't a joke
Before our firm existed, it was an Otherworldly entity that reached out to our forebearers. The deal was simple. Our slates would be cleared, in every respect. We would assume a new role, new names, new responsibilities. Our old lives and every part of those lives would be left behind. Perhaps most importantly, most relevant to this discussion, our debts would be cleared.
👀
whomst
“How?” I asked. Why was the axe acting up? It was almost as bad as it had been outside, now.
also logging second janeaxebeat
“The cogs that operate in the background take to grinding you up instead. Funds, treasured belongings, friendships, love, they are all harder to find and easier to lose. Enemies, danger, chaos, and disruption find you more readily. In looser terms, all Others, spirits and practitioners get the sense, innate or otherwise, that they can and should work against your interests. Things start to fall apart, and the pieces fall down in the least convenient arragements for you.”
This is a pretty succinct metaphysical realization of bad luck, I like it
“Ah, hell,” I said. “That would explain a few things.”
That it would
I never mind exposition in wildbow stories; it never ever reads as a boring kind of exposition because it's teased out to be super compelling
The universe doesn’t like to act overtly, so it might give you the coin flip that serves you the least, until you start counting the number of times the coin turns up head versus the times it turns up tails. In any case, the practitioner can live if they’re attentive and clever, and the debt can keep growing.This is when we start running into problems.”
Ilovethis
I've been looking into dark magic from dragon prince so im able to make a lot of those connections too
“Okay,” I said. “I might have a general sense of the problem. But what do we do about it?” “Well,” the woman said. She offered me a smile. “Option one is the simplest, easiest and most obvious.” “Joining you?” I asked. “That’s option two. Option one is that you die. Violently,” she said.
This is just hilarious to me for some reason. maybe im just in a giggly mood but violent death is comedy gold
“I’m not lucky, though,” I said. “And Molly wasn’t lucky either… She…”
Ah fuck. Never mind.
I finished my sentence, along a different line. “…Eats a bit of the karmic backlash, pays a bit of the price for the universe not getting what it was supposed to, and the baton gets passed to me. If I die, the same thing happens. Each of us absorbs a bit of the brunt of it, until one of us finds our footing and carries on.”
Now that's the kind of coldhearted bitch of a decision (no offence, Jane) that's consistent with good ol granny rose's character.
also remembering how Blake's like: 'you're a rancid cunt' and Rose is just like: 'are you done?'
reminds me of the lawyers' impassivity
“Karma has very little to do with good and evil,” the blonde woman said. “It has a great deal to do with right and wrong.”
Fuckin hell, this just got more complicated
Which is good
and by good i mean right
fuck
point is: right and wrong can be situational while good and evil have to be objective, and that's sorta what I think is going on
“Directly? No. Indirectly? He tricked me and left me for the monsters to eat. We’d only just met. Unless the whole history of my family counts as a provocation.” “You’d be secure. It would even benefit you. You should be able to find all of this information in the textbooks of the library.”
So while practitioners give loads of shits (and flayed skin) about the exact wording and whether this or that violated the exact words of whateverthefuck, the universe couldn't give less of a shit. I'm glad someone's talking nonsense here, makes things a whole lot simpler.
“Executions are a formalization of what we just talked about. You’ll find more on them in books relating to karmic debt and the manipulation thereof.”
Makes sense, and it's kind of a self-correcting system
albeit, one that could absolutely do collateral damage while it's correcting itself.
I rubbed my chin. “And if I contrived to get them to punish me for a crime I didn’t commit? Get an order of execution against myself?” “Blake!” Rose said. “Theoretically,” I said.
Well they'd have a bunch of bad luck for killing you, so that's in your favor
except for that one thing
where you're dead
“There is also the matter of the debt weighing on you,” he said. “Nearly seven lifetimes worth of unpaid karmic balance. You could work hard your entire life and only make up one of those.
God Damn. I've heard some stuff about how Blake's been through the ringer even more than other WB protags by the end of his story (that's all the info I got) and this really sets up why he has EXACTLY the luck he's supposed to. The literal world is against him. And it doesn't make him special or anything, the world's against plenty of people. It's just super duper against him.
“The universe sounds a bit like some kind of asshole loan shark,” I said. “Make of it what you will,” he said.
Yeah you're gonna get a super empathetic response from these lawyers
“These are the sorts of things Rose should have taught you. Any more questions?”
Rose you dipshit
Not you rose
Can I trust you guys?” “No,” the woman lawyer said.
There's a strange mix of upfront, brutal honesty, and underhanded shiftiness that accompanies every Other interaction, and besides all the other things it is, it's also funny
“I think I get it, even without the books,” Rose said. Quiet. “We make that deal, to save our hide, and they get stronger, making life harder on the rest of humanity.”
So don't do it
Even the universe won't necessarily see this as wrong, but it's certainly an evil thing to do
Even if you only contribute a little bit to this great force coming to wipe out humanity, it's the reason it happened
She shifted position. Her tone somewhat softer than it had been, she said, “I can’t speak for the others, but I would respect you for it, I would understand. In the end, however, business is business, and we have our obligations.”
I wonder if she's the latest to take the deal, of the three of them...this is a somewhat jarring display of humanity from these guys
“I’ll help,” she said. “No trickery or sabotage. I can guarantee you’ll be better off than if you saw to it yourself.”
Great, now I trust her. Which she told me not to do. so I don't. But I kind of do though.
“Being more honest means you stock up more goodwill with the universe and any others you meet. Borderline dishonesty is useful, lying by omission is better yet, and unvarnished honesty is better still. I can’t quite interpret it, but perhaps you were joking? Sarcasm?”
1. You can't be sarcastic?!? 2. Haha lawyers can't even parse sarcasm. inhuman bastards. 3. I like that the universe doesn't bullshit with lying by omission, even if everything else does.
“Blake, not a gentleman?” Rose asked. “That is the sort of sarcasm you can get away with,” Ms. Lewis said.
I was worried for a second there.
I can also superduperunderstand why Pact made Wildbow so much better at writing now
He has to pay attention to every wording, every use of sarcasm, every joke, every interaction that much more. A lot of it probably gets internalized after most-of-a-million-words of doing it, and that's a super valuable payoff for that work.
This seems like a good stopping point; they're exitting the house and all.
I've gotta exit my own house and Get Some Shit Done today, so I'll continue this later.
Ilovethis 1
👋 1
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JayManiac 26-Apr-19 02:13 AM
Alright it's about time
just kidding, it's about demons!
wish I'd saved that for the beginning of a chapter that'd've been a good icebreaker.
when we last left our heroes, they were gonna go shopping with a demon lawyer. Granted, a cool demon lawyer, but still.
“Ground rules,” Ms. Lewis said. “This isn’t business. Anything I say or do should be taken in the capacity of an acquaintance or teacher. I won’t give you answers I think you should pay for”
Again I wonder how long she's been in service. She doesn't seem that far from just a regular human, at least when she isn't doing business. Then again, there are moments. moments like her not understanding sarcasm, but then understanding it, or not being annoyed with the flow of questions.
“Somehow I anticipated you guys would be scarier,” I said. “Or, and I hope I’m not being offensive, more professional.”
You certainly did. But hey, I think that's a bit of a theme. You think it's gonna be real scary and then it ends up being a little more human than you expected.
“We adapt to the client,” she said. She didn’t flinch at the cold as we made our way down the driveway. Something a little more Other about her, like the old man’s laugh.
or fucking not
“It’s largely selfish,” Ms. Lewis said. She drew in a deep breath, then sighed. “As clients go, you’re quite endearing, compared to our usual.”
I assumed it was something like this. I wonder if Ms. Lewis misses her normal life; I think she must miss humanity at least on some level. And even around other humans, other clients, they probably get all practitioner-y and Other-y. Blake and Rose haven't sacrificed much of their normal humanity....yet.
I was thinking about Wendy Brown's Undoing The Demos earlier today, and its assertions that there's an economization of the human life. I'm also thinking about Karl Marx's Alienation of Labor. Is this Other also a bit of a metaphor for the commodification of the individual, the 'selling of your soul' to survive in a world that screwed your generation over long before your birth?
And if so, what's the solution the book presents? What are the right things to do? How do you hold on to the humanity you have, and not become more Other than person, yet still survive? In Jacob's Bell's economy, you have to be cutthroat. You can have compassion, to a point, but in the end it's got to be about you and your own.
I mean certainly it's drawing lots of economic parallels: magic trust fund kids, law firms to protect your economic interests, etc.
Anyhow, log that with a Maybe Future Video Essay and let's keep fuckin reading.
“And what are they like?” I asked. “You’ve met the barber. They are the sorts who would use him and sleep that night.”
See, maybe she just doesn't want to chill with people so alienated from their actions
I looked harder. The saturation and contrast seemed exaggerated, the world painted in a impasto style with coarse brush strokes, animated with life and constant motion. I followed the areas where the strokes and lines met, so I could see the flow of it, not stopping at a dead end but naturally sweeping my eyes along the straighter paths where the particles danced.
This is just a beautiful little look at Awakened Sight.
looked up impasto style to confirm it was what i thought it was, and it was. And now it's even more beautiful
“You looked too hard,” she said. “You made a connection, and it noticed.
increasingly curious about the role of observation. It's considered a lot more active a thing by this universe, which is intriguing.
The Briar Girl, I thought. The Others I’d seen before June showed up… I suspected they were hers. “She wants your attention, and very possibly wants your help.”
A friend? New friend? I'm desperate for Blake to have allies
not that ms lewis isn't delightful
and helpful
just...I need to be invested in other characters and blake needs people who don't try to kill him or recruit him into bringing back sauron
Then again, he was warming to maggie and Briar Girl did vote her executed so maybe pick n choose
“I have my hands full, for one thing,” Ms. Lewis said. “And there are other reasons. Consider this a lesson.
is she...stretching the rules to help them without payment? Lord of Brockton Bay this girl does need a vacation.
That would be a useful tool. To know where your enemies senses were directed and to act elsewhere.
Occurs to me that this would be super duper useful....
for doing stage magic
Misdirection with eye trackers! practically child's play
A second later, they were taking some sort of action, moving, and very deliberately, they scattered my perception of where they were.
enchantingly so.
“You misled us,” Rose said.
This was so very your guys' fault
“I’m going to walk you through this, and I’m going to hope that you follow my instructions to the letter. Now pay attention. The less guidance you demand from me, the faster I can hand this hatchet to you.”
Oh good, you've pissed off the Simurgh.
Well, that's all for the chapter! Hope you enjoyed, see you idk when!
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JayManiac 26-Apr-19 04:49 PM
And continuing here! Cuz I need to find out how badly Blake screws this one up
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spinagon 26-Apr-19 04:49 PM
Yay
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JayManiac 26-Apr-19 04:49 PM
Damages 2.5!
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Seregraug 26-Apr-19 04:50 PM
I would suggest pretty badly. 🤔
Based on his track record so far.
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JayManiac 26-Apr-19 04:50 PM
Ms. Lewis, however, stepped into the space I had just vacated. She put her hand out, and as the blade approached her chest, she pushed it to one side.
Ms. Lewis is 20x more badass than Blake even without her powers
She had a strange accent. Less like a person who had grown up fluent in one language and was carrying things over into the next, and more like a French, Russian, and one or two other accents were all layered onto one another, compounding each other.
I love that every time we meet an Other they're just a little bit off-putting, they've been around a little too long to speak normally, or understand flimsy human concepts like gender
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agenderGorgon 26-Apr-19 04:53 PM
Oh hey!
Its this thing!
This thing has the best fanart!
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JayManiac 26-Apr-19 04:53 PM
👀
By which I mean 👀 unless it's spoilery
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agenderGorgon 26-Apr-19 04:53 PM
I just have to wait until you're done reading this scene.
So...
Carry on.
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JayManiac 26-Apr-19 04:54 PM
The Other sniffed and transformed, wings unfolding and enclosing her in the span of a second. She disappeared down the far end of the alley.
Hahahahahahahaha Ms Lewis beat the bird lady by playing chicken and that's the funniest thing in the world
“Familiars can’t go outside their master’s orders?” I asked.
That was a familiar? Not just an Other? I didn't know they could transform!?! Then again, I don't know anything about familiars, so why would I know this?
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Seregraug 26-Apr-19 04:56 PM
Huh, I'm not sure if I've seen that fanart then.
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JayManiac 26-Apr-19 04:57 PM
“Master feels young,” Ms. Lewis said, taking hold of my arm. She led me in the opposite direction the Other had gone. “No older than thirteen.
Dude, eighth graders can be assholes. They play this game of one-upsmanship all the time, they bug you with memes when you're trying to do schoolwork, and they send their familiars to run you through with swords!
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spinagon 26-Apr-19 04:57 PM
Eighth?
So first would be 5 y.o.?
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agenderGorgon 26-Apr-19 04:58 PM
Sere, have you ever heard of "Not My Pact?"
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JayManiac 26-Apr-19 04:58 PM
First or kindergarten, yup...I think
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Seregraug 26-Apr-19 04:59 PM
I don't think so?
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JayManiac 26-Apr-19 04:59 PM
“You need a power source,” Ms. Lewis said. “Blood won’t do for the long term.” “I know,” I said. The knob was rattling, internal mechanisms moving with excruciating slowness.
Oh good, I don't know how many more times blake can stab himself before I die of vicarious blood loss
“Name it? No. Stick a label on it? I could maybe say it’s a Faerie, but that’s only a guess.” “It’s an accurate guess.”
He only knows like two kinds of Others so that was pretty lucky
“Then you know what Faerie are weak against?” I thought, but I couldn’t connect it. “Something about raw iron, but…”
Three things demons fear: raw iron, something about fire, and the name of Tehlu
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spinagon 26-Apr-19 05:03 PM
Courage to strengthen, fire to blind, music to dazzle, iron to bind.
sharkhi 1
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JayManiac 26-Apr-19 05:04 PM
“Wait one moment. This is about symbolism and effect. A great deal of what any practitioner does is draw on the power of Others. Connections, pacts, bonds, borrowed power. You can be dull and methodical about it, but that’s only going to impress a specific kind of Other. If you use presentation, however, timing, flair, showmanship…” “It matters?”
Come on, Blake! We should all know what really makes a Practitioner!
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spinagon 26-Apr-19 05:05 PM
Spray everything with your blood DRAMATICALLY
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JayManiac 26-Apr-19 05:06 PM
Lord of Radham are there more of these!?
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agenderGorgon 26-Apr-19 05:06 PM
Yes. But with spoilers for later parts of the story here and there.
I think there's ONE more you can look at...
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JayManiac 26-Apr-19 05:07 PM
Alright, I will trust your discretion
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JayManiac 26-Apr-19 05:09 PM
tIME TO BE PIGEONS!?!
“You’re wrong,” she said. “The things they conjure up are there. They’re fabricated, and it’s this affinity for things that have been crafted that helps the Faerie avoid being touched so easily by fabricated things. With glamour, the Faerie might create an image of a flower. It’s an image. But as they put power into it, it gains substance. As people see it and recognize it, they feed power into it. Plant that flower in a garden, leave it be, and it will grow as any flower might. It becomes a part of the garden, and the garden adapts. It adapts to the viewers, becoming what they want and expect to see. A two way street. Given opportunity, it becomes as much of a part of things as if it was always there.”
This is really really cool, leveraging expectations and the line between fabrication and reality being one of perception
“Could you do something like that to fuel a vestige? To make the false copy more real?”
guessing that no. But maybe yes, if they find a dumb enough way to do it!
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agenderGorgon 26-Apr-19 05:12 PM
Galatea?
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JayManiac 26-Apr-19 05:13 PM
“You challenged her.” “As your partner Rose already said, they’re weak against the unrefined, against crude things. That includes attitudes.
WAIT THAT'S LEGIT!?!?!? This is hillarious
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spinagon 26-Apr-19 05:14 PM
Glamour is such a cool concept
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JayManiac 26-Apr-19 05:15 PM
It catches them off guard when you are blunt. It offends them on a fundamental level, because they thrive off of belief, real or otherwise, and they don’t like for those beliefs to be challenged.”
I can't help but imagine that Faeries are metaphorically representing a piece of humanity, but maybe that's because of a story I wrote where people severed themselves from their childhoods, and the childhoods became fairies and began reproducing into a race with the absolute inability to mature. I also had a magic system that this is better than.
“I’m not sure I get it,” I said. “They’re just playing?”
then again, there are lines like this. Playing is serious fucking business, Blake
Build up stories of an unbeatable duelist, fights for pride, fights for the idea of romance. See what ideas and adventures emerge.
The old "it works because you think it works". I love it!!!
It is very telling when a Faerie becomes a familiar.
I wondered at this. It's not that I thought faeries couldn't be familiars, it's just that I didn't think they would. I hope we get a lot more about familiars because they're quickly becoming one of my favorite parts of the story to indulge
“It would be more accurate to say I gave you the answer, and I’m waiting to see if you need me to walk you through it as well.”
getting shish-kebabbed at the end of Faerimilliar's sword is an important learning experience
“Are you reluctant because you’re scared of me?” I asked. Direct attacks, I thought. “I think you’re a coward.” “Never,” the Faerie said.
This is certainly a Faerie. By which I mean, she's ancient and powerful and childish enough to be exploited
“I think you’re all just a bunch of idiot practitioners who started deluding yourselves so you could lie despite the rules.” “Changing how you look at the world so the subjective changes?” Rose asked. “It makes an awful lot of sense.”
Sweet Scion this is really fucking funny. I wonder, also, if Blake actually believes all the things he's saying, or if he's building up more lies. I mean, I kind of buy his justification about faeries, so maybe he does too
“So sayeth the liar,” I said
Also, can you imagine Blake saying this like three chapters ago? He's playing along, he's having a bit of fun with his impending impalement
Look like no weapon forged by man can kill you, no weapon forged by man can kill you.
Belief magic is really one of my favorite kinds. It's kind of like how the hope aspect operates in homestuck
“I think,” I said, “I might take some of your power.”
Blake getting any vestige(hardy har har) of power at this point would be so vicariously gratifying
Raising my hatchet, gripping it in both hands, I met her eyes. It was too much to hope that I could see a glimmer of fear, a hint that my instincts were right. Her face was unreadable. She used one hand to brush gingerly at the tops of her breasts. “Ornias,” I said.
this is such a good fight i can't honestly believe im pausing to type this out
She’d stopped moving to strike at the thrown hatchet. I had the pipe. I tried to read her expression, to see if there was any glimmer of fear, any sign that this weapon could hurt her. Nothing. Her expression still held that faint smile that suggested she was utterly confident of her victory. She started approaching me. “Yes, Mr. Thorburn,” I could hear Ms. Lewis from behind me. “I think that’ll suffice.”
Ilovethis
She's good, she's so good at this, her confidence convinced blake, but she's scared
“Stupid, fucking, impractical sword!” I hit the weapon instead. As she leaped back, she couldn’t move it out of the doorframe. One downward swing, and the pipe struck the blade. It broke in four different places along the length. Nevermind, I thought, that it had withstood worse impacts over the course of this skirmish alone.
Well but now it's stupid, fucking, and impractical though!
I struck out at it. Not fancy, no style. If she was the stylish, fighter, I was the brute, the barbarian, the madman.
“-nament,” I finished. “Ornament.” No fucking way was I ever saying that name a seventh time.
Dude, careful! Ornament only needs you to call her name three times, you're almost there!
A broken flutter of wings, and the Other was a chickadee.
That's actually kind of sad
“Mom! Fine! Stop- stop and listen, don’t call it a favor, then. Call it a repayment of the favor you owe me for taking Jo to her six-in-the-damn-morning dance lessons for the last half a year.” I could hear her mother’s voice this time, faintly emerging from the phone, three paces away from me. “Yes mom, I know that means I can’t whine about having to take her anymore.”
I'm living for this interaction right now, and I just had to pull this out because mixing worlds is always fun. "mom can I let this guy who could send Sweeney Todd to disembowel us at any time go free?" "fine but no whining about your chores"
(edited)
“No, I don’t think that hell on earth is balanced out by six months of early morning car trips and boring waits in the gym. But maybe ask me in half an hour. Unless you want to take her today? Since you already happen to be up?”
I kind of think it is
“I’m Penelope, by the way,” she said. “My friends and family call me Penny.” I felt something wet on my lip. I thought it was maybe a snowflake, but when I rubbed it off, my finger came away crimson. Blood. Not mine. The Faerie’s. I spat it on the ground. Spit and trace amounts of blood.
You're great at making friends. Have I mentioned that?
Wow what a chapter. Fightsposition is the best kind of exposition, and belief magic is among the best kinds of magic. I'm so excited to get to the next chapter....when I have time! See ya!
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JayManiac 26-Apr-19 06:07 PM
!!!!!!!!
guys
I don't know how much I've mentioned that I'm listening along to Deep In Pact as I go, but I am, if you didn't know!
Anyways, just got to my shoutout and thought I'd share the jittery excitement with everyone!!! I love how Ruben and Elliot leverage the concepts I use in my videos to talk about metanarrative show-y-ness
Ilovethis 3
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JayManiac 28-Apr-19 05:30 PM
Okay, let's do this with two-six!
I don't know the proper etiquette for being the more ahead of two people in a liveread; should I spoiler-tag everything?
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spinagon 28-Apr-19 05:36 PM
As far as I've seen, just post straight
People liveread latest chapters in ward_livereads after all
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JayManiac 28-Apr-19 05:38 PM
Hmmm, well I'll be sure to bookend today's read with non-spoilery things regardless
just so nom can safely scroll down to the bottom of the channel unspoilered
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spinagon 28-Apr-19 05:39 PM
This beer is weird, fells like it's brewed on pinecones
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JayManiac 28-Apr-19 05:40 PM
Precisely, my friend! Here's a picture of John Constantine that takes up lots of screenspace
Right, that should do it. Let's get started!
Damages 2.6
“Am I missing anything? We’re about to leverage the supernatural stuff to try to ruin his non-supernatural life. There’s no way this doesn’t come back to bite us in the ass.”
I'm inclined to agree. it's just a matter of how many ass-bites you're willin to take, blake! And will it really be that many more than normal?
I must say I’m wondering why you returned the familiar to its master and showed some restraint, only a few minutes ago, but you are responding in this fashion to a more indirect threat.”
Well, cuz messing with someone's familiar post-defeat is kind of a dick move I guess. She's just a 13 year old girl's chickadee! That's the kind of thing an asshole would terrorize
this?
this is just framing someone for murder
Someone who's at least maybe actually guilty of that murder
“He’s fucked up,” Rose said. “Laird is. He’s crazy, and he seems to be spearheading this whole thing against us.
Now hold on, I'd be careful with that. Laird is dangerous, and probably wants you dead eventually, but before that he wants to use you and your position. I don't think he's as keen on trapping you in a grey boy loop for eternity as he could be right now, so this is still a move with weight.
Those kids, they were acting like they were following orders. Going to some dance class, they saw us, they attacked. I get the impression we changed their minds a bit.
You know what probably helped with that? Spitting faerie blood as they were introducing themselves
as soon as someone does that, I know we're just gonna be best buds for life
“But how much worse can it be than him trying to kill us?”
You do remember barbs right? I'm not saying he has something as bad as barbs, just that if he has something half as bad as barbs you shouldn't be asking that question
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spinagon 28-Apr-19 05:52 PM
Guess, that's karma for you
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JayManiac 28-Apr-19 05:52 PM
“I agree. It doesn’t feel like a certain thing,” I said. “I’m more inclined to be paranoid, I’m betting they won’t tell the full story. If only half the story gets told, then people in the Duchamp family are going to notice that the familiar is injured. They’re going to know there was a fight. That is going to reflect badly on us.”
See I was almost taken in by 'oh don't worry they'll cover for us and we're not a threat' for like two seconds
“I do. I was willing to violate the spirit of one oath to keep the letter of another. I’m glad I didn’t have to.”
I'm quite glad you can't bullshit the universe
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spinagon 28-Apr-19 05:57 PM
Going by what lawyers said, you kind of can
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JayManiac 28-Apr-19 05:57 PM
Taking it all in was easier, when I was as tired as I was.
That's convenient. But believable. I do some of my best looking when I've been up for at least twenty hours.
Cameras. I could see the focus they were devoting to an area.
interesting, as they would seem to be non-entities. Then again, I suppose if we're going spren-rules, then simply the fact that cameras are perceived as 'watching' means that they register on the spirit world as watchers with focus
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spinagon 28-Apr-19 05:59 PM
"It's not a peeping ghost, it's a spirit-camera"
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JayManiac 28-Apr-19 06:00 PM
that would depend on intentions
looks like im gonna have to interrogate your camera now
“My vision is swimming,” I said.
can it breathe alright?
“May I suggest saying a few words?” Ms. Lewis asked. “Gestures and words can both lend weight to actions. There is always something listening, after all.”
Hi!!! I'm listening! Don't worry, if you say something really cool when you drop the letter in, I'll be really impressed
"Well, Laird. Looks like your-" pauses to put on aviators "Time's up"
“I’m not up to much,” I said. “I’m feeling pretty drained. Is this usual?” “No. No it isn’t. But your situation is a unique one.” “You mean Rose.” “I mean your relationship to Rose, yes.”
is her vestige-ness drawing on Blake's power directly? I kind of assumed that there was some other source for some reason. I wonder if this will get worse as she requires more power to maintain, or get better as Blake acquires power....
“Laird declared himself our enemy when we first met, acting against us, misleading us into thinking we had safe passage, and abandoning us. His actions were in accord with the letter of the law, but not the spirit. We now tender our retaliation, in keeping with letter and spirit of law, to the best of our knowledge. Those who are witnessing us, beings of law, justice, and right, help guide this to the right hands.”
Well that's real official of you, Blake. But I dunno, I think the spirits would've preferred a really well-delivered pun instead.
oh wait that was rose
“I’m not bad when it comes to that stuff,” Rose said.
Yeah actually reading that again it was more supervillain-esque, but a good kind of supervillain-esque. Calculating, cold, all that. Blake isn't any of those things, so hearing it from him would've been weird
“Okay, speaking generally then, what advantages are there, to having a vestige partner?” To making a close copy of someone? Can you use that to get around contracts?” “You can.”
guessing that was totally keeping with the spirit of the contract
hold on, are there literal spirits of contracts/oaths/statements?
just judging by word choice and what I know about this world, probably
in that case, the 'spirit' of the contract would be what the speaker perceives it as meaning and what the recipient perceives it as meaning, along with any bystanders/witnesses. That helps clarify the magic a bit
“It gives me time to convince the latest diabolist of the Thorburn line, in ways both subtle and overt, to join us. You two are growing to like me, just a touch, because I’m one of your only allies in a sea of enemies.
We are, Ms. Lewis. I, for one, am not gonna join your cult just yet, but that doesn't mean we can't be friends.
Through the sight, it was all different. The sky was cast in red light, and I could see the crimson highlights on the clouds, as if the sun was in the midst of setting. At five or six in the morning?
I somehow forgot we were so early in the morning woah
Taking your sister to dance at five or six in the morning is well fucking comperable with apocalypse-scenarios Mrs. Duchamp
“It’s all lit up,” Rose said, again. “Why?” “Why do you think?” “You don’t get it, Rose?” I asked. “Remember what Johannes said?” “Yeah,” Rose answered me. “He said I’d find myself in good company. Maggie said it was because I was an Other, and this is some kind of amusement park for Others. But that’s not it. All of that stuff we’re looking at…” “Vestiges,” I said. “Or it’s one vestige. A big one.
Holy shit. That's what the North End is?! That means so many things! Firstly, it means there's a time-cap on Johannes' power. He can't maintain that forever. But also how the fuck is he maintaining it!?
“He took over an area,” Rose said. “He made it a demesnes… and this vestige is some kind of reflection of that demesnes.” “Or he made the vestige,” I said, “And made that vestige some kind of territory he could base his demesnes on.”
Okay, so this doesn't really explain how he got that much territory in the first place, just what he's doing with it. But also that might mean that whatever Blake claims as his demesnes could have a vestige in mirrorland that Rose could draw from, or something to that effect.
“Or,” I said. “Like other amusement parks, there’s a cost to visit. A lot of little power sources. Each one has a general influence, twisting things in a certain way when it fills in the cracks and gaps.”
So maybe it'll be around for a while. That's a scary thought. Johannes is...really creepy and evil. I mean, to torment people, even vestiges. I don't even really see much of a cognitive difference between the two.
“You do what you did today,” Ms. Lewis said. “You claim power where you can, then you make a play, using that power. Look at what you’ve accomplished already.” “An ice-hatchet and a lock of hair,” I said.
That's downplaying it! It's a start, and that means you can use it to inch along, work your way up....before it all gets inevitably taken from you and you're sent spiraling back to square negative-six
“And… I said I’d take power. I thought, taking the hair, well, if a Faerie uses glamour all over the place, where are they going to use it more than in their personal appearance?” “You thought all that through?” she asked. “No. I barely thought. I was focused more on the fact I’d just puked, and barely being able to stand. I mean, my actions make sense to me, looking back, but it wasn’t a big thing where I outlined it to myself step-by-step.” “Well, your instincts were good
See, his instincts don't 'suck', Rose. It's his decisions that are shabby. Also wondering what this means in terms of tangible power.
“Is only a lock of hair, infused with a small glamour to keep it lustrous and pretty. But it’s infused with glamour, nonetheless. In the old stories, there are tales of people given gifts, to use at certain times. Throw this hairbrush down, and it becomes a forest of trees. Throw this ribbon down, and it becomes a river. One big glamour, expending an item.”
I'm only clocking this now, but what Shakespeare would call 'Faeries' I'm pretty sure the Norse called 'Giants'. At least, that's what they're reminding me of. There's this one story where giants have Thor drink a glass of water to pass a trial. He drinks like half the thing and says he can't drink anymore, and they reveal that he was actually drinking the ocean, and that he never had a chance. That seems to clock with my understanding of Glamour, especially with this paragraph here.
“Where do I go looking, for a familiar?” I asked. “Where do you go looking for a date?” Ms. Lewis asked me. “You’re looking to make a long-term commitment. You don’t leap into it, you put yourself out there, in the sort of place that you might ordinarily like to spend your time, doing what you do best, or doing what you enjoy most. You introduce yourself to those of similar interests. Get to know them. See how compatible you are. Only after some time do you make the investment.”
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha this is great. "Find someone with similar interests" "see if you hit it off!" "don't forget each other's birthdays"
“That kid just now found a familiar at thirteen or so,” I said.
which makes that super troubling, for all the reasons she probably shouldn't get married right now.
“But you’re lost. The implement requires a more intimate knowledge of yourself. Who are you, and how do you address the rest of the world? Some people find this an easy decision to make. They know they are warriors at heart, or thinkers. For others, it’s a very nuanced choice. A small few rush into it, and they find they’ve crippled themselves.”
I love this, not only because i've been curious about it forever, but because of what it will mean whenever we meet someone in this world. I think this is at once a realization of symbolism in the metanarrative, and a really great metaphor for how people see themselves. It makes you wonder not only what your implement would be, but whether you'd be able to choose it easily. I just spent a good amount of time thinking about mine, for instance, and concluded that I don't exactly know what I am with that certainty Ms. Lewis is talking about. Which is fine- I'm seventeen for the next eleven days, I don't need to know exactly what i am yet.
but when people are forced to make these kinds of choices at a young age, or have an identity- a way of addressing the world- forced upon them...well, it's sort of sad. I've always pointed out on my reads that decisions like implement, familiar, demesnes, etc. mirror real-world decisions and im glad that's still present in the story
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JayManiac 28-Apr-19 06:44 PM
“It isn’t as grave a thing as you’re imagining, Mr. Thorburn. I’ve tried to equip you with what you need to defend yourself and defend Ms. Thorburn in the mirror there, but taking on a lifelong companion you don’t have any fondness for is a very small compromise, when your life expectancy is as short as it is.”
Oh....good.
You are not long for this world. Barring exceptional circumstance, and I do mean exceptional, you are going to be replaced by the next heir.”
Everyone he's met has told him this. Laird says he's probably dead like...a bunch of times. Maggie and Johannes don't expect him to last very long either. But hearing it from an ally still hits him. reminds me of how he'd known molly was dead, but hearing it from the cops was a different story.
“I’m not so sure those are options,” I said. Giving something that evil and fucked up a foothold in reality? Letting them prey on others? Or making deals, and risking a mistake that resulted in the very thing the Duchamp and Behaim families were worried about? Hell on earth?
Ugh, Blake is so damn heroic. I mean, maybe that's just a baseline human morality there, but that's not something everyone around here has. He's just a good person. I feel the same way about (all wbow books spoilers) Victoria, and to some extent Taylor. Like, they won't stand for the horrible bullshit that's going on around them. Sylvester, my second/third favorite character of all time, would choose the second or third option here not because he couldn't bear to give a foothold to an unholy terror, but because that wouldn't be any fun.
Pact is the reverse of that English class assignment First you find the symbolism, then you write it into the story there are a couple stories i've read like this, and they're some of the master-class works. Worm is one- the powers act as a kind of symbolism person-to-person- Homestuck is another, with the aspect system.
“Your future is tied to his. His success is your success. His failure is your failure. Work with him, find a balance, and help him, so he might help you. Now, I’ve given the two of you a great deal of information and a great many answers. Hopefully that sets you on a more productive path. I’m hoping that path is one that leads to us, when you’re stronger, more knowledgeable, and more useful to us. If it supports your family, however, I’m nearly as content with that end result. But please, don’t die a pointless death.”
This does make me like Ms. Lewis more, I think. She's obviously no hero, but she seems to be more human than a lot of humans we've met so far, certainly not as inhuman as we thought the lawyers would be
“Yes, sentiment. I’d hate to think my time here accomplished so little, helping two novices who summarily got themselves murdered. That’s a large part of the sentiment, if not the largest. I did, I admit, enjoy your company, and I enjoyed having some time to relive my earliest days as a practitioner. New to this world. That’s another part of it. But it’s mostly business, not sentiment, and I can’t do much work with dead clients. One of us partners will see you shortly, to see how far you’ve come. With my advice here in mind, I’m going to hope that you have one of the rituals complete, Mr. Thorburn.”
I wonder how aware she is of the fact that this was a pretty pointless business venture and she just wanted to have fun, human connection again. I wonder how right I am about that.
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spinagon 28-Apr-19 06:57 PM
These lawyers are pretty creepy
Former (?) humans, but working for the demons
Kind of inverse of normal diabolist
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JayManiac 28-Apr-19 06:58 PM
Lifelong companionship? I couldn’t even wrap my head around that. I was only barely learning to trust friends, and they were adapting to me in turn. Those were friends. Exceptional, rare, people. Finding a familiar, among a sea of cunning and conniving Others who wanted to murder me?
Blake's already been through some shit. There's been an entire story, entire character arcs that he's had that we don't get to see cuz they're pre-magic. It's really, such good writing. Also I like that we're recapping what each thing is for the forgetful reader.
I turned to look. A girl in a checkered scarf, sitting on the stairs by the front door. “Maggie,” Rose said.
sharkhi
I like mags
she can't be that bad, if she's a kids-book protag
Also the fact that she can't swear is a hilarious way to lampshade the fact that no teenager could ever be a realistic kids book protag
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spinagon 28-Apr-19 07:00 PM
Yes, but you can censor all kinds of stuff for kid's book
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JayManiac 28-Apr-19 07:00 PM
but that would be lying by omission!
“Oh…” she said. She made a face, like she was trying to get something out and couldn’t. A stutterer mid-stutter. “…Golly.” “Golly,” Ms. Lewis responded, deadpan.
I just giggled. Like an actual giggle.
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spinagon 28-Apr-19 07:01 PM
Lying by omission is a prime tool for the cunning pactitioner
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JayManiac 28-Apr-19 07:02 PM
“You okay, Blake?” Rose asked. “I nearly forgot about mirror-girl,” Maggie said. “Hi there, mirror girl.”
She's become a surprisingly quick fav. Im sure nothing bad will happen to her
“You have an implement? Familiar? Demesnes?” “Yes, no and no.” “Can I see?”
Is that rude? that might be rude? maggie might not give a shit, thought.
might not give a shoot, as she'd say.
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spinagon 28-Apr-19 07:04 PM
I'll show you if you show me
👀 1
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JayManiac 28-Apr-19 07:04 PM
“You want to invite her inside?” Rose asked. I felt a measure of gratitude. “Yeah. But I need you to do the wording thing.” “Do you agree to do us and our property no harm?”
Rose ===> do the wordy thing
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spinagon 28-Apr-19 07:05 PM
Rose, do the words please, I cannot into words
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JayManiac 28-Apr-19 07:05 PM
“Do you agree to do us and our property no harm?” “Heck yeah.”
I love her. Who am I talking about? Yes.
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spinagon 28-Apr-19 07:05 PM
Hope nothing happens to Rose stare
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JayManiac 28-Apr-19 07:06 PM
“You enter with no ill will in your heart?” “I’m loving the old-school wording. You guys are inviting me inside and maybe giving me a peek at something new? You’re my new best friends. No negative intentions to speak of. No cunning, hostility, tricks, traps, lies, deceptions, distractions, violence or any of that intended.”
Im loving every fucking second of these three interacting.
“I accept. Except I gotta leave in, like, twenty minutes. School.”
I like that we get a semi-run-of-the-mill-protag thrown into the mix for a lot of reasons. 1. Im a huge sucker for them. I just adore this whole subgenre of fantasy. 2. Wildbow gets to explicitly tweak and introduce nuance to that archetype 3. Those kindsa protags are exactly what Blake needs as a foil rn. his life is really dark, and Maggie's probably is too, but Maggie's retained the wit and charm you need to amuse a bunch of younger-than-story-start-vista-year-olds.
I kind of promised the dads, and they know about this magic stuff, even if they aren’t into it, and they aren’t above squeezing promises out of me
gaybulba also competent parents. I like competent parents.
And that's the chapter!
This was a cool chapter. We learned a lot, still a lot of setup, but I'm so into the story that I haven't griped about exposition since I started reading. Not that I normally do, because it's always so much fun when we do it!
I'm totally ready to come up with implements and familiars and demesneses for all the imminent pact ocs that will soon dominate my thoughts (edited)
I think part of the reason I love this subgenre so much is that I live in the forested hills above a medium-size-town, and my personal world just feels like a sylvan forest of wonder, so I could relate so heavily to finding magical fablehavens and shit.
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spinagon 28-Apr-19 07:19 PM
When I think of my implement, this is the thing that always comes to mind
Because I always carry one with me and it's so useful
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JayManiac 28-Apr-19 07:20 PM
I THOUGHT ABOUT THAT. I consider myself a bit of a jack-of-all-trades kinda person, I have a lot of different interests, so I was thinking about a multitool for a second
Not for me, though, although I also carry something similar. I think that'd be my dad's implement; he's got a similar approach to me, just more mechanical, more tool-oriented.
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spinagon 28-Apr-19 07:22 PM
Demesnes is probably what I imagined ideal house would be like, as a kid. (edited)
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JayManiac 28-Apr-19 07:22 PM
I settled on a pencil, but also I'm content to not know what my implement would be.
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spinagon 28-Apr-19 07:22 PM
Stainless steel walls with rounded corners, so you can remove trash by flamethrowering it
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JayManiac 28-Apr-19 07:22 PM
oooooo
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spinagon 28-Apr-19 07:22 PM
Then just wash the residue away with acid
Sinkholes in the floor, of course
That probably has something to do with my grandmother being a chemistry teacher
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JayManiac 28-Apr-19 07:23 PM
Oh wow, a classroom as a demesnes
never considered that, actually
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spinagon 28-Apr-19 07:24 PM
That actually would be pretty cool
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JayManiac 28-Apr-19 07:24 PM
I figured I'd just claim my treehouse
I like small but useful spaces, and also trees
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spinagon 28-Apr-19 07:24 PM
I didn't have my own space at any time growing up (edited)
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JayManiac 28-Apr-19 07:25 PM
Aw, that's too bad. But also idk if you're supposed to? Not sure. Maybe you have to be a little grown before you stake a claim
Anyhow, I gotta go, and I think this is enough non-spoilery convo that we've covered our bases. See ya!
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JayManiac 29-Apr-19 08:39 AM
wh
how
how the hell did you do that!?
I go into every liveread like "okay but this one's gonna be shorter than the last ten"
and then it isn't but I'm happy with it so i just shrug and say 'we'll get em next time', which we won't. Anyhow, your restraint impresses me.
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JayManiac 30-Apr-19 07:18 AM
Alright
are we ready
for some Damages 2.7
lemme just make sure that exists, i don't know when any of the interludes/ends of arcs are
well there's already good news
Oh yes! I'm going to be reading about deciding about important magic shit while I have to make a decision about what college to go to by may first! I feel that this may be a thematically resonant experience
Instead of making important personal life choices I decided that my implement is definitely a pencil; it symbolizes a lot of how I address reality
cuz you gotta think about the important stuff
Anyhow, I'm gonna get started, I think that's enough of a buffer. SPOILERS AHEAD OF THIS
Maggie glanced over the books. First Famulus, then Implementum, Demesnes, and then Famulus again.
Ah yes, we're with my favorite people again. this is not sarcastic. if I say it about Barbatorem or Granny Rose, then it's sarcastic
but I wouldn't, because of the karmic debt that choice would burden me with as a prospective practitioner
More stuff in the way, a more crowded space.
a good reminder of blake's feelings about all his grandma's shit in general
“Alright,” Maggie said. “You’ve got good stuff, and I admit you’ve got me hooked. You want me to be an unofficial ally, in exchange for free access to your books? I’d be down.”
sharkhi
“We didn’t propose anything like that,” I told Maggie.
or not
I mean, probably good, considering the kinds of books that may or may not exist in Rose Thorburn's evil library
did I say evil? i meant diabolist. but honestly with a name like diabolist...
how not-evil are you really planning on being?
“No bad intentions in my heart, really, but I’ve gotta get the best deal I can for me.” I sat there, glaring at her, but she only smiled.
Blake's a little too human for this
Like if it was Laird and he got got I feel like he'd just accept it. Like, if he's that sloppy he just deserves whatever that gets him, and it's not anyone's fault for trying
seems to be the practitioner mindset
“I guess it’s not so bad when everyone’s not trying to take you out of the picture,” Maggie said.
way to empathize, mags.
The cuts from the bird-skull things hadn’t yet healed, and I had sliced at my fingers once or twice to draw blood.
I somehow keep forgetting that it's been like a couple days at most since Shit Went Down. Blake and Rose are surprisingly quick on the uptake here
“Darn straight.”
Whatever horrible situation resulted in swearing not to swear, I love it
Even better that you wouldn't get a clap of thunder or anything, so it's a conscious choice she has to make.
“Supply and demand, my dear friend in the mirror. You have a demand for not being murdered. I can supply that demand.”
Blake, Econ's a required class senior year of high school you gotta catch yourself the fuck up
Also I think that's called extortion
Like, that's a demand that can normally be relied on, yes. By the mafia. Or muggers. Or other disreputable characters beginning in M, Maggie.
“Why not? Look, you want lots of a product I’m offering, called ‘not being horribly killed’. You want it badly enough that I can raise the price. You benefit, because you get lots of ‘not being horribly killed’, I benefit because, hey, I get stuff.”
The logic of this is so bafflingly clear. And hey, whatever works.
(edited)
except also no don't sell not-murdering-people that's not a good product
try like
heroin or something
that's arguably better
Couple of the Behaim kids met me at school, told me that they’re going around, talking to everyone and making sure that they weren’t giving you information that might start something none of us want to start. Most people are sworn to secrecy, at this point.
Figured. Everyone sort of ignored this to start, and Laird made it sound like the community itself was at the very least against Molly, and would cover up her murder pretty quietly.
“Didn’t really know her that well. Saw her a few times. She didn’t show at the council meetings until the last month, and I don’t think she was game. Took her longer than it took you guys to realize you can go out and maybe not die.”
I do wonder what molly accomplished or fucked up. It's this mystery that's set up at the beginning of the story and we're still just drawing it out. I mean it's easy to assume that she did nothing and eventually died, but like she was in the house for a helluva lot longer than Blake and Rose have been, and I wonder how far she got.
“She did. Yeah. She knew some tricks. Mostly defensive. Warding things off. Knew the essentials of how to deal with every one of the creepy crawlies out there. But knowing what you’re doing doesn’t make life easier when the Others scare the wits out of you, y’know? You don’t think straight, you make mistakes…”
Guess that's how far. Good to know that the just dipping your toe in method of practitioning might be a bit of a crapshoot
Not that we didn't have that pretty much confirmed by ms lewis anyhow
I have to trade for every tidbit of information I get. Even about the obvious stuff you read about in those books. I’m kind of new here, though. New to this, to everything. I’ve only been at this for half a year.
This is another reason Maggie's such a great foil for Blake, on top of "she's the protag of a kids book, he's the protag of a less-kids-book". They kind of start out at opposite ends of the field. She wasn't handed any information, but she presumably was in a lot less immediate danger, and with a lot more good karma (or at the very least not-bad-karma) in her corner. Blake and Rose were handed more information than they could possibly need, but they gotta shape up or get maimed in the woods.
They're a great contrast, and potentially a super beneficial relationship
I’d given up blood, skipped meals, missed sleep. Those things had to be fundamental to personal power.
yeah no shit. especially when the 'gist' of something is usually a deception and you can't get by on your ready-at-hand linguistic interpretations.
Also if you're trying to stay alive in general that's a pretty bad approach.
“I’m going to get something. You want anything?” I asked. “Beer?”
I'm starting to wonder if these books were a bad influence on any kids in the wormverse. Like, maybe that's why it's so fucked up.
or maybe it's the aliens that feed on fucked upness, who knows
“No games, please,” Rose’s voice came from the living room. “If you don’t want to say, you don’t have to say, but I’m on the same page with Blake about being horribly fed up with this doubletalk.” Maggie didn’t respond to that.
Guys....I have some real bad news for you if you're only this far and already fed up.
Searching the kitchen for foodstuffs, I found some bread in the freezer. A little freezer burned, and showing signs of what might be mold.
Blake probably has experience with making every crumb count, and they did just get foiled at shopping but...jegus.
The second big reason that the goblins stopped picking on humanity was that we went and got ourselves modern plumbing.
Technological innovations mess with Others? I mean, it makes sense, and we're also learning a little more about magic here, but there are so many implications. I imagine each change the world encounters gives some Others a foothold and undermines some Other Others.
“Like Jacob’s Bell,” I could hear Rose. “Yep. Among other places. Redneck scumholes are sort of scumholes because goblins hang around there, you know? The little twits have their fun making paint peel prematurely, stealing a little money here or there, pulling stuff apart, making it so cars break down, and so on and so on.
This is really a Story World. It works so well to literalize the things that stories emphasize.
People who wind up in slums and scumholes find it just a little bit harder to get out, when things refuse to pick up and run smoothly.”
And since Goblins are symbolic of hatred and militarism and general Dickery, that means that this story is using this as a direct metaphor/parallel/diagnostic of society
“Once you fall far enough through the cracks, you start losing the protections most of humanity enjoys. The kid that locks himself in his room and never comes out, the antisocial couple, the poor schmo who loses his house and business.
So my philosophy teacher and I were having this discussion about an objective truth, truth by consensus as reflective of power structures, and the impossibility of a 'real' in a phenomenological viewpoint, and I think that relates pretty heavily to how magic works in the world.
Magic is a subtle thing for humanity at large because they don't believe in it, and all that disbelief and not-seeing of magic is agreed upon by society
if you isolate yourself with no other viewpoint to reinforce your own and clarify that demons aren't trying to get you, then demons can totally come and get you
I think it relates a lot to Ward
specifically, the theme of "death" in Ward. Shards view death as disconnection from the network of kind, which is just a fascinating definition, because it emphasizes the importance of things like support structures and friendship (when applied to humans, at least). Here, that isolation from society is an equally troubling prospect, but for slightly different reasons.
Goblin SOP. Standard operating protocol. Making everyone’s bad days a little worse”
I'm just gonna supplement this with a Worm quote
the metanarrative is strong with this one
A memory crossed my mind. Being woken from my sleep by a beating. The mocking laughter. Never seeing their faces, because I had to cover my head, because I had blood in my eyes. One of them had called it off. Let me limp away, crawl away when the limping proved too difficult.
See you feel so bad for blake, not only because of what he's been through but because of what he's going through. He already had his journey. He came out okay, he came out with a plan to get better. But Nope! Here comes hell, because the universe hates you. Literally hates you. And your entire family.
When I remembered the mix of heights and body types of the ones with the BB guns, just one half-step outside the bounds of what one would expect from a typical crowd of people, I’d told myself the same.
does the karmic debt affect you even if you aren't the custodian? Probably, right? I like how this has the literal interpretation of it being a distortion of evil, and the narrative interpretation of goblins.
I’ve become something of a goblin queen.” “A what?” I asked. “Someone works with spirits almost exclusively? Shaman. Work with time, you’re a chronomancer. Fire? Pyromancer. The future? Augur, predictomancer, something like that. Work with demons, you’re a diabolist. Work with goblins? Goblin queen.”
Maggie you're a great Goblin Queen. I also like the breakdown here, and the potential for what im gonna refer to as multiclassing, sort of what laird seems to do.
Also, when this is over ive got an appointment, gonna have my palm read by a predictomancer.
You wanted to know where I come from? I came from a place that was falling through the cracks. And just like goblins might go after someone who’s slipped through civilization’s secure embrace, they’ll go after a location. And it was bad. Bad enough that not all of us made it out.”
I really want to read the maggie holt books now
I mean, not as much as I want to read this book that im reading right now
but I like really really wanna tho
“And even though goblins did this sort of thing to you, you’ll keep their company? Work with them?” I asked. My food sat on my plate, untouched. I wasn’t that hungry anymore. “Seal them, bind them, enslave them,” Maggie said. “You gotta own the past, don’t you? Own the bad parts as well as the good. Let it make you stronger.”
I don't know where I am with this. the Jesus method is one thing, take what didn't kill you (for long) and make it the whole symbol of your religion, but there's also: if its bad an it hurt u maybe thats cuz its bad an u shouldnt friggin use it.
“I dunno why,” Maggie said, “But it’s kind of eerie seeing you two disagreeing. I thought somehow that mirror girl was some sort of subservient vestige thing, but she’s got a real personality?”
I'm sure Rose was just dying to be reminded that she maybe barely qualifies as a person by her own standards. Also makes me wonder if there are different levels of vestiges, or if maybe Maggie just hasn't had as much experience with vestiges. Wouldn't seem like you'd need a ton of experience to clock them as more than just yes men.
I really wasn’t up to negotiating. Rose, however, jumped into it,
Im hoping blake sees this as a good thing, that they're covering for each other's weaknesses, and not that...she's making overtures without him or something dumb. He's probably thinking something dumb
I've been meaning to talk about this for a while actually
and since no one's here to interrupt me let's DO IT
Blake doesn't seem like a first person protag to me
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Seregraug 30-Apr-19 08:30 AM
Interrupt
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JayManiac 30-Apr-19 08:30 AM
Like, I know he is but I dunno how much it shows. Like, I always imagine him more as a third-person perspective. Maybe that's cuz I'm used to certain devastating other :we don't have any vicky emojis what the fuck: protagonists in other fic- fuck
foiled again
But like, maybe he's got a lot less of an internal judgement going on than vicky, sy, and even taylor?
I dunno what causes me to say that, but when I remember certain parts of the story I'm imagining them as saying stuff like "Blake did this and then he did that and then he did that" rather than a more active, assertive, I did this
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Seregraug 30-Apr-19 08:32 AM
I want to respond, but I'm somewhat hampered by not remembering how much you know yet by arc 2.
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JayManiac 30-Apr-19 08:33 AM
I did a retroactive search for the words 2.6 to make sure i was about to read the right chapter, and realized that you'd done a liveread once upon a time!
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Seregraug 30-Apr-19 08:33 AM
Regarding the reactiveness of Blake: Yes, he definitely starts out in the worst position of any WB protagonist.
Yeah, I liveread all of Pact in this channel.
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JayManiac 30-Apr-19 08:33 AM
I'll check it out if I live long enough to finish mine!
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Seregraug 30-Apr-19 08:34 AM
It took me like 1-2 months, but I think you're writing a lot more in depth than I was. (edited)
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JayManiac 30-Apr-19 08:35 AM
I didn't plan for it to happen that way it just kind of has and I love it too much to force myself to change the style 🤷
plus Im gonna get to read my read
maybe ill liveread my re- no that's really stupid
Yes, he definitely starts out in the worst position of any WB protagonist.
Good way of putting it. Yeah, maybe it's just that he hasn't had much of a chance to do yet. I mean, he kind of starts with the most active first line, which is interesting.
It's the most full of opinion
and passion
anyhow, back to the chapter
“I was kind of hoping we could be friendly-ish,” Maggie said. “Give and take, in terms of enjoyment of one another’s company.”
I was kind of hoping that too. I feel like Blake and Rose could use a friend
I also feel like friendship between practitioners is a lot more economized than a lot of my friendships, and that makes me sad. I need people to confide in and hash out my thoughts with, people I trust on a level that's not total absolute trust you with my soul* trust, but not *I worry you're going to betray me trust. Being in a world where you have to be that tongue and cheek with everything, where you have to be that transactional because your life depends on it, sucks. And I know Blake probably feels the same way as me, he seems like he wants friends he can be close with.
But also maybe come back when he's not about to pass out from blood loss/fighting a fairy.
“Let’s not count on friendship,” Rose said. “Take the friendship out of the equation, and we’re the ones with the short end of the stick. Having someone show up unexpectedly, occupying our time when we could be focusing on something else…”
😦
“We need allies, Rose,” I said.
Yeah, I feel like Blake's more on board with friendship just as a general concept than Rose is for whatever reason
Probably that character arc we didn't get to see
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Maggie nodded. “It does. So. You get someone accepting your deal. Nonaggression from me. You get a little something any time I get your book.” “Or visit,” Rose cut in. Maggie made a face. “You don’t like me very much, do you?” “I like you fine,” Rose said, in what were maybe the least friendly sounding words I’d heard out of her mouth.
Rose is friggin cold with this kind of thing wow. I'm normally more on her side, but not today. Maybe it's cuz I like Maggie. Or friendship. Or not economizing human relationships
and I do get it, by the way. Rose likes staying alive, and it's not like I can blame her, but I don't know if I'd feel good about compromising a value like that over something like not-dying-a-horrible-death. Okay I probably would, but let me dream.
“You swear?” Rose glanced at me. I nodded. “I so swear that we have no intention of summoning anything of the nature you’re talking about,” Rose said.
I notice that doesn't say they'll never do it, just that they don't feel like it at the moment. Just noticing.
Maggie groaned, flopping back in her chair. “Yeah. Except it never works out that smoothly.” “I don’t think anything is going to change in the next day or two,” Rose said.
And I think it can't get any worse, while we're at it.
“Animosity?” I asked. “Readily?” “I’ve been reading too many of these old books,” Rose said. “I don’t want to be animostic,” Maggie said.
I've gotten into the habit of making up words because it amuses and annoys my philosophy teacher and english teachers to no end, and I just literally giggle to myself whenever Maggie does it. It's a little quirk to her character that just works really well for me.
also entertaining is the quirk to rose's character, that she doth forever speak in ancient and archaic bullshit
Maggie switched to a more sarcastic tone. “Oh, yeah, How often does that work? Tell someone to calm down and they chill out?” “I don’t know,” Rose said. “But I think, given that this is Blake’s house, and he can ask you to leave at any time, and we do want to work with you, we’ll all be happier if this conversation doesn’t escalate into something ugly.” Maggie deflated a little. “Crumbs.”
Blake isn't great at friendship when he's suffered a couple injuries and a near mortal case of waking-up-at-four-in-the-morning, but Rose is decidedly worse.
I also sympathize a lot with Maggie here
“One tidbit I was able to pick up these past few months was about Eastern styles. India, some of Japan. See, they aren’t big on familiars and implements and demesnes. Well, the Western-influenced ones are. But they prefer to remain hands off, delineate pretty severely. Their preference is to contain, bind, leash.”
I was wondering about this, especially since I know Wildbow's general awesomeness with representing a cross-cultural use of magic in his stories (stuff like hot/cold capes). It makes sense that the things we've just been assuming as The Practitioner's Only Way are really just western conceptualizations of the possibilities here
(because that's what we do in our lives all the fuckin time)
and by the way his characters talk about that stuff you can tell he's researched this or he has some other understanding of how these broad categorizations generally work.
“That right there is an ofuda. Your metaphorical dog in a cage, and it’s not a big dog, but it’s still a dog. It barks, it bites.” “A goblin.” “A little bundle of mean. He’ll come out gnashing and snarling, so point him away from you and at whoever you want to hurt.”
And Blake and Rose get another little tidbit, another token to scrape by with. It's almost depressing how exciting it is whenever they come across the barest iota of power.
like we don't think of Maggie as powerful, but she would absolutely whoop the Thorburns in a fight
I picked it up. “Amassing a bit of a collection of trinkets today. Hatchet with a ghost inside, a lock of a faerie’s hair, now this.”
See, you're scraping by! Moving up in the world! Isn't it exciting?
God damn, I needed to interact with a familiar face so badly right now. Heck, even an unfamiliar face… it would make a world of difference to ground me, to give me a solid injection of reality and sanity.
I've been wondering for a little bit now whether Blake's irl friends will ever get dragged into this mess
I really really really want to see how he interacts with people he's familiar with, likes, and has a non-magical history with
we got a little with paige, a little with joel, both before he knew most of what he knows now about magic
“Gotcha,” Rose said. To Maggie, she said, “That sets a bad precedent. You’ll be more inclined to hold details back just so you can sell them to us.”
Rose, you and maggie are both at fault for economizing this and making it really icky. Once something is part of the market you're not working towards the just or the polis anymore, you're working in self interest and it benefits you to cripple those around you and sell them your medicine. The Invisible Hand can stick itself in a meat grinder. I'm gonna write an essay on Practitioners and how they reflect the rampant economization of the human subject when this is all over.
I went, then peered through the window. A moment later, I opened the door. It was Laird, in plainclothes.
This should be good
He sighed. The lines in his face seemed a little deeper. A tell? Was he hiding anger or other sadness? Or was he not a morning person?
I consider myself a morning person, but I agree that being accused of fucking murder at 7 am would be a bit much. I dunno, I like to work myself into being framed for murder, not just jump right in you know?
“I’m disappointed,” he said. “You sound like my dad used to, when you say that.”
I can hear the nostalgia and happy childhood memories in his narration
wait shit I forgot sarcasm's illegal
dammit i did it again
let's be honest here I wouldn't last a week as a practitioner
and that
is the gospel truth
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JayManiac 30-Apr-19 09:12 AM
Which is even more depressing. To not know what you were missing? The joys of jovial jests that just happen to also be statements of untruth?
“That’s called shaking the hand you’re offering in friendship, while knowing your other hand is balled up into a fist and you can’t wait to use it to punch me in the balls.” “Very colorful, Mr. Thorburn. I’m not, I should stress, in a joking mood.” “Oh?” I asked. “Did I inconvenience you?”
I, however, am giggling the skin off my bones. I mean just look at them! Laird is such a good antagonist
“Action?” I asked. The super-apathetic no-shit-giving attitude was still going strong. “You put yourself in an awkward position, setting the bar at ‘killing me’ with our first meeting. Now you’ve got to top that, which means jumping straight to fates worse than death. But where do you go after that? I mean, it’s hard enough threatening fates worse than death without sounding like a deranged fuckwit.” “You’re not taking this seriously.” “I’m tired,” I said. “I’m not talking tired in the sense that I’m exhausted because I’m fighting for my life. I’m tired in the sense that I want to go take a nap. I woke up early to deliver that letter, and I spent some power along the way.”
And blake is such a sassy bitch here, I love it. I totally used to get like this, going to full: "I don't care how pissed off you are so I'm doing this blatantly to annoy you now"
before I realized I was being an asshole
then again
he makes a compelling argument: if they're already trying to kill you who's really the asshole
“Well,” he said. “Far be it from me to keep you from your nap.”
See and he's doing it too!
I’m rather confident you’ll regret getting on my bad side.” And here we went. “That’s a shame,” I said.
I know that blake and rose thought this through and all, but I'm starting to wonder if they thought this through.
He took that in, taking his time with it, as he might digest a very profound statement. His eyes found mine. “Mr. Thorburn.” “Can we wrap this up? Unless your big plot to remove me from this world involves running up my heating bill.”
Petty Blake is best Blake
“Maggie Holt is the one who orchestrated the attack on your cousin, Molly Walker. She had command of several goblins and ordered them to strike her and leave her alive. She did it at our behest, in exchange for small favors, gifts of power and offers of knowledge.”
Well that...is sort of antithetical to friendship. Oh man. This is...unexpected, to say the least. Fuck.
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Seregraug 30-Apr-19 09:21 AM
This is one of my favorite twists in Pact.
same 1
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JayManiac 30-Apr-19 09:22 AM
I...am still reeling honestly
“Take it, or I’m going to free it. Hospitality be damned.” She hesitated, and then she seemed to realize I’d just made a statement. No maybes, no ‘I thinks’, no hedging. I was going to follow through. She took the paper.
I'd argue that this is a bad idea, but I really just totally get it
“I promised I’d go, I didn’t promise I’d be there the whole day. I can stay, we can talk this over, hammer it out. I don’t dislike you. I meant it when I said I was entering with no ill will.” “No shame?” I asked. “No guilt?” “Not then,” she said. “Some now, that I’ve gotten to know you.”
I can't help but see all the...practitionerness. It's this blend of pleasantries, niceties, playful banter, and inhuman coldness. It's a really heartbreaking and insidious part of the story.
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Seregraug 30-Apr-19 09:27 AM
I had forgotten Maggie didn't feel any guilt for killing Molly.
At least not at the moment.
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JayManiac 30-Apr-19 09:28 AM
“Doesn’t count, or we’d be lying every passing second. Blake, she wasn’t even a person to me. They talked her up, big bad diabolist who didn’t know what she was doing. I only really talked to her after I ordered the attack, saw how she wasn’t doing anything except defending herself, and I realized what I’d done. I tried to call it off, but it doesn’t work that way.”
It certainly doesn't excuse Molly's actions or anything, but this just sort of clarifies what this does to people, the reductiveness of it, the alienation inherent in killing someone you don't even know.
Maggie chose that moment to reach out, and I grabbed her hand, crushing it inside mine, hard enough to hurt her. I could see her reaction run through her entire body. Pain, fear. “I’m sorry,” she said, despite whatever else she was experiencing. “That moment was when I decided I was done working with these guys. I sorta kinda wanted to be your ally, make it up to your family, somehow.”
It's a little late to be sorry, Maggie. But that said, Blake is kind of begetting violence here, choosing to continue a cycle of practitionerism because he doesn't have the energy for anything else. Maggie's trying to make a more human choice, and Blake is maybe rejecting it for his own humanity. It's just heartbreaking.
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Seregraug 30-Apr-19 09:32 AM
Okay, that's why I remembered it differently. She qualifies that right after.
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JayManiac 30-Apr-19 09:33 AM
“Thank you for visiting, Maggie,” I said. “I appreciated your company, even if I don’t, right this second. I appreciate the information you shared, and the gift you offered.” “I want to make this better,” she said, quiet. “I’d really like a chance. If not now, then later.”
HHhhhhhHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhpsyduck
it's just unwinnable here, and why is this book doing this to me so soon?
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🔪 1
💔 1
first, I’d like you to look me in the eye and tell me that your visit here was more about making genuine amends than getting your hands on some more knowledge or power.” She met me in the eye, then looked down. “Can I say it was fifty-fiftyish? That that’s an awful lot of wanting to make amends, when you’re as power hungry an idiot as I am?”
The self deprecation here, I can't it's too much. She's just become so...cold. Not as much as Laird or anything, but still. It's worrying. And if Blake's entry into magic is a metaphor for adult life/making these kinds of life decisions, then what is this book saying about what our society turns us into? Maybe I'm bringing a few too many of the issues I spend my days thinking about to this book, but hey maybe that's the point of all this liveread shit. I'm not gonna pull out everything remotely parsable as gay, that's only a tertiary focus of mine. This, this a part of is what I'll spend some of my time on, while I have it.
“You two have a good day,” I said, monotone. “You too,” Laird said, smiling just a bit. I slammed the door.
Lord of Ba Sing Se, Laird is such a dick. I'm also gonna point out whenever Laird is a dick.
this is not an extremely original role to fulfill, apparently.
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spinagon 30-Apr-19 09:41 AM
So, always
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JayManiac 30-Apr-19 09:42 AM
Anyhow! that's the chapter! best chapter of the book so far! I was not entirely comfortable with all those feelings I had there!
I also think that was probably the best liveread i've done so far, although I don't know for sure.
I definitely drilled down to a couple of my personal themes I'm pulling out as I'm reading, which has some sort of relationship with the themes the book has, and some sort of relationship to the subjectivity I'm working from the perspective of.
(i'm gonna go to bed like I thought I was gonna 45 minutes ago)
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JayManiac 30-Apr-19 05:00 PM
Why thank you! If only it were the RIGHT GOD DAMM CHAPTER
J you utter fool this was not a foolproof method
This is my way of saying i missed 2.x because of my hesitation to use the darn table of contents
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JayManiac 30-Apr-19 05:12 PM
SO! let's get into 2.x
Famulus: The Familiar Chapter One: Preface and Introduction
So these 'pages' are doin the thing of a character actually reading them in the story world as we're reading them rn.
Also this is pretty much just to hand us the information, but I don't care as much as I would in another book
Like, the Monstress series has these exposition pages at the end of each book detailing the history of the magic and the world, and I just don't care (edited)
but here, these things are enough of a mystery to me, and the world is compelling enough that I'm really gonna sit here and read this for two hours
They exchanged correspondence, to find out what had been taught and why, and opened discussions on how things might be done better.
Like this for example, just the history of magic and magical culture as parallel to our own. I made a joke as we were visiting the library in arc one that I just wanted to sit down and read all the books, but we're actually just gonna sit down and read some of the books, and that's awesome! Wish come true as far as i'm concerned!
I didn't even have to summon an ifrit
The word familiar comes from the Latin famulus, meaning servant. It came to refer to household and family, and over time, transitioning to the French familier, it came to mean ‘intimate, on a family footing’. In all of these meanings, description, ritual and word are linked. The familiar becomes family, the bond is intimate, and there is an implication of servitude.
My philosophy teacher that I talk about all the time would love this. His entire 'thing' is knowing every etymology to every word ever, and constantly pulling them out in random conversation to illustrate his point
In chapter four, we look at the social contexts and environment. Differences in familiars by region, microsocial factors, macrosocial factors, and cultural factors. Both the practitioner-familiar relationship to the outside world and the outside world’s relationship to the practitioner-familiar relationship will be discussed.
I wanna read all these five chapters, and barring that possibility I really wanna read chapter four
That's one of the most interesting things to me, as I said last chapter
and by last chapter I, of course, mean next chapter
fine
Case Study for Chapter Two: Annabelle and Tromos, Steed of Enyo. The penthouse apartment is dark and quiet.
Look I was game to just read blatant exposition for two hours but if we're getting a story along with it, well boy howdy im already on board!
case studies was a clever gateway to that
Annabelle has made no such concessions, and everything in the space matches, with a motif of wrought iron, crisp linen and very solid oak fixtures for the furniture. Chains are visible, hanging from the bedframe, and there are various instruments of war mounted on racks and walls, both typical spears and swords, shields, and the less typical meteor hammer, Eastern weapons and a wicked mancatcher that sits just above the chair she has chosen to sit in for our interview. Viewed under the Sight, every one of these objects vibrate with power.
Metal as fuck. This is really efficient characterization. I wonder when this happens?
As she sits in her chair, Tromos lies under her feet, his head just under one of Annabelle’s bare feet, which moves periodically to stroke him. The familiar wears the guise of a great black battle-scarred tibetan mastiff, with three different spiked collars ringing its neck.
Didn't anyone ever tell you not to choose a dog or a rat as your familiar? No I'm not arguing with you Mrs. Anabelle please don't use any medieval weaponry on me
Anabelle (A): Your offering was adequate.
Ashley (A)
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agenderGorgon 30-Apr-19 05:28 PM
Monstress?
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JayManiac 30-Apr-19 05:28 PM
comic book. Pretty good, actually, but it has a few expositional flaws
S: I’m glad. Shall we start with the basics? Who are you? Do you have any focus to your craft? A: I am Lord of this city. Conventional wisdom calls me a Valkyrie.
Aren't...aren't Valkyrie's dicks tho? did we learn that a couple chapters ago?
also she says conventional wisdom, as if she doesn't quite agree with classifications like that. I mean Rose doesn't, for good reason.
S: How did you meet? A: An enemy of mine sent him against me, to deny me sleep and weaken my position before negotiations
Hahahahahahaha. This is gold. "how'd you meet your wife?" "Well this one time- and you're gonna think this is fun- she was sent to blackmail me!*
That third victory matters more than the first two put together. S: In some areas. It has power because we give it power.
Yeah, but so does everything ya cynic
try using a mexican peso in china, see how that flies
She has something of the poise of the gods I used to serve. She was ruthless in dealing with her enemies, which is good. When she showed that she could become Lord by her own merit, I accepted the deal.
Oh yeah, we glossed over the fact that she's a Lord damned Lord. Which is weird, since she sort of just seems like a regular old practitioner? Is Lord an elected position? I mean they act as practitioner governments, kind of, and hold some power over Others...I'm sure I'll understand someday
A: I take power from Tromos. He shores up my weaknesses, as I’m focused on physical applications. Objects I can hold. His power lies in emotion, in dreams, and he is a divine being. When I need strength against something I can’t chain down or impale with a spear, I borrow power from my familiar. He herds the spirits so I might bind them into objects. Through my connection to him, everything I do and touch conveys a trace of fear to others.
A cool relationship, one of dual specialization and thus versatile capabilities. Makes me even curiouser to see Blake enact this ritual. Will he choose a familiar in line with his specialty, or one that covers the opposite bases of his specialty?
I can see the appeal either way.
T: Were I to ask you if you could take four years without having to eat, if you did not feel like it? Four years where you did not suffer any if you did not sleep? That is what this is to me. I am anchored in this world. So long as I am bound to her, I will not degrade, I will not hunger. Any power I take can make me stronger, and so long as she does not fritter it away, which she will not, I will be in a better place than I was before.
That's some cool benefits, although I suspect the deal is different from familiar to familiar. Wonder what Chickadee gets out of her stituation?
S: She would be subordinate to you, then, Tromos? A passenger you carry with you through the world of dreams? A: As much as Tromos is subordinate to me now, by which I mean not at all, not in practice.
And you get a cool afterlife once you're done!
Okay, so we only got the Case Study to the chapter. Figures. I think it elucidated enough while still keeping me curious, which means it did the same for Maggie.
Chapter Five: Symbol of Office
Alright, this should be interesting. No prelude or anything this time!
This chapter, like previous chapters, has a dual purpose. The first is on a new subject: the effects on personal presentation and the status afforded by one’s implement.
So the important part for Blake, probably
Second, by examining the role of the implement on a symbolic, social level, we can review the major elements of the implement covered already in this text and view these things in another light.
Good! Cuz I didn't read any of that shit!
I wonder how much Wildbow thinks about the author as a character with flaws, writing style, etc when he's writing these expositional pages
my guess would be: a lot.
The Stone is, of course, not an implement anyone would choose
"This is my implement. His name is rocko and we're gonna kick ur fuckin ass"
Fitting, perhaps, given the stone’s already stated nature as the ‘zero’ of implements.
the declarative is the symbolism of having an item associated with someone
so is the authoritative, but from Other's perspectives
also interesting that the book (pact) capitalizes Others
and the book, Implementum doesn't
The remainder of the implements, Declarative, Authoritative and Socio-Cultural:
Woah wait we're actually gonna get all twenty one? Not the method I expected, but certainly one I'm on board with
Authoritative – The Wand is short and readily hidden. It is adroit, easily flourished, stylish and not without some small versatility. It lends itself to creativity and movement, but is phallic and direct in demeanor, implying conviction and a more aggressive nature when brandished in seriousness.
I just love the depth that this person takes in the analysis, it reads so...academic
Socio-Cultural – The Wand is predominantly used in London, with a surveyed sixty-three percent of practitioners carrying wands there.
In the practitioner schools in the United Kingdom, wands are provided to the students by default, for their convenience, easy portability, and a prevailing sentiment that the wand is the strongest implement of choice for practitioner dealings against hostile practitioners.
Okay firstly, this is literally a harry potter reference right? i'm not just pulling that out of my ass we're really going there. Secondly, outside of it being a blatant harry potter reference, there are fucking practitioner schools!? I want a book just about that! It'd probably be really cutthroat and horrible! Thirdly, if it's the strongest implement against hostile practitioners....I mean, I know some people who might be dealing with those in the near future
⚡ 1
The Talisman
Ah, yes. Clerics.
Talismans used to be worn by sects in what would become Ireland, but they have fallen out of favor, given their naturally passive nature.
cuz we wouldn't want to be too passive, or as conventional practitioner wisdom would call it "too much of a fuckin bitch, yo"
as some others would call it, "peaceful, non confrontational, subtle"
The focus of the scepter is not necessarily on striking, nor does it flourish so well as the wand. The scepter is focused, instead, on presentation.
Am I gonna pull a pop culture ref for every single one of these?
yes, yes I am
Socio-cultural. In the United States and England, the Sword as an implement has an unfortunate tendency to come about when young men decide what their implement will be. At this time in their lives, their hormones are at the highest point and their ‘maleness’ is most pronounced. Nearly nine percent of male practitioners under the age of eighteen pick the sword, only to find it serves less of a purpose as they reach adulthood.
I can see people at large being dumb enough to do this for no reason. le sigh
The Chalice
now that we're here, it's a good time to mention that there should absolutely be a Pact Tarot if there isn't already.
The chalice is not the province of women alone any more than the sword belongs to men alone, but a man wielding a chalice might be viewed in a light very similar to a woman holding a sword, especially by the more traditional.
I once shadowed a college class on 'gender in east asian religion', and now I want 'gender in western practitionerism'
Take time to consider how the other fifteen iconic implements might be viewed and exercised in a declarative, authoritative or socio-cultural light: Tome, Ring, Chakram, Plate, Staff, Coin, Emblem, Chain, Skull, Knife, Standard, Lens, Mask, Lantern, Trumpet, and Coffer.
Guys should I do it? I mean it'd be fun if we want to explore it, but also I could see it being a colossal waste of time
guys, trumpets. C'mon now
for science
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Wildbow 30-Apr-19 06:08 PM
Pretty heavy task
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JayManiac 30-Apr-19 06:08 PM
It'd be so much fun
Alright, alright, we'll see about it once I finish the chapter, at least
Chapter Nine: First Steps in one’s Place of Power
I notice we're jumping later and later into the books as we get used to the ideas
Fionna is one of the Draoidh, a priestess, alone.
the whaidh now?
, a drinking vessel crafted of her brother’s freely given skull as her implement,
fuckit, I don't want to know. I really just don't
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Wildbow 30-Apr-19 06:11 PM
Oh, this one's fun
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JayManiac 30-Apr-19 06:12 PM
Fionna forces herself to step away from the demesne for a time, to better ensure her perspective is fresh and unsullied by recent events. She sees to the small debts she can in the practitioner community, works at her day job as a nurse in obstetrics, and takes the time to meet with friends she has neglected while seeing to her side project.
oh yeah she has an apartment, she has a friend group, she's just an up and coming practitioner in the big world and she sometimes drinks out of her brother's skull!!!
Remember that the demesne is a reflection and an extension of the self. The practitioner should remind themselves of who they are and reacquaint themselves with forgotten interests, hobbies, connections, and matters of taste and style.
we've seen familiars and implements yet, but not a demesne, unless you count the glimpse we got of Johannas'
it might be the most elusive of them
to me, the reader, that is
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profRascal 30-Apr-19 06:15 PM
Do I see someone suggesting Monstress isn't perfect angery
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JayManiac 30-Apr-19 06:15 PM
Uuhhhhhhhhh
throws my arm at you and absconds
Fionna is more or less at ease, thanks in large part to the time she took to herself. She focuses on the details. She sees how the very air in her demesne cooperates. It tastes cleaner, it does not bar her movement, but buoys her. The ground accommodates her footfalls. She tries to manipulate the environment, by combinations of touch, word, and will, and finds it easy.
woah, like your own personal Happyland! This is actually pretty cool, and im excited to see what Blake does with his space. After he uses his newfound power to move all his grandma's shit out the way, that is
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profRascal 30-Apr-19 06:16 PM
No it def does have flaws
Still a top 2 ongoing imo
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JayManiac 30-Apr-19 06:17 PM
I really do like it, but there are some parts it could've handled better. I'm still reading it, so that says something
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profRascal 30-Apr-19 06:17 PM
Yep p much
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JayManiac 30-Apr-19 06:18 PM
Fionna makes wall and floor into flesh, the place of power becoming a womb of sorts. All things in her place of power are moist, and the ticking of a clock becomes the dull, distant thud of a heart. Veins on every surface throb in time with the sound.
AAAAAAHHHAAHHAHAH I SHOULD'VE BEEN SUSPICIOUS WHEN WILDBOW SAID IT WAS FUN! WE HAVE DIFFERENT DEFINITIONS OF FUN
There are no wrong answers with how one customizes their place of power,
Aren't there?
The draoidh briefly laments the mess caused by the blood in her demesne, pools of sanguine humor and warm trickles from the roof.
Mmm mm. Nope. Uh Uh. Check, please.
With testing, she finds she can alter the other rules of her surroundings. Even a small demesne can be larger inside than it was on the outside. Laws of gravity, physics, rules of magic and more can be bent or broken entirely.
Like...laws of magical conservation of energy? Laws of 'vestiges are harder and harder to maintain?" i'm still holdin out hope. But even if that hope is misplaced, maybe Blake can jump around his demesne like it's the moon. that could be relaxing.
When the practitioner’s demise coincides with that of their place of power, the end result is typically a ghost, and/or a location saturated with power.
I bet these are super useful for budding practitioners, if they haven't been gobbled up yet
When Fionna leaves her domain, she finds more time than expected has passed.
Hot take: Narnia is Aslan's demesne.
As she’s made her place her own, Fionna finds that she can use power more readily in the area. She notes, in a matter of fact way, that simply holding a demesne generates good karma, bettering her position in the world so long as she tends to the space.
Blake could use a bit of that, yeah. I mean, a bit less of not-that.
Fionna finds that as she draws and manipulates power in and around the demesne, its power extends into the real world and vice versa. Spirits in alignment with her draw like spirits with them, and on a more complicated level, intelligent beings who visit her demesne and find it to their liking may contact others. Word of mouth spreads, for lack of a better term.
again with the lack of vending machine magic, it's always such a treat. Like you'd get from your buddy oscar down on el camino kinda treat, not at the library with their vending machine that doesn't do shit but eat five dollar bills.
also, imagining this convo: "hey yeah have you checked out fiona's place yet? Dude it's sick there's like blood everywhere, shit drippin from the ceiling, it's dope!"
Famulus: The Familiar Case Study for Chapter Two: Lacey and Vic.
and we're back? I wonder what we have to gain by returning to familiars, except that this is what maggie finds interesting and thus says something about her
R: You’re the practitioner. Vic is the Familiar?
Well we know certain familiars can take human-ish forms, but it's still a little jarring to see it here. Does he have an animal form?
Grew up in the next town over. Went to school, had friends. I guess the only thing that set me apart was that my mom and dad knew some of this magic stuff. They taught me it, told me they wanted me to gain an edge.
There are so many different ways someone can get dragged into the world of Practitioners, and some people probably aren't the better for it. Arguably no one is the better for it.
Cheated every step of the way, using the tricks I’d been taught, but yeah. Someone made a problem for me, I’d put them down hard. Ended up on top of the heap.
Power corrupts. Especially in the hands of high schoolers. I say this as a high schooler.
R: You’re getting ahead of me. Can I confirm? You’re human? V: Am I? I was.
Ah shit. This is not where I thought this was going at all.
The line between human and Other has always been fuzzy but gosh diddley damn, this is a little bit fucked up
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spinagon 30-Apr-19 06:34 PM
(Ward)Nursery would love Fionna's place
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JayManiac 30-Apr-19 06:35 PM
I thought the same thing. Also reminded me of several parts of Twig.
What Shaker level does one have in their demesnes, I wonder?
V: It’s an old story, isn’t it? Stupid kid starts using performance enhancers, only it goes bad. Side effects take over. Except they weren’t drugs. Not steroids or any of that. Lacey had another way. Warpaint, a few words. Some of the other guys on the team got into it. L: My mom always called it riding. R: Possession.
At this point just use the fuckin steroids. you'll be better off.
V: We’re not sure what happened. The stars aligned wrong, or it was a full moon, or whatever it was got a foothold somewhere along the way. I put on the war paint and I wasn’t me anymore. I came to, and I was violently ill, soaked in blood. Someone else’s.
This is pretty standard horror movie stuff. I love that this book dips into so many other genres and archetypes of urban fantasy we've seen before, including the riverdale, jennifer's body type
id like to clarify that I've never watched either of those because horror gives me the heebiejeebies
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spinagon 30-Apr-19 06:38 PM
Blood for the blood God
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JayManiac 30-Apr-19 06:39 PM
While I was out of it, I’d gone after him. Ate my fill of him, threw up, ate more, woke up while throwing up.
fine
There was no way it should have become as strong as it was. No way the boundary between Vic and the spirit should have broken down like it did. But they’re one and the same, now.
I feel bad for them, but like you shouldn't've talked yourself into thinking it was safe
I talked myself into thinking climbing cranes and buildings in construction sites was safe, that I was being careful, that I wouldn't get caught, and then like the twentieth time, on the easiest of....I actually got off pretty easy, I broke my leg and the security guy thought I was pitiful enough to let me leave, but I see now that we could've just fuckin died. There's a lot you can convince yourself of
but like, if there's a ten percent chance it goes wrong somehow, and you do it twenty times....
L: The thing with familiars, it’s like, you’ve got a cord between you and the familiar. A tether, or a channel with stuff flowing both ways. And you’ve locked it in. You always know where the familiar is, and they know where you are.
I've said a lot about introducing these magical practices by showing us the exception to the rule first, and this is a stellar example, even if we got Annabelle earlier
it just gives us a lot more clarity and makes what we're reading more compelling.
L: Yeah, no, I get it. Thing is, it isn’t just us two. You’ve got the spirit in there. You want to know who wears the pants? It’s the spirit. It’s the spirit that makes Vic restless, so he can’t be in a car or a city without feeling like he’s in the wrong place. Spirit that’s made it so he can’t touch metal without it hurting him somehow. Knives go out of their way to cut him, scuffed patches on metal catch at his skin to make him bleed, cars won’t start if he’s inside.
This is such a horrible fate for a dumb mistake you made as teens, but so believable and true to life
[Note: The talisman, intended to help Vic manage his control over his Other half, was given to the couple, and the interview ended there].
Well that's a helluva cautionary tale, but at least it ends with this small kernel of what could maybe potentially be called hope?
ANyhow, I really loved that chapter, it was really good at weaving compelling story with academic exploration of the magic we need to know about
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Wildbow 30-Apr-19 06:50 PM
Was tricky to strike the academic writing style
IIRC I copied tone from textbooks I had on hand.
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JayManiac 30-Apr-19 06:52 PM
I definitely got the academic vibe from it, everything was very *official. It actually just made me wish that normal academic papers I have to read were half as compelling
I mean, presumably the chapters that were 'cut' and by cut I mean don't exist, were the less interesting ways to convey the info we got, which lines up with reality.
Okay guys, should we do it? Join me, fellow Novices!
I also realize that this may require a bit of a dive into the history of each object, and predictions about who might use them, but it might also be fun to derive stuff like "tons of teenage boys choose swords cuz they're dumb"
I'm gonna have to straight up look some of these up actually
Is anyone else interested in doing this for at least some of them? Just want to make sure it wouldn't be a waste of channel-space
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Vayhle 30-Apr-19 07:05 PM
Nothing you post is a waste of channel space.
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JayManiac 30-Apr-19 07:07 PM
Awww! That's really sweet, thank you so much!
let me now spend thirty pages pondering over something that may improve symbolism in my writing, but mostly is just fun!
First up: Tome (edited)
Declaratively, a Tome probably conveys value of knowledge above all else. It declares a liking to the use of information and prior experience when making decisions and confronting. A Tome is also heavy and unwieldy; this isn't the "Brochure" of implements. To read through a Tome is to need time to contemplate, time to read and to plan; these will not be the best of improvisors. They might also be of the more serious type, since a Tome normally implies a level of direness about what it refers to. There aren't Tomes of Faerie Jokes....well maybe there are. And maybe Faerie Jokes are serious fucking business.
A Tome also may not be convenient to move or carry, and thus may represent a more stay-at-home practitioning style. And most Tomes are about the past, so maybe a respect for history and tradition?
I'd love to hear thoughts if anyone has something to add, by the way
Authoritatively, a Tome is good for keeping track of things, and leads to well-thought-out actions. Like I said, not an improvisational technique. Tomes could convey to Others that this person will remember transgressions, and will not enter into an unfamiliar situation.
I'm blurring the line between authoritative and declarative a bit, maybe because I don't understand it as much.
Okay, yeah. I get the difference a little bit more now that I've reread some of the examples
Socio-Culturally, the Tome may be selected by those who begin practitioning when they are older, as the trend is such that appreciation of knowledge and experience will normally grow with age. Both Eastern and Western cultures would likely use a Tome such as this, but it would be more popular in the West, where we have more of a tradition of writing a shitload of stuff. One with a Tome as their implement might be seen to play a supportive role in a larger group of practitioners, rather than thriving on their own (Twig) Am I thinking of Jamie and Jessie? Yes. Yes I am.
However, Monks, worshippers, and scholars might make a tradition of these implements, at least in certain circles.
Next we have the Ring
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Vayhle 30-Apr-19 07:26 PM
What percentage of implement users would end up with "gosh darn" as their catch phrase? Tome: approaching 0%
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JayManiac 30-Apr-19 07:26 PM
Now that's just a good metric to measure by in general
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Vayhle 30-Apr-19 07:27 PM
I thought so too, it has implications and humor both.
Like I could see Sword being highest, Tome likely lowest
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JayManiac 30-Apr-19 07:28 PM
Wand is definitely up there, and Chalice probably isn't
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Vayhle 30-Apr-19 07:29 PM
Yes! I think it's an official unit of measure.
The goshdarn% rating scale
agree 1
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JayManiac 30-Apr-19 07:31 PM
The Ring Declerative. The ring is subtle, but always visible. It suggests commitment, a strong bond with an idea, identity, or person. Rings can also be worn as a sign of wealth. Not as overt as, say, the coin, but still. This person is likely dedicated to their craft, and overt with their desires.
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Vayhle 30-Apr-19 07:31 PM
Ring is also super convenient compared to most options
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JayManiac 30-Apr-19 07:33 PM
A good point! It may suggest ease of access when choosing an implement, a need to have power directly
...
on hand
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Vayhle 30-Apr-19 07:33 PM
Assuming finger ring of course ... Stop brain no more words pls
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JayManiac 30-Apr-19 07:33 PM
get it? because the power's on hand?
agree 1
Ahem.
anyways
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Vayhle 30-Apr-19 07:34 PM
I did!
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JayManiac 30-Apr-19 07:34 PM
I am too easily amused by myself
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Vayhle 30-Apr-19 07:34 PM
I hear that's a sign of genius
agree 1
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JayManiac 30-Apr-19 07:35 PM
Or narcissism!
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Vayhle 30-Apr-19 07:35 PM
Why not both?
agree 1
devastating 1
I'm distracting sry I stop
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JayManiac 30-Apr-19 07:37 PM
Authoritative. A ring is used as the sign of a bond, as I've said. These practitioners would likely enter into more permanent agreements with specific Others to derive power. It is likely more useful as what it represents than what it actually does, and thus may be more about deriving and focusing power from an external source than storing or using it on its own. It could also suggest the desire to focus one's will into hard-light objects that glow green and fight evil if you say a poem about it.
Socio-cultural. Many cultures consider the ring to be a symbol of commitment, and thus several groups have made a sort of ritual wherein the implement is selected to represent your absolute dedication to the group. The highest priests, the most steadfast followers, the utmost diciples, may be found with this implement. It may also be chosen by newlyweds, as a symbol of their hopefully-nonliteral familiarity. In several regions of the world, the ring may also be selected for its cyclicality and symbolism thereof.
So! I have a bit of a confession, gotta get something off my chest.
I have no idea what the fuck this is
but i looked it up and it's fucking sick
I don't know any of the implecations
except that it's a weapon, it's a circle, one might choose it if they're a fucking beast, it's not very subtle, it's thrown, and it's from india
you may find fans of the movie "Tron" that gravitate towards this particular implement.
Okay I'm actually way the heck out of time here, so I'm gonna pause there and maybe do the rest sometime soon! it doesn't require a dual monitor hookup or anything so I can totally think about this kinda thing whenever, I aim to be done by the time I'm available to do my next liveread.
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JayManiac 01-May-19 02:08 AM
I cheated! I read it in reverse!
But seriously speaking, the idea that a character is always reading the pages we're experiencing might have huge implications in the future and I'm glad I'm keeping track
Because for the first two at least, who read the pages has only been revealed after the fact, and so if that's a rule of the story then it could be used to create lots of tension
Like, if it's some volatile information, then we might be waiting anxiously to see who read it
while I'm here, let's tackle Plate, because this one is super weird to me.
So the implement is like...literally a plate
Declaratively, that might suggest an interest in nutrition? Food? I mean, when I think of people carrying plates, it's normally in the context of a waiter or butler, so perhaps servitude?
gifts are borne on a plate to the recipient, so it may imply generosity, a giving of power, a duty to serve something or someone. But it's also not very aggressive, almost definitely a passive implement unless you're gonna frisbee it at someone
And who the hell carries around a plate? I mean doesn't that suggest a bit of impracticality in the implement? I carry around rings, tomes, coins, chains, skulls, swords, and challices all the time but like a plate? is there something about it that makes it less weird than I seem to find it?
Authoritatively: I'd guess a plate is somewhere to put power, somewhere to collect power temporarily before you use it.
Socio-culturally, maybe there are societies where you just carry around plates like nobody's business. I can't really imagine very many practitioners having plates as their implement in my little slice of the world (the western hemisphere). The one exception is likely butlers or waiters who are in servitude to Others or more powerful Practitioners.
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JayManiac 01-May-19 07:34 AM
Hmmm, it'd be pretty hard to carry one of those things around, so I guess that says something about that kind of character
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JayManiac 01-May-19 09:22 PM
Staff Declarative: The staff is a simple object, but requires complexity and skill to be used effectively. Its practitioner would likely be one to bring their own complex application to a simple tool or task. It serves to represent a humbler form of the things represented by the sceptre: bold, phallic, large, indicative of personal power, yes, but not quite as ostentatious.
Authoritative: The staff is a weapon, but not as wholly as the sword. It supports, and is likely wielded with skill, as opposed to a cudgel or baton. It channels energy simply, and isn’t multifaceted.
Socio-cultural: Turns out, “carry a big stick” has been around for longer than Teddy Roosevelt himself would have predicted. Staffs and their variations have been used by numerous cultures since basically the beginning of time. Recently they have been most prolifically used by sects that consider themselves one with the elements, with nature.
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Wildbow 01-May-19 09:32 PM
Mmm, I think you're leaning too hard into a specific kind of thinking when it comes to staves.
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spinagon 01-May-19 09:32 PM
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JayManiac 01-May-19 09:33 PM
I might be. I think mainly of the bo staff and the druid staff
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A bird 🐦 01-May-19 09:33 PM
I would certainly not jump to humble to describe someone carrying a staff
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JayManiac 01-May-19 09:34 PM
true, but that was a relative declaration
if I saw someone carrying a staff, and then her twin sister wearing the same thing but carrying a scepter....
Like, one says "I'm a ruler" and the other has a multitude of different interpretations (edited)
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Wildbow 01-May-19 09:37 PM
Staves double as walking sticks, which points to access. They also may be decorated or topped with metal or utility, the former signaling status in many communities and circles (churches esp), the latter including things like bells or a shepherd's crook. There were also formal or ceremonial sticks of varying size that signaled the permission one had to administer canings or whippings.
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A bird 🐦 01-May-19 09:39 PM
Plus knocking the bottom of your staff against a hard floor like a gavel is very authoritative
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Wildbow 01-May-19 09:39 PM
The fact a staff is often a very easy thing to make and a very easy thing to elaborate on, its use as a potential weapon, defensive tool, symbol of station, and sign or means of access.
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A bird 🐦 01-May-19 09:41 PM
I'm picturing a "You Shall Not Pass"
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JayManiac 01-May-19 09:42 PM
You're right, I don't think I captured all of that, and I didn't think of many of the more common uses of the staff. They can be used in so many different ways: symbolizing deific or clerical power as in Moses' case, a clear signal for who to follow, etc. It's possibly one of the more complex ones on this list.
I'm picturing a "You Shall Not Pass" I may or may not have been cradling my Druid's staff from Ren Fair as I interpreted that particular implement
of course it would not have affected my Totally Objective Analysis of the implement, if I were
Coin Declarative: The coin obviously relates to wealth, and would suggest a practitioner’s love of exchange, material goods, and the like. It is easily hidden, simple in shape, and can be used to buy anything— thus suggesting its versatility and potential subtlety. It is also used as the primary representative of chance and fairness in some cultures. A coin is useless to an individual, so this practitioner is likely well within larger society. Authoritative: Unlike the Chest, Challice, or Coffer (and probably some other things that don’t start with C) the coin represents power itself, not a receptacle or storage of power. Its primary function is to be exchanged and to represent that which is exchanged, and may primarily be used to bargain. Socio-cultural: Those on the outskirts of society are rarely seen wielding coins; they have been used mainly by sects that are well-integrated into the social order. Certain orders of thieves and other roguelike organizations have the coin as a common implement.
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Wildbow 01-May-19 09:53 PM
As for the plate, I can't recall my exact line of thinking, but ceremonial offering plates are a thing.
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JayManiac 01-May-19 09:57 PM
I kind of had that in mind, gift-bearing, servitude, etc. I figured that the author of Implementum wanted to throw in some less-common alternatives to your standard implements, but it was strange enough to encounter that I did wonder if I just didn't know all the definitions of plate
I'm curious, has anyone done this before?
actually, I don't want to cheat so tell me when I'm done
This one was a bit of a doozy, but I did my best.
Emblem Declarative: The Emblem is a statement, perhaps more than any item on this list. It is ostentatious, emphasizing loyalty and pride above all else. It may be worn, carried, or engraved, and suggests a bold and steadfast personality. Those with emblems as implements tie themselves permanently to an organization. Authoritative: The use of the emblem is mainly to ends of intimidation, show of force, and display. It may also be used to channel strength from a greater source which grants it power, just as the emblem channels the strength of a greater idea. Socio-cultural: it is not uncommon for official organizations to have emblem-wielders in key leadership or representative positions, and has been especially popular among Knight’s Orders and those sworn to a particular Lord or Other.
I'm gonna be honest with this next one, my academic language sometimes begins to slip
Chain Declarative: The chain is a deceptively versatile label, as it can be an implement of any size or subtlety. It may suggest the need for control, a desire to bind things to your will, or lock away that which you fear. When used in conduct with a familiar, it may represent tension in that relationship. But like who the hell would use a dog as their familiar anyways? Pfft. Losers. A chain user is probably a Dom. Authoritative: The chain binds, it controls. It tethers one thing to another, connects physically as opposed to the more abstract connection suggested by the ring, and may be used to reinforce an oath or promise. Socio-cultural: Since its conception, the chain has seen use by many different factions. Several “Chained Orders” have risen and fallen, all chained for different reasons. Practitioners who scour the world in search of powerful Others to bind (conventionally known as Beastmasters, or the more esoteric “Pokemon Masters”) will commonly use chains, ropes, or even ball-shaped containers to collect power. More recently, they have seen use by practitioners who moonlight as soundcloud rappers, including the prolific “Lil Faust”.
Okay. Three more and then I'll read the next chapter, which is another interlude
Skull Declarative: This will be perhaps more difficult to explain to the TSA than the fucking sword. The use of the skull as an implement may suggest a fascination or at least comfort with death, a desire to sow discomfort in your opponent, and being a total fuckin creep. There are very few documented cases of a practitioner having a skull implement after 1599 who has not made the “to be or not to be” joke at least once. That kinda shit gets around. Authoritative: A skull doesn’t have many particular usages in everyday life, but as a former living thing makes a good vessel for all kinds of Others. It is best at channeling the magic associated with death, because duh. Socio-cultural: If you went around with skulls for most of history they’d hang you for being a witch. However, some have been able to get away with it: pirates for instance. Of course, the skull is popular among necromancers, but it has also seen a rise in popularity among practitioners who start metal bands.
At the end of this whole shebang I'll reveal the implement I think represents me and why, because the DiP guys did it and it sounded real fun. I may have already done that in this channel before but I'll elaborate on exactly why.
Knife Declarative: The knife is small, but versatile. It can be well-hidden or on display, and comes in numerous variations. Phallic, and with a potential for violence, yes, but certainly not as unwieldy or obviously violent as the sword. More practical and utilitarian practitioners may gravitate to it because of its myriad uses, but it may also be used as a symbol or part of a ceremony. The fact that little can be determined with certainty about a knife-wielder may in fact be a reason for choosing it. Authoritative: Far from being merely a weapon, a knife is a popular tool in many professions. It can be used to prepare food, whittle, wound, pickpocket, sever connections, skin a carcass, or prepare a suitable amount of flayed skin for an offering. Socio-cultural: Rarely do the patriarchs of society wield a knife, and it has long been seen as a working-practitioner’s tool. Cults and orders of worship occasionally have knife-bearers on hand for various rituals, yes, but it is equally common for the knife to appear as a thief’s tool, hunter’s accessory, assassin’s blade, or even chef’s butterer. It is one of the most common implements for new practitioners.
Standard Disclaimer: I’m gonna say that a standard means a flag because that’s what I thought of when I read it and only DiP made me doubt that interpretation Declarative: A kind of combination of the emblem and the scepter, it carries with it the tie to a particular organization or belief, as well as the domination and confrontation of that belief. It is on full display, and serves as a challenge to any powerful enough to overthrow it. A standard is large, plainly visible, and these practitioners are not ones to hide. Authoritative: A standard is best used in consort with another’s implement, and may not fare particularly well on its own. It supports, invigorates, ties the ideologies or attitudes of a particular organization together so that they may coordinate better. Socio-cultural: Many orders in the past have had standard-bearers in their midst, but among independent practitioners use is next to nothing.
Alright, now that I've done that, let's get started on 2.y: histories?
Metal on metal as locker doors banged shut. Textbooks making surprisingly loud bangs, as they were closed. Zippers whisked open and closed. Voices babbled. Maggie shut it all out, putting her earbuds in.
OOooooOOOooooo we sorta did a History Pages chapter for the first arc, are we splitting them now?
Also Maggie sharkhi
Remembers all that shit about Maggie fine
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Seregraug 01-May-19 10:33 PM
Goblin noises
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JayManiac 01-May-19 10:33 PM
im mentally hearing guttural, slimey grossness
I like the idea of getting a character's entire history, explicit in the text. We sometimes do it with interludes, but I think having it as a specific part shouldn't hurt
shouldn't hurt the quality of the text, I mean.
certainly, it will pain me to no end.
emotionally
in a good way
Heather was smiling. She was round-faced, but not fat, freckled, with hair dyed black. The girl was one year younger than Maggie, in an earlier grade. Sometimes good company, sometimes annoying. Maggie’s gut reaction was that Heather was leaning towards the annoying side today.
That's an interesting way to introduce this character who seems very outgoing at first. Here, she's a bit more introverted, and it reminds me that she's being all this outgoing to get a chance to read stuff.
That was usual. Today wasn’t usual. Parents were ushering the children away, getting out of cars to use their bodies and hands to keep the children moving in one direction, keep children from looking.
👀 I wanna see
It was an art piece. Grotesque, vile, violent. At first glance, she saw it was a fat man, adult and naked, leaning against the fence, ass on the ground, legs crossed. Torn to pieces, rigged up with chains, boards and nails, mouth yawning open as though his jaw were broken or something huge had been rammed through his mouth and throat to open it wide. He smelled like shit and blood that had been sitting in the sun for ten minutes at a minimum, maybe as much as an hour.
I don wanna see anymore. I like that I mistook this for like a really crude mural or something, before it has a smell, which murals don't usually have.
At second glance, she could see it wasn’t really a man.
👺
Meat, bone and other bits had been fixed together in a crude semblance of a person.
Nvm. Welcome back to J is wrong a lot: the show
At third glance, she saw the maggots that were already starting to festoon the thing. Whoever had worked on it had done so without the benefit of refrigeration.
fine
Maggie carefully kept her eye off the thing as she watched teachers and janitors emerge from the school, many carrying black garbage bags. They hesitated a moment before closing the distance, to cover the thing. One or two backed away, recoiling bodily from the smell of it.
how long has this thing been here?
Maggie looked, and she could see the mock thing moving, the chest moving in, out, side to side. Flies took flight from it as it jerked.
👺 aaaaaaa can we go one chapter without either breaking my heart or breaking my gut!? (am well aware that this will likely do both)
Maggie’s hand flew to her mouth, clamped down over it in case she puked.
good call
A medium sized dog, it had been stirred awake by the first physical contact. Bound in the middle of the meat thing, still alive, wire wound around its throat, propping it up to a standing position, the ends tying it to the fence. It still wore a collar, the tags jingling against the fence as it struggled. Blind, caked in filth, it fought against the man who was trying to free it.
fuck. This is just mean and cruel and sick and goblins aren't fun anymore
She pulled her phone from her pocket, bending down, and she took his photo. No flash, no noise, but his head still whipped around. He made eye contact with her. No older than thirty, his eyes were heavily lined.
So it begins. I kind of wonder how kids books the maggie holt books really were? How could you possibly describe something like this in a way that wouldn't get you sued by a kabillion parents at once?
Is Vista just stereotyping fantasy books because it's easy and she's 'too cool for them' or something?
That's a read i've considered, and it might tell us something about her character too
More like Maggie’s mental picture of someone who’d gone to war or someone who hadn’t slept in days than a parent.
and the difference is...?
“What did you talk about?” “Stuff,” Maggie said.
I would like to thank Wildbow personally for all the teenaged characters that don't fall into the stereotypical teen bracket. Taylor, most of the Wards, etc. all have slight aspects of it, but never head on
that said, what a fuckin teenager
“I’m thinking I might have no idea. I’ve been telling myself, you know, a few months left until the end of the year, then a year left until I graduate. Then I’m done. Now it’s like… wait, I’m going to University? Three to six more years of studying? I’m not that keen.” “We’ve talked about the role High School plays in life, remember?” Maggie sighed a bit. “I remember.”
what a teenager. It's actually really fun to watch.
“It’s the sort of thing you need to think about in advance. What do you want to study?” “What’s easiest?” “Maggie.“
Interesting, considering that now she'd kill for the opportunity to study. She'd kill for the opportunity to stu- is interrupted by merciful technical-difficulties-beep
Other sources speculate that the spate of attacks has to do with the changes in environmental policy, which prompted the Ontario government to rehouse nearly two thousand residents…”
I feel like, directly or indirectly, it does have to do with that
stir up hatred, pessimism, bad feelings in general, and the goblins come-a-callin.
It's really the resentment and infighting and self-pity and apathy that keeps communities from improving, and the goblins are the physical manifestation of that. Lower income towns are ignored and margainalized by the rest of society, and all that does is invite spite and hostility
“But they’re getting more riled up,” Maggie said.
“What?” Her father asked. She could see his smile in the rearview mirror. “Social suicide?” “You can’t kill that which does not live,” Maggie said.
Oh Maggie, you were born to be a fantasy protag. Not like Blake, who was literally born to be a fantasy protag, but you get the gist
“But, you know, one of the first lessons that University hammers into you is that you have to let go of the past. Let go of who you were, and let yourself be who you need to be. Let go of being miserable, let go of hating people.” “Yeah. I can see that. Getting sloppy drunk, getting high, partying. Artificial happiness and friendships. It’s kind of like the inverse of the high school lessons, but it’s kind of messed up in its own way. A good way.”
I just picked a college last night, so this is just perfect. It doesn't reflect any particular conversation ive heard or had, but the fact that they're having the same kinds of discussions connects be with the characters more. I like Mag's dad.
I’m kind of hoping you find genuine happiness and friendship, Maggie.
😬 ohno
“Nope,” Maggie said. She shifted position so she could cover her ears with both hands. “Nope, nope, nope. Done with this topic.” In the rear view mirror, she could see her father’s smile. “You jerk. You’re totally messing with me.”
I really like mag's dad a lot and am currently glad he's still alive
“Pyjama pants with hearts on them, and dorky old-person music…” “Mercy.” “We have the power, baby girl. Whatever you do to us, we can repay three times over.” “That’ll change. One day, I’ll be all-powerful.”
Oh irony. Not sure which kind of irony we're dealin with here but it's certainly irony. For one, I talk like this on a daily basis too, so it reads as realistic dialogue, with references to three-times-over and all-powerful, but it's obviously also some dramatic irony. There's some situational in there too since she actually will be wielding magic at some point in the future.
“I dunno. Maybe some of the first lessons we learned are the last ones we unlearn?” Maggie asked, half asleep. “Bashfulness, caring about what others think? Being angry at people? Worrying about what comes tomorrow? Holding on to yesterdays?” “Keep that up, and I’m going to second guess your angry teenager facade. That sounds dangerously like faith in the inherent goodness of people.” “Oops,” Maggie mumbled.
bulba This is heartwarming enough that it's gonna make me real sad when it all falls apart.
“Oops,” Maggie mumbled. A piercing scream stirred her from the twilight of near sleep. Sirens.
Oh look it took literally a fuckin second
“It sucks,” Ben said, for emphasis. “We know it sucks,” Maggie said. “Doesn’t need to be said out loud.” “At least we’re going to your house,” Jeremy said. “I’ve got a game I’m itching to finish, and now I won’t get home for another hour or two.”
Yeah that probably put a damper on the joking nature of all that
“You guys suck,” Maggie retorted.
we know they suck, maggie, but it doesn't need to be said out loud.
“Yeah?” Maggie asked. “I gotta ask, do you make sucking in private a regular thing, Ben?”
Maggie is good enough at this that I genuinely mourn the loss of this talent from the world. However, I'm now just going to be envisioning Maggie's inner monologue constantly coming up with the best insults and not being able to say them
“A street?” Maggie asked. “A dead end street, if you want to be extra specific?” “Or,” Ben said, “You can go fuck yourself, and I’ll call it what I want in the meantime. Jesus Christ. This whole ‘go everywhere in groups’ bullshit is annoying enough.” Maggie only grinned. The group turned right.
we sort of see two different sides of maggie here. She's definitely a little introverted and would rather be left alone sometimes, but she doesn't let that get in the way of personal enjoyment...at the expense of everyone else.
And Maggie found herself looking at the same car as before. A blue beater she might have completely missed if it weren’t for the recognizable dent on the door. Without thinking, she drew her phone from her pocket and took another picture. The car door opened.
this is such a shift in tone that it really got me.
“Okay, maybe I took pictures of you because you looked kind of creepy and you were just hanging around where someone hung some rotting sculpture off a fence outside a school?”
seems legit
“Hey, Maggie, you ever wonder why nobody likes you?” Ben asked. “This is why. He doesn’t like you because you’re not deleting the photos while he’s still asking nicely, and we don’t like you because you’re not deleting the photos while the guy is asking nicely. Seeing what I’m hinting at?”
Ben is a total dick. I mean maybe every friend group has one, but Lord of Leroy New York he's just kind of an ass.
“I like Maggie,” Heather said.
And I like you, Heather! Maggie doesn't but that's okay there's nothing wrong with being who you are!
Ben scowled, glancing back. “You like everyone. You’re like a dog with no conception of strangers
This guy, on the other hand
Avatar
JayManiac 01-May-19 11:30 PM
“If you don’t delete those photos,” the man said, “There is going to be an issue.” “if I do delete those photos,” Maggie asked, “Am I deleting evidence of someone who’s involved in this whole mess?” The man glared at her. Answer enough.
Guessing this guy is some sort of Practitioner, which is why he isn't outright lying
“Oh, see, now you’re negotiating,” Maggie said. “I like negotiating. Let’s hear a better offer, though. I’m not convinced.”
A born practitioner if ever there was one!
“Give the nice man the camera,” Ben said, through clenched teeth. The man spoke. “If you’re smart, you give me the camera and leave. Leave this town. This is a dying place, and soon it will become a place of dying, of fire and violence and darkness.” “Give the nice lunatic the camera,” Ben said, quieter, through clenched teeth.
This is hilarious. and like, concerning, but mostly concerning about stuff we knew already.
“I’m still waiting to hear a better offer,” Maggie said. “He’s awfully insistent, he’s got to have something to offer if he wants it that bad. I want to hear the offer soon. Going once… Going twice…”
I'm beginning to see how Maggie might be the type to get herself into trouble. Just maybe.
“Hey!” Mr. Richmond called out. “Step away from the kids!” The strange man did no such thing. He stepped toward Maggie and the kids.
This is a nice subversion to Blake actually being safe when daylight comes/other people show up.
But the stranger puased and looked back. His eyes met Maggie’s. “You’re going to regret this, little girl.” “I’m kind of a teenager,” Maggie said. “Big girl, at the very least. Little lady would do, too.” “You’re a child,” the stranger answered. He turned, walking back to his car.
Gods, she's so snarky. I love it. She really will regret it tho.
pushed Lor to the ground with enough force that she shrieked on impact.
Somehow missed this the first time around, but fuck this guy. Not cool, bro. I mean, you're probably gonna bury this town in rubble but like this was especially not cool.
“He hurt me,” Lor said. She showed her hands, skinned palms.
How could you? That's really mean and uncalled for, I think.
Avatar
JayManiac 01-May-19 11:46 PM
“It’s ‘Big Ben’, what people call me. You added the ‘bad’ part.
Guess jeremy didn't clock that.🕰
And Mr. Richmond is boss. He gives me money, just ’cause he doesn’t have grandkids to spend it on.” “That sounds more like a pedo thing than anything else,” Maggie said, under her breath.
This was a bit of a dick move, Mags, especially since Mr. Richmond is someone you know nothing about, except that he just saved you from that dude.
“You don’t ever,” Ben said. “And you don’t say it about guys who just saved our asses from a crazy person. A crazy person that might be setting fires and torturing animals. I’ve known Mr. Richmond my whole life. He’s nice, and he went out of his way to help. You want to give me a hard time? Fine. But you don’t talk shit about my neighbors behind their backs.”
You tell her, Be- wait a sec I'm supposed to hate you!
“That was funny once, Maggie. You can’t milk it any more.” “Milking it,” Lor commented, straight faced. The entire group burst into laughter.
I lov lor. And the rest of this group. Except Jeremy because he hasn't said a lot. I hope they don't all die horrible deaths.
“Group’s come by. What can I feed them?” “Anything but the carrot cake in the fridge!”
And yet you would tempt us?
“Because we can make this about doing homework, fighting off crazy people, and passing the time as fast as we can before we can get back to our everyday lives, or we can make it about your family having an issue with my family. Note how I’m stressing that. Because my family has no issue with yours. It’s one sided. And if you want to keep pretending you’re all about tolerance and goodness, you’re going to have to reconcile that sort of thinking with this sort of acting.” “I can get over it, Maggie. I can look past what your parents are.” “That’s great. Good. Grand.
😬
Maybe it's cuz both of them have already endeared themselves to me already, but I'm not really willing to call either Maggie or Lor in the wrong just yet
Lor is from a family of...uhh...what's a nicer word...hateful bigots, that's it. But she's also a teenager, and she's allowed to misunderstand the world and be a little attatched to some of the lessons she's been taught. I kinda see this as a little bit of trying to explore ideas that aren't just what her parents taught her. I mean, she brings it up, she kind of tries to clear the air, I'm not gonna jump to the conclusion that “Never thought we’d be sitting together like this,” Lor said.= gaybulba or anything just yet, but this was an opportunity to maybe change how she thinks and maggie kinda shoots her down.
At the same time, Maggie should not have to change the minds of every homophobe on the planet, and her dismissiveness here is super understandable. She's probably had to deal with this loads of times, and if she's super sick of it I get that.
Ben and Mrs. Ben were lying on the bed, face down. A man was standing in the room.
ohno
I take it back I take it back I don't hate ben he doesn't have to die i'm really alright pls
“Phone,” the figure said. She couldn’t peg the gender, but it sounded like a heavy smoker.
now 👺?
It wasn’t a fight like on TV or in the movies or in the books about superheroes. Not an exchange, no trade-off, nothing like that. It was ugly, stupid, nonsensical. One of them would swing. The person they swung at would be seriously, maybe even lethally wounded, or the swing would miss. If the swing missed, they’d be leaving themselves open for one equally serious, equally fatal wound. A skull cracked open, a knife in the belly.
These fights have been a bit more closed-space, ugly brawls than 'send bugs at your enemies from a block away'
Dead end street was a more appropriate label, she thought. Praying that he wasn’t coming after her, that she wouldn’t get a knife in the back in broad daylight.
Lucky for you, you probably won't
Thursday
Have we been doing this and am I just crazy?
Sunday
we have. yup
so this is two days later
No school. No phone. The sirens seemed more frequent now. It didn’t fit. Nobody seemed willing to admit it, that it was bad.
I like this kind of slow burn of everything going wrong. I don't know how much of Maggie's story we're gonna get, but this is a good beat to be coming back to. The Sirens.
She hadn’t had any clarification on what had happened to the others. To Ben and his mom, to Lor, to Jeremy and Heather. She’d tried calling them while her neighborhood still had working phone lines, but all she got were dial tones. Her dad reassured her, told her they had to be okay, or they would have heard something. Chris said they had probably packed up and left to be safe.
That doesn't make me feel good at all. I was hoping maybe some of them would live, but not really expecting.
It was getting worse, and nobody seemed to be connecting the dots.
I wonder why maggie is more aware of this than the average person. Is it because she knows more of it's connected?
She felt physically sick, wallowing in it.
I was about to use this language to describe how I'm feeling, but honestly that might be the mac and cheese I've been eating. Or the fact that I was eating while reading about maggots.
All she knew now was that she had a direction, not one borne of any of that passion or possibility, but of the process of elimination. She could never, would never let herself feel like this again.
Lords, and now we kinda get it. Why she would do what she does in exchange for meager advantages.
“I’m not going to calm down. Not when you’re going to go out there and you’re not going to come freaking home!” She had tears in the corners of her eyes.
The not swearing is a beat reminiscent of how she talks now, but hearing it here is just heartbreaking, because it's not that she's sworn away swearing or anything like that...
The first set of speeches were very much what she’d expected. “Lock your doors,” one of them was saying. Ben had locked his doors.
The way it creates the tone of hopelessness is heartbreaking and impressive in equal measure
“Delete the photos,” the man said. “Now.” “What are you doing here?” Maggie’s dad asked. “Damage control,” the man responded. “Please. The sooner you do it, the better for both of us.”
Why? Who is this guy? Did he summon the goblins, or is he trying to stop them?
“Helping. Failing to help, too. Right now, I’m trying to decide. Do I let things hit rock bottom, or do I fight now?” “What’s the difference?” Maggie asked. “If I wait until a handful survive,” he said, “Then try to save them, when I know they’ll believe the truth, I might save more than if I go in front of that house full of people and lie.”
I'm really confused but this is also really interesting. She said he looked like someone who was fighting a war...
The woman’s teeth had been filed down to points. She wore contact lenses that reflected funny in the light. Her entire facial structure… implants? The shape of her ears? The too-pugnacious nose Surgery?
Guess he was trying to stop them. I clocked goblins as being a lot more...just, mischievous and cruel in isolation, not coordinated enough to do this to a whole town without help
Maggie couldn’t come up with excuses as fast as she noticed all the things that didn’t fit. Too much, all together, that made the buxom woman look wrong in a way that simple makeup and cosmetics couldn’t manage.
This also convinces me a little more that Blake really was menaced by goblins.
“You’re worth so little now. Luckless, feckless, sad little wretch.” “Blood is power, and I do have some power. You’ll bathe in it, you’ll make some of that power yours, as you have with Faerie and Hags and all manner of other things, and you’ll be even more fearsome, when next you attack.”
These guys took down faeries? that's why they're this powerful?
Her subordinates attacked, grabbing the practitioner, pulling his arms out to to either side, making him kneel. Maggie turned her head before the makeshift weapons came down on his arms.
Fuck. This is a lot more of a problem than I anticipated.
The bloody-haired woman approached, placing her hand on the cheek of Maggie’s father. “You argue best. I believe you, when you say you’d sacrifice yourself for them. You love them that much.” He shuddered, bowing his head, unable to maintain eye contact. “You, I’ll let live, then. You’ll feel the lost most.”
pls stop.
“Agree… Let me think. You’ll experience what you experienced here, twice more. The rule of three, to make this stronger. Perhaps it will be me again. Perhaps no. But you will experience blood and darkness and fire, like you experienced it here. If you agree, it will be so.”
Ah shit. I don't suppose that this has already come to pass by story start or anything....? Which doesn't bode especially well for Jacob's Bell.
Numb, Maggie picked through the things the woman had taken from the stranger. Coins. The wand. “The wand- no. Won’t help you.” She picked up the book. Symbols, magic circles, script.
That is a one hell of a start for a practitioner. Also guessing that was his implement, which sort of fits him.
Two months ago “Yes, I do actually know a thing about prophecies,” Laird said. Maggie frowned. Her ice cream was melting. She licked the biggest dribble from her hand. “And?” “And it’s up to you. We can manage this, or we can leave it be. It could be bloodier, darker, more dangerous, with each repetition of the three, or it could be quieter, a controlled chaos we can both benefit from.” “What do I have to do?” Maggie asked. “Her name is Molly Walker. That will be the first part. The only part of any importance, to you. You can leave the remainder to me.”
That makes a lot more sense know that we've taken a real good look at it.
Not only does she get power, not only is she ridding the world of a big bad diabolist, but she thinks she's saving the town from utter chaos and destruction.
Damages in-fucking-deed
Avatar
JayManiac 02-May-19 03:18 AM
Mind if I ask how you would've done it otherwise?
Avatar
JayManiac 02-May-19 06:59 AM
It did read a little snippetty, but I thought that gave a good overview without having to be an entire Maggie Holt Book ™. I can see where it would benefit from more direct continuity
I'm gonna just read one more chapter today before I go to bed. Fingers crossed it doesn't give me nightmares! Breach 3.1
“Your name is Leonard Harlan. Come.”
M- my name is Jay. His name is Blake, her name is Rose. Howdy do?
I had a small iron mortar and pestle in front of me. I tipped it over, very carefully depositing the contents so they formed a straight line in front of me. Two fires burned, one on either side of me. Running through each fire, I had a ring of salt and a loop of chain. I was grateful for the warmth of the flame.
mmkay, so it sounds pretty ritual-y, and I'm wondering if Blake is saying this, not having this said to
but ghosts know their names, right? June did
hang on, gonna go see if this is the same kinda ritual they did with June
Doesn't seem like it
you know if I read the chapter I'm reading rather than all the chapters I read, maybe i'd find out quicker
“You made a mistake, Leonard. The memory has faded to the point that nobody necessarily remembers, it was so long ago. The doctors and nurses who witnessed it have left the world or left the city, your family all deceased.”
Still no dialogue tags, so still confused.
Others were lurking around the area, but they hung back in groups.
He's outside though, so summoning something, probably. Something named....Leonard
I'd've zalgo'd that but there's no time
The Briar Girl’s spies, more than an attacker of any sort. There weren’t many Others who would be wandering the back of the property, and the circles I’d set out would help ward against them.
he's made progress towards keeping the property relatively safe, then. And hey I love Maggie with all my harrowed heart but now that Blake isn't getting along with her this Briar Girl might be a compatible ally
I mean prior to Maggie and Blake's...falling out, it might've been tenuous, what with BG voting to have her killed and all
“I summon you, Leonard. I know who you are, I remember your story. I don’t know where you rest, but that place will have changed and moved on. It will have forgotten. The memories are here. Let go and answer me.”
Okay, it's Blake talking. Cool. He's not having a ton of luck.
“You knew it would be a long shot,” Rose murmured. “The last ghost you tried to call didn’t come.”
I like that we're closing this route off. He got a little bit of a start with ghosts, but they won't lead to enough power to keep him safe and get him ground. No ghost-king-Blake, it seems.
This one was a ghost grandmother had captured. Leonard Harlan. She’d bound him for a ritual, hence the notes, and he’d returned to his former haunting grounds when the ritual was done.
I'm wondering why Granny didn't leave any lesser forms of power for her descendents. Everything she set up seems to be an all-or-nothing nuclear warhead. Like, why not keep an arsenal of Ghost Tools for her grandkids to raid. Is it because she's an asshole who's totally willing to feed them to the Karmic-debt-inator? Probably.
It was, I was almost certain, a big factor in why the faerie hair I’d so neatly packed into the locket was growing enough to start slipping out, winding around the chain like climbing ivy.
Woah, you can feed this thing power and it does stuff!? That's pretty cool
and also he's making it painful so it feeds the glamor and doesn't become ready-at-hand
that's smart, and just slightly metal
“Leonard Harlan. Killing himself with drink.” I felt the connection appear. “There we go. Leonard Harlan, murderer.”
So glad we're gettin this guy
and I guess maybe Blake gets one more ghost before that's dried up completely
so we don't know if he gets this particular tool, hence tension, but we know that once he does things are still looking Bleake
He didn’t seem as strong as June had been.
Ooof, that's a bit of a drag.
“It was a mistake anyone could make,” I said. I felt the connection weakening. “But you don’t want to hear it. You don’t believe it, and it isn’t a part of what you’ve brought with you to… wherever you are now. If I want a stronger connection, I need to validate you. I’d have to call you a murderer, a thoughtless idiot, a drunk, a loser.”
So's that! These pure-suffering-creatures are just a sad piece of the world. Of course they're exploitable so you keep them around, but like...maybe the world needs to heal from being hit with [dying of hypothermia]. Maybe it shouldn't be carrying that around with it, a bruise for practitioners to poke at for power.
“I can’t do that, so I’m only going to say the truth.
At least Blake has his own kind of...not kindness exactly, but mercy for them. He still thinks of them as people, and I really really respect him for that.
The bottle wobbled precariously. I reached across the circle to catch it before it fell and cracked open on the patio. Lacking a stopper, I put the folded paper in the neck of the bottle, jamming it in with one finger. “There we go,” Rose said, very quiet.
Yay? It's a win, but a really sad win on both ends, maybe.
The rest of our stuff was laid out on the small table below the window, the Valkyrie book open already to a relevant page.
So Blake has his blood, right? I mean he can't just keep doing this forever, but it is a source of power. He could potentially use shamanistic techniques from the books to draw spirits into objects like Annabelle did, slowly stockpiling power, couldn't he? I mean, but wouldn't he also have more power if he like slept and ate and stuff? Maybe.
“You don’t know how close I just came to a sarcastic response,” I said.
Well, glad to see they're getting better at that.
I ducked down to get a look at myself in the side of the toaster, the remembered I couldn’t. I pulled some hair down in front of my eyes to see.
See? Rose is just doing her duty as your reflection...by telling you you look like shit and you should sleep and maybe don't sell the color of your hair for more power
“I wasn’t about to freeze to death a second time,” I said. “And I don’t mind having a nice barrier of iron, on top of that.” “Maggie,” Rose said.
We didn't see Blake's 'I slept on it' conclusion on the Mags situation, but I guess this is it!
“I can’t imagine her attacking you.”
Me neither, honestly.
I’m more comfortable dealing with people when I know what they’re gunning for. I spent a long time dealing with our family, with the schemes and plots. Figuring out the why of it, you figure out their weak points.”
That's probably good for a practitioner to be. Which is to say, shitty for a human to be. Rose has a little more Rose in her, I suppose.
I thought of my brawl against the Faerie swordswoman, yesterday morning. “Yeah. I guess we’re the same, mostly, in that respect. I don’t like confrontation, but I’ll do it when my hand is forced.” Rose seemed to pick up on my line of thought. “You handled it pretty well. Both times, Faerie and the bird zombie things.”
Their rhythm is so strange and interesting, since different parts of them are falling in and out of sync with each other.
Was there a book out there with a list of expected side effects from this sort of thing? What happened if you got faerie ink in your eyes?
Well you suddenly have a less shitty outlook. It's all fake, of course, but maybe if you believe
“I’m trying to put it all in perspective. It was goblins who did the deed. Laird who put everything in motion. Can you honestly say, seeing what Laird has pulled already, that you couldn’t have ever made a mistake like that? If Grandmother hadn’t warned you what was out there? If you weren’t vulnerable, with Laird going all-out?”
I don't know, Blake is not as practitioner-y as Maggie is. Rose, though...Rose might be closer. If you put Laird in front of Blake right now, defenceless, and told Blake: "kill him in the next ten minutes or he goes back to being a pain in your ass. Sparing him will win you nothing, he won't remember this and neither will you so you can't use it in the future just kill him or don't" I think Blake wouldn't do it.
I don’t want to forgive her. I think that’s fucked up, kind of, if I’m dismissing the death of someone I cared about so easily. For what? For an ally? A bargaining chip? Is it really worth surviving, if that survival requires that kind of compromise?”
SEE!? He's just kind of...human-er than that. For now.
I looked, using the sight, and I could see the innumerable connections that spread out from me to the outside world. Friendships… thin, barely perceptible. I’d neglected them, I supposed. Family bonds, some local, some not. Magical bonds, and bonds of ownership, of home and emotional attachment.
Wow. I was just kind of speechless (typing-less) for a moment there because I imagine this as being beautifully cinematic. I love that his tattoos are representative of specific people and relationships. Just Wow.
(edited)
Numb, I said, “Back when I first awakened, I saw my tattoos moving. They were almost alive, then.”
I forgot to keep thinking about this, so I'm glad I'm being reminded to keep thinking about this.
“And… that wasn’t what I was getting at, Blake. There’s an Other you do have a strong connection to.” “Which?” “Me. We’re connected. Maybe… maybe you filled that void with some of the vestige.”
Uh oh. Would that mean Rose is possessing Blake?
“A vestige is like a house of cards. You take out one piece, and it folds into itself.”
I'm really glad this doesn't give them the potential to sabotage each other
“Can I trust you, Rose?”
This argument is tense, and it's one they've had before
will they finally resolve it? Find out nex- no but really I hope they do.
“I’m thinking the stakes are high and they’re getting higher. Laird’s about to mess with us, and he seemed confident that it would be a real problem. I know, now, that there’s no way I can be strong enough to tackle all of this alone. That’s part of the reason I was quizzing you. I need to know for absolute sure that you’re in my camp.”
I know relationship metaphors could get weird with these two, but this reads as really insecure on Blake's part, and it's written really well. He's got reasons to be insecure I suppose, and neither of them chose this, but...it's still frustrating.
“No. I hereby swear that I’m going to help you, in exchange for your loyalty and support. We’re going to find a way to get you out of that mirror world. I will make sacrifices if I have to, short of actually standing by to let any transition happen. I so swear, to you, and to anything that hears.”
At the same time though, this overture of security is a sweet touch...in it's own transactional economizing practitioner-y way.
“Pass on word to my friends. Let them know I’m gone, and that I was thinking about them. They’re really the only family I’ve ever had, and I kind of owe them a great deal. Not in a mystic way, but a very mundane, very important way.”
Blake thinks about his friends a lot, and I'm just waiting for one of them to be dragged into all his magical bullshit. I think it'd be really interesting to see Blake having to work selflessly when he's not doing all that well for himself, and the conflict that would stir up with Rose...I'm feeling torn and heartbroken just thinking about it!
There’s a point where you have a chance to act, and it’s a choice between fight or flight. Experience has taught me that the only real way out is to absolutely destroy the other motherfucker.” Rose didn’t have a response to that.
Jay didn't have a res- just kidding. Maybe I'm wrong, and Blake is willing to do what this shitty, shitty world deems "necessary"
“There you go, Leonard,” I said. I moved the hatchet next to the bottle, and pulled my shirt and jacket back on. “Leonard, June. June, meet Leonard. You two should know we’re going to war.”
Guess that explains this, then
“Blake? Please don’t tell me you’re going to call out a name you shouldn’t call out. Because I can’t think of a good reason for you to be outside, after saying what you did.” “I am going to say a name I probably shouldn’t,” I said, “But not like you think.”
I'm telling you the great and powerful Ornament is Blake's only hope.
I stretched my arms out to the sides, then shouted at the top of my lungs, “Briar Girl!”
sharkhi 🌳
I mean, take what you can get
what you can get without consorting with your cousin's murderer I guess
am also going to associate bulba with briar girl
since she'd totally choose bulba as a starter
actually she chose Mewtwo as a starter and that didn't seem to work out too well but 🤷
“Follow the homunculus,” she replied. The bird-thing turned to prepare to fly away. “I’d like a promise of protection,” I called out. “Too bad,” the thing replied.
Oh she's gonna be all new kinds of delightful isn't she.
“Again, we tried that. There’s no winning. Not really. So what I’m proposing is pretty simple.” “Do tell,” Rose said. “Also, you do know that we’re being followed?” “We’re surrounded,” I said. “But she wants to deal badly enough that she’ll hear us out before she murders us. Nevermind that. Our analogy here. I’m proposing the pigeon strategy. Knock over all of the pieces, shit on the board, and then strut around like we’re the victors.”
I want to see the extrapolation of this metaphor. I really do. It's just, such a good idea and I have no idea what it means in the real world but doggone it if im not all hells of here to find out!
“Can I ask you a genuine question, Blake?” “Of course.” “Have you lost your mind?
See they've repaired their tenuous relationship and now everything's great!
To be fair blake you did just say you'd shit on the board and act victorious
which im realizing is kind of like me refusing to get up from the bench after my shitty foruth-grade P.E. teacher told me to go sit down cuz I was being a dick.
I didn't win, because she had all the power
but I made it seem like it was what I had wanted to do all along, at great expense to myself, and that's what really matters
oh gods, has blake lost his mind?
“We can’t rise to their level, not like this,” I said. “We have to bring them down to ours.”
This is the most I've ever agreed with that statement, because it's not speaking morally.
Rose continued, “The homunculus, I recognize that word. Manufactured life. You made it. A lot of these Others are tools, aren’t they? Hand crafted Others? They’re weapons as much as that hatchet is.” “Well said,” Briar Girl responded. “Fine. I’ll send my creations away if you put away your weapons.”
I like her already. It occurs to me that I'm quite judgemental, it's just that normally I have very positive judgements and so instead of making me seem like an asshole it makes me seem like an idiot. Which is a little more tolerable, I think.
also,
I could see the Briar Girl deliberating. She stroked her rabbit. Her familiar. The thing was whispering. Not speaking, per se, but I could see it communicating, speaking a language only it and its master could understand.
This is like when 'Aegis' looks to 'Clockblocker' for orders, it just kinda feels out of balance
I bent down, drawing out a square, one and a half feet by one and a half feet. “I’ll give you that much land, for letting us leave alive, if I live that long.” “You insult me.” “No,” I said. “I’m opening negotiations. We’re going to work together. You’ll do favors for me, and I’ll give you parcels of land, so you can expand that square. I’ll do favors for you, and you’ll give me things I need.”
And here's Blake establishing the game, making concessions immediately, really being a pretty good negotiator here. I see a little more hope for this situation now (and hope Rose does once she sees his brillaint plan). Then again, his last brilliant plan was shot down pretty quickly, so who knows?
“This is your only option. Best deal you’ll get. Any chunk I give you is a chunk they can’t take.” “And what do you want?” she asked. “To live?” “Living is nice,” I said. “But right now, I want to utterly destroy the Behaim and Duchamp families.”
Huh. What a way to open the negotiations, Blake. I'm sort of on the edge of my seat for her reaction, since we don't know her that well and it could go so many different ways.
Maggie would just laugh, Laird would probably roll his eyes and tell Blake to take this seriously, Taylor would begin to rationally think about the myriad🕷 ways she could make that happen, and Tattletale would just laugh (edited)
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JayManiac 03-May-19 06:24 AM
Alright, I've been really eager to get into the next chapter of the arc, so now that my friggin internet is back up, let's get into it shall we? (maybe I'll even have time for tw- I won't have time for two I need sleep sometimes)
Oh yes, also I ran into an english teacher at the library who attends my creative writing club and sold her on Pact right then and there! She likes stories with demons and small towns and Cool Magic so we'll see how that goes.
spoop 1
The words were barely out of my mouth when the rabbit Briar Girl held leaped from her arms. By the time it hit the ground, it was ten times the size.
Well that went great. I wonder if one of Blake's 'say a really attention-grabbing dumb thing' plans is ever gonna work.
A wolf, almost as large as a horse, but with feathers instead of fur. The patterns, length, and direction of the feathers were reminiscent of flames curling in the air.
Dear Lords has anyone drawn this? it sounds amazing...ly bad and it's gonna kill blake
“Saying that was a mistake,” the Briar Girl said. “My companion thinks we should kill you now.”
You done pissed off the boss blake. I wonder what BG n F like the Duchamps and Behaims for. Doesn't seem like they'd be especially friendly
They’re scary. A fucking kid, half my age, give or take a couple years, tried to off me, just yesterday. I get it, if you’re too scared to go up against them.”
What are you McFly? Chicken-wolf hybrid Lords please don't fucking murder me!?
Are you so power hungry that you imagine all of us are itching to depose the current powers?”
Yes. Yes he is.
“You’re back to discussing power,” Briar Girl said. She spread her arms. “Look at me, Thorburn. I gave up my power for this. What are you going to tell me that might change my mind?” I don’t know, but I’d better figure it out before you decide to have me torn limb from limb.
You dug yourself right into the shrubbery, Blake. I was on your side before, bu- actually I still sorta think this wasn't a terrible idea. Okay it was a terrible idea, but he started strong for a second there?
“Your kind is dangerous. Even you… you stink of something foul. I can smell it and they can smell it.” “When I’ve barely interacted with anything?” I asked. “Yeah,” Briar Girl said. “Can’t you see it? The animals don’t like you.”
Could this have something to do with how Blake's been looking drained lately? Or maybe just his newness to magic in general?
“Once upon a time, when humans weren’t much more than animals, we relied on our dogs to scare off the Others who wanted to prey on us and do mischief. Cats hunted and fought with the lesser Goblins, returning to owners with torn ears or small injuries. They still have those instincts. To destroy things of darkness, foulness and blight, before rot can set in.”
This is friggin cool. Just, awesome as a setting detail for one, but then also it makes me imagine cat-protectors of early humanity and that makes me happy.
“The way I was told it,” Briar Girl said, “Many of the worst of them were architects. Call them spirits, or divine servants of the god or gods who put the world together, or lesser gods. Doesn’t matter. They put things together. Stars in the sky, mountains, oceans, they gathered the animals and gave them the instincts that each species would pass on to others of their kind, and to the species that came about, later on. But things reached a certain mass, and a counterweight was needed.”
It's also incredible how many mythologies and belief systems this describes. It's kind of a monomyth that I guess is assumed as the truth behind it all, the Others that were in play. It kind of sounds like Lucifer, or Set, or Hela, the Serpent, and Fenris Wolf, or even the Gods of Olympus from a certain perspective. I'd be interested to know how many things humanity got 'right' about the Others
Imps, you might call them. If he brought a darkness to the world, he would do it by scattering imps across the world. These imps would work as spirits do, but with intelligence. Ensuring that a flashlight grew dim when it might reveal a murderer or rabid animal. That a car ran out of gas where it might carry a sick man to a hospital, spelling his death.
it's just so story, I love it. Contrivances in Pact aren't contrivances, just magic.
“The books went into some detail about the origins you just talked about,” Rose said. “They also said that particular story was disproved.”
And the plot thickens. We get this great backstory and it turns out to be more complicated than that. I don't totally accept Rose's dismissal, but neither do I totally accept the truth of this.
(edited)
“And some of the things that are in the books aren’t devils and demons, or anything that devours the world. Some are particularly nasty goblins, or other things we don’t have labels for.” Another shrug. “Close enough. It’s about taint, about rot. Once those things get hooks in the world, the world starts coming apart at the seams.””
Saayyyy...this is kind of reminding me of...
I frowned. “Says the girl who takes homeless people’s bodies and turns them into…” “Feorgbold, life vessels,” the Briar Girl said. “Recycling. Death, consumption and rebirth are parts of the cycle of nature. Some of my favorite parts. I could do what I do a hundred thousand times over, and there would still be balance. Your things, they are not balanced, not in any way we want to deal with. Never simple death, but oblivion, annihilation. Helping the universe to reach zero, with screams, darkness and pain every step of the way.”
A certain tv show I really really really like
“Agree to give me the territory, and I won’t kill you right now. There. Negotiations done.”
We aren't going to waste time pretending she's anything like the Practitioners we've dealt with before. With the backstory she's giving us, I'm not surprised that she voted to have our resident Goblin Queen executed.
“I’m pretending I’m long for this world,” I protested.
Oh Blake, I'm sure certain death doesn't await you at the end of this story.
“Okay,” Rose said. “Let’s turn this around. Blake, tell her what you want.” I could see what Rose was doing. I silently approved.
I'm glad we have Rose here to think along the same lines, but maybe not quite as....dumb-ly as Blake would!
“To start with,” I said, “perhaps some information about the bonds between Others and practitioners. Controlling it, using it. You have a close connection to your familiar. I’d like to use your expertise and example to prevent dangerous connections to Others.” “Ah. Keeping the rot out?” “Among other things,” I said.
Maybe not signing up for a lifetime as your familiar's pet, for instance? I like how he's framing this as benefitting the whole world, it's a good tact. And a bit manipulative, probably.
“But a lesson or two, or a gift I could use more than a few times, I think that’s S.O.P. for practitioner dealings?” “It’s how most have traditionally gathered knowledge,” the Briar Girl said. “Apprenticeship, servitude, favors, or being born into the right family.”
did you just expect the Briar Girl to understand Standard Operating Procedures? And did she just understand Standard Operating Procedures?
I'm likely only mad because I had to look it up.
You have very little power, for the most recent member of a very long, very learned lineage.”
I wonder if this is just because of some dumb promises Rose made in her youth
Like, we keep hitting this beat, blake even lampshades it one line later: It kept coming back to that. and I can't help but wonder if there's a little more to it than Granny Rose shooting herself in the foot with that promise. Maybe she set up more that the twins here just haven't found. Maybe there's more to Rose than they realize. Maybe there's a giant superweapon in the attic they cou- oh wait yeah there's totally a giant superweapon in the attic.
“So we kill her before she gets a chance to sell the place. Move on to the next.” She was so casual about it. She’d raised her hand to vote for Maggie’s execution, hadn’t she?
I imagine she's so eco-terrorist with her belief system that it's entirely justified to kill people who are just contributing to the rot
and she might not be entirely wrong either
maybe I'm saying that cuz dark magic and dragon prince and I really like that show, but also I haven't seen a lot of good come of using goblins to get shit done yet.
“Ellie,” Rose said. “Career criminal, and not in an impressive way. Never worked a day in her life, she was staking everything on getting the house, I figure, because it was the only way she’d be able to get by. Zero impulse control, hates everyone, especially those who give any clue they’re smarter or better than her, which winds up being pretty much everyone,” I said.
And we've also used this conversation to explore and remind us of Blake's family, just in case we've forgotten since Arc 1, which is reasonable considering I'd forgotten since Arc 1. This makes me wonder if some of them are going to re-enter the story anytime soon.
“Another amoral person, to help me build a picture of who you are?” the Briar Girl asked. “All set to call demons into this town on a whim?” “No,” I said. “She was my friend, I respect and trust her. And I honestly think you’d have a harder time negotiating with her than you would with me. She’d see the long line of deaths that preceded her, and she’d play it smarter than I could, I think. I don’t think she’d give you anything, especially when you tried to kill me.”
especially if paige is one of them. I mean, it would satisfy bring-blake's-friends into the story and bring-blake's-fucked-up-family into the story, all in one!
“Who knows?” I asked. “Let’s open negotiations with that. You agree to help me against Laird, I agree to take the time to verify whether it’s possible to move away. It’s information you want, and it’s something you could use against any of the ones who come after me. Trick them, deal with them, whatever.”
See? He's turning this shitty, awful, was-never-going-to-work plan around! It's already something that's going to waste his time instead of something that gets him killed!
“Take it or leave it,” I said. “This is the closest you’ve gotten in a long time, I’m betting.” She considered, then looked at her familiar. “Okay.”
Simple wants make for simple alliances. Probably. Maybe. Maybe not. Also BG refers to her familiar as her 'partner' and I wonder if we're gonna explore their relationship more. I don't know if I trust the read that she's just enslaved by her too-powerful familiar. It might be more of a symbiotic relationship than some people give it credit for.
She might even see it as an apprenticeship or a duty
The wait extended. I could see the Briar Girl shifting her weight. Periodically glancing at her familiar. No doubt communicating by some means. “Agree to rescind the threat,” she said, “and I won’t tell Laird.”
Blake is....damn good at this. Okay that was a thin joke but it worked on some level. I like how Blake and Rose are really working together to get through this really dumb fucking plan that Blake didn't have.
“Get the still-warm blood of an animal, as much as possible. Strip yourself of all clothes. Douse yourself, slowly, to allow yourself to feel the power instead of having your wits dashed from you. Put power into the parts of it you want to keep. Gorge the spirit, and draw the spirit into you. Fail to exert enough will and focus, and the power inherent in the blood will bleed over into other parts of you, you might physically change, you might experience other side effects, or your mind might slip away until it fades. If you don’t exert enough power, you’ll get far less effect for what you have spent. With practice, you learn how much to put in, and where your attention needs to go.”
This is some valuable info, and pretty cool, but ultimately still kind of useless without a reliable, not-his-fuckin-blood power source that Blake doesn't have
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JayManiac 03-May-19 07:19 AM
I don't see it as all that weird actually, when you consider that clothes probably bring a ton of connotations and therefore spirits that aren't you into the mix. I mean the Bible has a bunch of stuff about mixing fabrics, and the clothes you wear can be symbols or they could suggest something to spirits and it's probably a lot simpler to go without.
That said, I'm all hells of game for a magic system where the most powerful rituals require the 1 man 200 t-shirts challenge
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Seregraug 03-May-19 07:20 AM
Maybe I'm just suspicious because Robert Jordan had everyone getting naked all the time for 'sacred' rituals.
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JayManiac 03-May-19 07:20 AM
Maybe it's just that it hasn't been played that way in Pact yet
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Seregraug 03-May-19 07:21 AM
The fact that it's required for the awakening ritual crosses me right out from being a practioner. (edited)
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JayManiac 03-May-19 07:22 AM
Like, I bet there's a good amount of anime with a "oh no the magic says we have to be naked hehe" kinda feel, but I have no inherent problem with nudity in general until someone or something makes it weird, which this book hasn't done yet
The fact that it's required for the awakening ritual crosses me right out from being a practioner. Really? Not the losing your ability to lie, signing up to stab yourself lots of times, opening yourself up to a world of being horribly maimed if you aren't careful, and slowly losing the humanity and empathy you have in order to gain the barest of advantages?
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Seregraug 03-May-19 07:25 AM
Well, those are all cons too.
WB is good at making power systems where you don't want the power.
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JayManiac 03-May-19 07:30 AM
Now I'm thinking about the problems caused by Parahumanity and Praticiohumanity and how they differ. Parahumans 'trigger', and it's normally not their fault and yet their trauma pushes them to do horrible shit and their own flaws aid the tide of entropy Pactitioners on the other hand, agree to this power, whether by nessesity or by "i think it's cool-ity", which sounds a lot more like participation and contribution to a flawed economic system that increases the tide of entropy unfair-deal by unfair-deal. You start making those deals because you have to, just to pay the bills and keep yourself alive. But you don't ever stop. Even when your comforts are all guaranteed you just keep going and grasping for every scrap of strength because the thin justifications you were able to make for screwing people over are a glamour that you've reinforced throughout your life so that you're still thinking of your millionth dollar as that last dollar before you're destitute. They're very different sides of conflict that are being examined here, and I really admire what each brings to the table.
Pin that one on the ol "jay might make a video essay about it when he finishes pact" board with the others, I suppose.
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Seregraug 03-May-19 07:31 AM
Well...or they are forced into it by their family.
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JayManiac 03-May-19 07:31 AM
Right, but they choose it
maybe over horrible death 🤷, but that's just the rub in this day and age
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Seregraug 03-May-19 07:32 AM
I mean, did Blake or his Grandma choose it really?
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A bird 🐦 03-May-19 07:32 AM
Technically yes
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Seregraug 03-May-19 07:32 AM
Feels a bit like saying (Ward) Rain choose to join the Fallen
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JayManiac 03-May-19 07:32 AM
we make a system that can't get better because being "better" isn't advantageous.
I think it's different, sere
Blake wasn't raised like this from the ground up, he has other perspectives. The kicker for him is really the proverbial gun to his head here, which is a whole nother kind of extortion
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A bird 🐦 03-May-19 07:34 AM
I think it'd be more like Rain being forced back into the Fallen
agree 1
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JayManiac 03-May-19 07:34 AM
I think it's totally understandable what he's doing, but I don't think the fact that he was forced into it excuses any morally questionable actions he takes to ensure personal power
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Seregraug 03-May-19 07:34 AM
Well, his Grandma was raised in it.
And I'm not sure Blake can leave unless he gives the house to the lawyers?
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JayManiac 03-May-19 07:34 AM
As was Penelope, and that's a closer situation
Yeah no Blake does this or dies
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A bird 🐦 03-May-19 07:35 AM
Technically still a choice
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Seregraug 03-May-19 07:35 AM
Dying is a hopeful outcome I think.
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JayManiac 03-May-19 07:35 AM
And lawyer-ing would count as participating in the horrible practitioner Practice anyways
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Seregraug 03-May-19 07:36 AM
I wonder if there's a magic ritual to disown your family so you don't count as one of them anymore. 🤔
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JayManiac 03-May-19 07:36 AM
Well there's this thing the Lawyers could call...
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A bird 🐦 03-May-19 07:39 AM
I'm sure there's some non Lawyer identity subsuming force out there somewhere
A god or something, maybe?
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JayManiac 03-May-19 07:40 AM
But my point, is that Blake and we the readers don't get to just call the Practitioner world shitty and then say it's fine when he does the shitty things because he was forced into it by circumstance. Tough shit, so was everyone. Penelope, Granny Rose, and Laird never really knew anything else. They threatened Maggie's life same as Blake, threatened her dads on top of it. It requires decades of hard-ass work to make this world better, to become powerful in Pact's reality without screwing some decent people over and generally being a dick. And even then, you might not actually make enough of a difference.
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Seregraug 03-May-19 07:41 AM
Oh, I wasn't saying that Blake was a special case. I meant that everyone was forced into it.
Well, okay not everyone.
But a lot of people.
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JayManiac 03-May-19 07:42 AM
Like, look at Bernie! He's attempting to fight economized politics by not accepting donations from large companies, but as a result he doesn't get those donations. He falls behind in airtime, he falls behind on lotsa shit because he took the time to try reversing one lousy side effect of Practioning Politics.
I'm definitely writing an essay about this eventually
or actually right now
but im gonna make it coherent eventually
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Seregraug 03-May-19 07:43 AM
(This is why we must shatter the karmic system and unmake the concept of magic. 👀)
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JayManiac 03-May-19 07:43 AM
Viva la Karmic Revolution
our slogan?
"Screw You-niverse!!"
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Seregraug 03-May-19 07:43 AM
Draw down the moon and extinguish the sun...
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JayManiac 03-May-19 07:44 AM
hey now just wait a diddley darn second on that last part
You know maybe this is why it takes me three hours to read each chapter.
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A bird 🐦 03-May-19 07:45 AM
(Seregraug is Elvish for Blood Demon)
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JayManiac 03-May-19 07:46 AM
I'll be honest i thought it was Infernal for Spikey Plant
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Seregraug 03-May-19 07:46 AM
My demonic secrets revealed.
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A bird 🐦 03-May-19 07:46 AM
Be suspicious of their wily words
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Seregraug 03-May-19 07:46 AM
Foiled by a wandering bird.
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JayManiac 03-May-19 07:46 AM
are you guys coordinating this?
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A bird 🐦 03-May-19 07:46 AM
suspicious 🐦
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JayManiac 03-May-19 07:46 AM
Spirits are holding up 10s all around the stadium that was awesome
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Seregraug 03-May-19 07:46 AM
Nah, I've just explained my name before.
And made a bit of a running joke of being a demon in pact related channels.
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JayManiac 03-May-19 07:47 AM
as one do
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A bird 🐦 03-May-19 07:47 AM
And I followed Sereg's liveread here, so we've riffed a fair amount on it 😄
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JayManiac 03-May-19 07:48 AM
still, rhyming couplets is a nice touch there, I could see you two as Aziraphale/Crawley types
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Seregraug 03-May-19 07:49 AM
Oh, that was unintentional. Maybe we are in sync. 🤔 suspicious
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JayManiac 03-May-19 07:49 AM
👀 suspicious
see this is how I watch you both, by having four eyes
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A bird 🐦 03-May-19 07:50 AM
👼
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JayManiac 03-May-19 07:50 AM
yknow maybe I should *keep reading the Lords Damned chapter*
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Seregraug 03-May-19 07:51 AM
Our demonic timing has distracted you the appointed amount of time.
No need to be concerned.
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JayManiac 03-May-19 07:52 AM
I'm sure I'm just marching in perfect time🐰 🕰
Some never change their clothes, only changing the glamour.”
Yo that's...kinda gross, friend-o
“Who gave it to you?” “It was fairly taken, after a duel.”
Okay yo, this must just feel really cool to say
“I want to ask a question, before I answer that. What are the limitations?” “There are few. My teacher told me many Faerie take refuge in audacity. Keep the rules of the change simple, without too many twists and turns, and you can paint any sort of picture. Your power and the glamour’s power is only truly expended if the glamour breaks. Cracks, frays, fades, peels, or breaks entirely. You’re deceiving reality, and reality can only make you pay for the sheer difference in forms when it finds out.”
We sort of had this suggested, but it's nice to get it spelled out all the same. That's a pretty solid weakness.
“You don’t. You leave a tell. A key, if you will. Something deliberately wrong, often something that calls back to you, specifically. Anyone who notices it will see through the glamour, but you can notice it to do the same.”
“Why? What are you thinking? And please don’t make this one of those things where you only explain things at the last second, in general terms, and leave it up to me to say yes or no.” “I’ve only done that once, haven’t I?”
I actually just laughed out loud at blake's lack of self awareness here. It's just the perfect beat of "no you fuckin dumbass"
“Given the state you’re in, I’m betting you want to swear you won’t do it again. Don’t. But keep it in mind, especially if something comes up, and the tables are turned?” “I think I could do that,” I said, speaking slowly and carefully. “Why do I feel like you already know what that something is?”
👀 👀 👀 I've grown a whole extra pair of eyes to examine this one
Your tinfoil hat is a glamour that may just convince reality
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A bird 🐦 03-May-19 07:59 AM
The devil's in the details, after all
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JayManiac 03-May-19 07:59 AM
I JUST REALIZED THAT WAS THE TAGLINE EARLIER TODAY
when I recommended pact to my friend's english teacher
I mean, I remembered that it had always been that, Devils and Details, but i'd never just sat my ass down and appreciated the awesome
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A bird 🐦 03-May-19 08:00 AM
What's the tagline of Worm, again?
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JayManiac 03-May-19 08:01 AM
Doesn't have one on google
but I think it used to be something along the lines of 'doing the wrong thing for the right reasons'
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A bird 🐦 03-May-19 08:02 AM
That was it
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JayManiac 03-May-19 08:02 AM
Twig doesn't have one that appears on google either, guess that's an every-other-serial deal
Ward's is 'The rules have changed'
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A bird 🐦 03-May-19 08:03 AM
Twig's was man made monsters and man made monsters
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JayManiac 03-May-19 08:03 AM
Don't know where that was written but it's fucking sick
feel free to interpret that any way you want
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A bird 🐦 03-May-19 08:05 AM
Just think of how much exploration of the concepts of the taglines gets done in the first few arcs, and think how much you have out before you
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JayManiac 03-May-19 08:05 AM
Oh
Oh man
I'm so ready to get there it seventeen years
Speaking of,
“In terms of Laird, well, I’m thinking we need to pay a visit to Maggie next.
sharkhi
Talking to Briar Girl was a bit of a test, as it wound up. Dealing with the girl who tried to kill me. Kill us. I’d like to think I handled that pretty amicably.”
fine
You know, people who try to kill you are usually pretty understandable once you just sit down and have a chat with them
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Seregraug 03-May-19 08:07 AM
Unless they are Lard disdain
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JayManiac 03-May-19 08:08 AM
You just gotta consider the reverse of the argument sere
people who try to sit down and have a chat with you...
are probably just trying to kill you!
“You’re talking to the outliers. Why? Where does this lead?” “Laird said he was aiming to do something tonight. I’m aiming to stop him.”
Oh that's badass. I'm serious, you get spirit points for that, Blake. As the reader I am a spirit in the metaphysics of the story and therefore am qualified to hand out spirit points. It's done. Points awarded.
“I don’t know what to expect. How does a guy like Laird get revenge?”
ticketing you for going forty in a thirty-five?
“Something like sending goblins to kill him. I’d settle for a little bloodletting. Or something to remove him from play. But we need him out of the picture. We need to destroy him, on some level, and we need to do the same for his family. You get that, right? We’re on the same page?” “I hate the word ‘destroy’. But yes. It’s destroy or be destroyed.”
screams in the language of long essay
“Hm,” Rose answered. “While you’re figuring out the glamour stuff, I might get to reading a book on it. Go in with our eyes open.” “Good idea,” I said. I opened the door, and, without thinking, I held it open for Rose.
Aww, that's touching. And...kinda dumb...but touching! Thorburn Twins just working together
What had Ms. Lewis told me about the Faerie? Self delusion. I did it again. This time, I relaxed and let myself believe it would change. A leap of faith.
I am Blake Thorburn the Arca- you know, his name is cool enough he doesn't need that. My name is Blake Thorburn, and my Alar is a Thundering Gale
“You startled me.” “I look different?” “About ten years older, dark haired? Yeah.” “Good stuff,” I said. “It’s supposed to be harder than that,” she said. “Pretty sure.” “Good thing you didn’t tell me before I tried anything,” I said.
I know it can be really stupid and all but im a big fan of 'if you knew how hard it was it wouldn't've worked'
it's already really true to reality, and doubly so when dealing with something like Glamour
`I started spreading the stuff over the rest of my neck, shoulders, and beneath my shirt. “But if this proves to be more useful than that duel was dangerous, I agree, we should be suspicious.” ■ The glamour was really fucking useful, as it turned out. Damn it.
This is a really really fun beat. Every time I reread it I laugh again.
same 1
Behaims and Duchamps of various ages passed me without a first glance, let alone a second.
that's really fuckin useful. You're gonna have literal hell to pay if you break this thing.
“Sorry,” I said, in a stranger’s voice. “No need to be sorry, Mr. Stranger Danger. Why don’t you walk away?” Maggie suggested. “Go find a nice middle aged woman to sleaze on.”
Yup, that's our goblin girl sharkhi
“Can I help you?” he asked. I looked and I saw the connection between him and Maggie. For someone who’d just moved to this city, for that connection to be that strong… “You’re Maggie’s father?” I asked.
He's getting better at Seeing with his Magic Eyes, and not his Eyes. It also just makes me happy that this guy is here and alive and hopefully not doomed to watch friends and neighbors die two more times.
“So dish,” she said. “You want to mess with the Thorburns?” I hesitated. “What if I did?” “I’d tell you I’m done with that. Fool me once, and all that jazz.”
Oh good. She's learned her lesson about...killing thorburns specifically
well it's a start
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A bird 🐦 03-May-19 08:23 AM
Side note, there are two actual literal Thorburn Twins
Paige and Peter
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JayManiac 03-May-19 08:24 AM
Oh yeah, fuck. Well they don't get to be the Thorburn Twins anymore
Thorburn Twins work as a team everyone knows that
Peter's a dick
Case closed
“It’s Blake,” she whispered. “Blake Thorburn.” Each time she said my name, I could see the connection striving to appear, hammering at my glamour, like a battering ram slamming into a heavy door.
The amount of bad idea this could've been. I don't know if you even appreciate it Blake
“Don’t say my name,” I said. “Do let me know if I can borrow some goblins.” “They’re work to get under control,” she said. “Not easy.” “I’ll settle for goblins in paper prisons I can’t control,” I said. “I’m making a move against Laird. Soon.”
I'm glad Maggie's just kinda doing this. It feels like she really feels bad about what happened and this might put them on a path to patching things up.
“He’s called something I’m not allowed to say,” Maggie said. “It’s written on the whistle.” Dickswizzle.
I laughed harder than I should've. it's gotta be pretty inconvenient to be restricted from saying the names of your henchmen, especially in this world, where names have so much power.
“Crud,” Rose said, a murmur. I could see Maggie’s father react. “Dickswizzle, come,” I said. He didn’t budge a muscle. “Dickswizzle, come,” Rose said. Dickswizzle approached a few paces. “That thing I wanted to talk to you about…” Rose murmured.
Wait what?
Oh my goblins how did I not see that coming?
Of course
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A bird 🐦 03-May-19 08:30 AM
teeheehee
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JayManiac 03-May-19 08:30 AM
So what the fuck does this mean?!
Well we can analyze what it means from a predictive standpoint, Rose has more agency now meaning potentially more balance but also maybe more conflict for their relationship
but also why and how are things I wouldn't mind knowing. Is it a part of what all normal practitioners get, split between them? By awakening in sync with blake and as his vestige did she get a specific part of his power?
Did Granny Rose set all this up and not give them a manual cuz she's an asshole?
find out next time jay has 7 hours to read the next chapter!
This was really fun
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A bird 🐦 03-May-19 08:34 AM
The temptation to ask leading questions to see what you do with them is very high
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JayManiac 03-May-19 08:37 AM
As long as you trust your ability to formulate at least a 2-1 ratio of fake yet believable leading questions along with so I have no idea which is which, go right ahead!
Make it 3-1 actually
see I haven't awakened I can go back on by shit
Case in point, I think I might need to sleep now so I'll see you guys next time!
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JayManiac 04-May-19 06:33 PM
Alright, so long as I'm not comedically interrupted after sending this first message I should have time to read at least a chapter today.
Breach: 3.3
The neighborhood was a nice one, as the local neighborhoods went. Big houses, old-fashioned, with large yards. Many, including the house in front of me, had additions or garages that came close to a small house in size. It wasn’t up to par with the two million dollar homes in the better areas of Toronto, but it was the sort of place I could see myself living, somewhere down the road.
Okay, we cut away from Rose about to talk about the fact that she commands all the things for some reason, which is...cool. Fine. I didn't want to know anything about that anyways.
But actually reading the quoted passage is kinda sad
Cars were parked along the length of the street. Families were leaving the vehicles. The Behaims, with brown and black hair, leaning towards the stockier side, with a few who were fat. The Duchamps, men and women, all blonde.
This isn't...The Wedding!? Or some related event/rehearsal dinner type thing?
Others had connections to another, distant place, matching some of my connections, the ones I’d covered up with glamour.
Yo this glamour thing is really friggin useful. Fuck
Out of town members of the Duchamp clan?
I mean I doubt all these people would come together just cuz laird wants to kick blake's ass.
Still bent over, I moved my hand under my hat to run it along my hair. From dirty blond to platinum blond that had been lightened by age. Another pass, to change it from wavy to straight.
Is he thinking of impersonating Duchamps? Wouldn't they just see he's not connected to them and peg him as an impostor?
Somehow this fit me. I could tap into my memories or my history, being a face in the crowd, and I could figure this out. It was instincts, it was building, it was an art of a sort, and those were things I did pretty well.
I mean, it's clever, but it's also really friggin stupid
“Hi, come in, welcome, welcome, hi Beth, come in,” Laird’s wife was talking to each new guest. She gave me a polite, distracted smile as I passed through the threshold and into Laird’s house.
Holy shit that worked
Earlier
Oh thank fuck we're doing this
“You haven’t noticed?” she asked. “Both times, the ghosts reacted to my voice, not yours.”
I did notice, but am big dumb
“When did you figure it out?” “The lawyers. They came when I said their names. You were in the kitchen, and I said it, and boom, there they were.”
I did not notice that part, i'd have to read it again
“Dickswizzle,” I said. Who the hell names these bastards?
A question I'm sure we're all wondering. Maybe it's a conflation of causality, and we just get all our bad words from Goblin Names
When I went up to the room, the barber turned his back to me. Rejecting me.” “Barber?” Maggie asked.
Didn't notice that either. Also, trust me Maggie you don't want to know
“It’s a female line,” Rose said. “That’s how Others see the Thorburn practitioner. The simplest Others, the ones who can’t really think, or who think in an alien way, I think they look for the female part of it. Ones like Padraic, they can maybe work their head around it.”
I'm not entirely sure I buy this...for one, does that suggest Padriac thinks in a more human way? I think there's something more to the whole dealio, but maybe that's just me tinfoil hatting a little
“I think it’s more basic than that. Something like Dickswizzle or the Barber looks at us, and they see something completely different from what we see. Gender’s tied up in something intrinsic about our being. I think.”
suspicious
“Gender’s a mutable thing,” Maggie said. “It is today, but Others are old fashioned,” Rose said.
Okay, yeah I can see that. Also proud of how easily and quickly Maggie and Rose agree on that and move on.
. By the letter of the law, the Thorburn practitioner is holding the whistle, and the Thorburn practitioner is giving the orders.”
Hahahahhahaha that's exactly the way it would be parsed by ol dickswizzle
“Am I even me right now?” I asked. “As far as the whistle is concerned?”
Blake why do you care what the whistle thinks? My chair could think I'm george clooney and it wouldn't really matter to my identity
“I hope you are, at your core, at least,” Rose said. “There’s one possibility, that you’re the body and I’m the voice. You can obviously do some material things. Drawing circles, some shamanism. Glamour, obviously.”
`This is an interesting wrinkle to the whole Blake/Rose picture, and one that I buy a little more. it would explain the differences in their Awakenings, and mean that Rose actually got some end of the bargains that were made there.
Which raised questions about the idea that she might be tapping me for strength or merging with me. Would she gain clout, or borrow from my abilities over time? Until she had all of the power?
BLAKE NO Gods, none of your attempts to quell insecurity with promises are working
you just gotta trust sometimes
I met Maggie’s eyes. She shook her head a fraction. What was that ‘no’ for?
Maybe it's "don't tell this guy his daughter is a murderer Blake"
He glanced at Maggie. “You said this place was safe.” “Relatively… relative to home,” Maggie said. She smiled. He gave her a very good ‘I am not amused in the slightest’ look.
Gots to get better at that Practitioner talk, Mr. Holt
“We’ve talked about what you’re doing with the goblins, we didn’t talk about lending them out to others. You’re containing, trapping and controlling, so you can stop things before they start.”
😬
That sure as hell worked for Oedipus
and all those other greek guys that tried to stop prophecies before they could come true
“The more I think about it,” I said. “I’m not sure any place is. You find out about stuff like this, and… I guess normalcy is beyond your reach.” “I refuse to believe that.”
That's really admirable. Wrong, probably, but admirable!
“If there’s a way to get things back to normal for you guys,” Maggie told him, “I want to find it.” “And you?” he asked.
maybe you can't slip as many practitioner lies past this guy as I figured! She's too deep in the shit now.
“They are,” Maggie said. Her face brightened a bit. “It’s like looking at the workings of the human body. It’s messy and gross and bloody and mucked up and imperfect, but there’s an art there.”
You know I'm starting to see those bonesaw vibes you've talked about, sere
forgot to mention that I read your read of chapter 2 by backsearching the channel
“I don’t ever want to lose you, or have you lose me,” Maggie said, sincerely. “But I think stopping me from helping Blake is going to do more hurt than help, as far as us going down that road.”
that's the most teenager-y thing to say in this situation...but I kind of agree that preserving her humanity here probably means something more like letting her atone for her sins than stopping her from doing that.
“I needed the goblins, which I just got,” I said. “And now all I need is to know where Laird is.” Maggie reached into her pocket and withdrew a business card. “Like this?” I could see the connection to Laird.
This is such a cool magic system guys.
“Hey!” The barked word startled me, as did the connection I felt. The certainty that it was aimed at me. I turned.
I almost had a god damn heart attack
The men at the alcohol station waved me over. I mentally prepared my story, best as I could. Fuck me, getting into a situation like this when I couldn’t lie.
Oh Yeah this is even stupider than I thought it was!
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JayManiac 04-May-19 07:11 PM
Pact - "Lords, Blake, what the fuck are you doing!?"
I had had an answer ready, but I’d only just let my guard down a fraction. The answer I managed was a neutral, “Seemed like something was going on, tonight.”
The tension is ratchetted to the ceiling here. He's surrounded by enemies on their territory, unable to lie and being questioned casually. It's just a perfectly dumb situation to be in
“Wedding thing,” one of the other guys said. “Wedding thing,” I said. I shrugged. “I dunno much about it. I’ve only been paying attention to things for a few days now.”
I sorta figured, but why would there be a recurring thing to go to before the wedding?
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spinagon 04-May-19 07:15 PM
And clothed in incredibly fragile disguise that will backfire if broken
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JayManiac 04-May-19 07:15 PM
Oh yeah, can't forget that
I mean maybe as more people see him as just another one of the family it should be getting stronger, that's sort of how the Glamour works
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spinagon 04-May-19 07:16 PM
By apparent rules of this universe it just means the backfire will be that much stringer
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JayManiac 04-May-19 07:17 PM
Well, yeah
but maybe it won't do that though?
I dunno, I'm having trouble imagining a situation where blake survives his glamour going down
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spinagon 04-May-19 07:18 PM
Everybody does keep on telling him he's not long for this world
But then, he's the protagonist
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JayManiac 04-May-19 07:19 PM
“Neither,” I answered. “I went my separate way from my particular family unit, not long ago. Stuff came up with a cousin of mine, I came into town for her sake. I thought tonight was a good occasion to see how all this works.”
This is delightfully true, and I love it. Blake is clever. Not smart, by any means, but clever. And that's important.
“Marrying me?” I asked. I affected a tone of voice and demeanor much like his. “Nah. I have an apartment. I barely made a living wage, these past few months. I don’t even know if my job’s going to be there when I go back.”
He had more up his sleeves than I gave him credit for.
“Or grill you,” Adam said. “Get all the dirt they can, to make sure you’re a viable candidate for their daughters. Descend on you like a flock of harpies if you aren’t, humiliating you. And they’re good at the harpy thing.”
Uh oh. Blake would not survive this harpy thing. It might be a literal harpy thing from here on out.
“I think we could do that… What’s your name, by the by?” he asked. That gave me pause. “Less I tell you guys, the less anyone can get out of you when they start asking the questions,” I said, quirking one eyebrow. “I mean, you don’t really care, do you?”
The eggshell walking here is fantastic. I can't get over it I just have to keep pulling quotes
She looked right past us. No recognition, not even an attempt at recognition. She paused to shoo one cluster of kids away from the fireplace, which was burning with a low flame.
Hey that's good! I'm keeping track of the times that Blake is looked over and it seems like he might be building up that glamour a bit
also I come from two enormous families so I totally get how this would work
As long as someone looks pretty filipino, I can't question it. I saw a filipino dude at the library yesterday and thought it might be one of my titos. Was so ready to be embarrassed i didn't know his name.
I allowed myself to relax as the evening progressed. With so many unwitting bystanders around, there wasn’t much to be done. There was no fucking way I was going near Laird.
Then why the fuck are you here
Dinner was served, buffet style, and the various rooms of the house were soon filled with people eating.
I love that one of the primary victories of tonight is that Blake gets to eat something. I'm so vicariously happy about that that it's kind of worrying.
Most of the little ones sat at the table, the elderly ate in the living room, and the adults without children to feed ate standing up, holding their plates with one hand and using forks with the other, putting wine glasses, beer bottles, and glasses of soda on any available surface. Ordinary.
This captures the atmosphere of large families occupying the same space so well, it's almost nostalgic. It's really good writing.
I took it for what it was, eating genuinely good food for the first time in a week or so,
sharkhi
Dressing up like Sandra Duchamp seemed like a horrible, horrible idea.
I love that this is the first mention of that idea, and it's that the idea is stupid and bad. It's a fun beat.
We’d hammered this out, agreed that infiltration would be the only way to stop Laird, and settled on this.
I kind of wonder if Blake just sees it that way or not. I guess he's more self-aware now, but still. I'm sort of surprised this seems to be a premeditated dumb decision.
Oh man, it would be nice if I could split up that couple.
Alas, you're not all that good at that. devastating
If some of the Duchamp girls were that desperate for a way out, could I dress up like the groom and get them somewhere secluded? No. Because the Duchamp girls weren’t pawns.
Good on you Blake! Still worrying that you had this thought in the first place, but good on you...?
I do love that blake constantly lets his humanity get in the way of being a practitioner. It's one of my favorite things about his character.
Was it like I’d read about in one of the books? A tether? A leash of some fixed length, keeping them together? I felt my skin crawl a bit at that
This 👏 is 👏 fucked 👏 up 👏
I knew I was running out of time. Time, ironically, being Laird’s weapon of choice. He and his family were chronomancers.
And we all know those guys can be assholes.🐰
The small handful of people who were leaving were, with the help of the rune gently urging people to leave, starting to clear the house.
wish I had a "subtly kick people out of your house" rune
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spinagon 04-May-19 07:39 PM
If we were willing to be monsters, to go all out, it would be a fairly simple matter to hit them with Shatterbird to slow them down, use Sundancer’s sun at maximum power, tear the building apart and incinerate the residents before everyone could clear out. It wouldn’t even be hard.
On the topic of humanity and effectiveness
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JayManiac 04-May-19 07:41 PM
Yup! I saw that ward post a couple months ago about heroes 'jobbing'. Kind of similar.
As the crowd thinned, I could make out Penelope and Jo. The ones who’d tried to kill me, just yesterday. The practitioners were the ones who remained.
I came out of that conversation kind of liking them actually, so hesitant sharkhi
I plucked a hair from his head.
and that is why you should never let a sympathist get your hair, or your blood
“Rose,” I said. “Rose, Rose.” A moment passed, and Rose appeared in the pane.
Not sure what's funnier, the fact that he does this or the fact that it works
“No,” I said. “But this is your chance to tell me if I’m being an idiot.” “Are you being an idiot?”
A fair line of questioning
I looked at the hair, and I could see the connection to its owner, like a vague shaft of sunlight filtered through the air in a dusty room. Moving downstairs, slowing as he entered the living room.
How the heck did he know this would work? I didn't know this would work!
“Set the house on fire?” she suggested. “There’s a thought,” I said. “But no. This many practitioners, this being their territory, the fire would go out if they asked politely.
When in doubt🔥
I shifted my stance, bracing my knee against the sink. I bent down to grab my foot with both hands, forcing my knee against the sink. “What in the fuck are you doing?” she asked.
I would like to know this too
No. If the glamour was weaker, I wouldn’t have been able to compress myself down to a height of three and a half feet.
Oh. oh. That's a little bit creepy
“You realize, if you let this break, it’s going to recoil like crazy?”
fine
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Wildbow 04-May-19 07:52 PM
How bad could it be?
suspicious 1
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JayManiac 04-May-19 07:53 PM
I dunno, thanks for making me think about it!
He could grow so tall he can't fit through doors! He could age to a hundred years old! Who knows what the universe has in store!
A magic circle, if that was even the term. Fifteen feet across, it was complex. Diagrams inside diagrams, mathematical notation towards the center, astrological symbols at the outermost edges. The hair told me that my counterpart was heading my way. I reversed direction, keeping the crowd between us.
Oh my god literally all it takes is for an adult to notice something is up when they see a kid on both sides of the room this is a horrible idea
“Let’s talk about Blake Thorburn,” Laird said.
Oh yes let's.
Just yesterday, Blake Thorburn attacked my reputation, putting me and my family in awkward positions. Sandra Duchamp was able to pull some strings, and things look like they will settle, but it’s clear Blake Thorburn isn’t on the same page as us.
Maybe, just maybe, that was a horrible idea to begin with!
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Wildbow 04-May-19 07:59 PM
Was it, though?
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JayManiac 04-May-19 08:01 PM
I don't know, maybe Laird would've moved against him anyways and this just puts them off balance? I can't tell just yet, but it seems like they didn't actually accomplish anything with the letter that hurt Laird, which was the goal, and did succeed in pissing him off, which was...maybe not beneficial to their situation at large?
“Answering the question from earlier,” Sandra cut in. “We did some readings. A reading of Blake Thorburn drew the Fool card with the right hand, the High Priestess with the left. A reading of his vestige companion drew the Hanged Man and Chariot, respectively.” First of all, I resented that. Second of all, ominous.
hahahahahahahahaha
I don't know what any of that means, but it's funny (edited)
“Let’s not mince words,” a man said. “You’re talking about his death. About murdering him.” “I was mincing words, as we do have children in the room,” Laird said. “But no, I do not want either option. Particularly now. This is my proposed solution.”
You must be new to practitioning, random guy. Assuming they'd be satisfied with mere death
“No. We’re not targeting him,” Sandra said. “He’s not even in our sights. He spends much of his time ensconced within the house, where every demesnes has been turned inward.”
Well if they call in an Other Strike ™ on Blake in his house, that's like the best case scenario, because he's not at his house
and a spell that doesn't target him won't find out that he's..uh...here
although it would be hilarious if they firebombed their own house with a Homing Other locked on Blake
Hilarious and probably deadly
Fuck me. This wasn’t just Laird pulling something with people looking in. He was involving them. A coven -a circle-, getting involved. “Sandra, I need you at the ‘crown’ point. Isabelle, the ‘sword’.” Two circles, I thought. I was frozen. What could I do? “Clustered so close together,” Sandra commented. She was almost shoulder to shoulder with Isabelle.
👀
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spinagon 04-May-19 08:07 PM
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JayManiac 04-May-19 08:07 PM
The Behaims arranged around the edge, the Duchamps in a tight circle in the middle. There was a respectful silence. Fuck me.
I can't even wonder at the implications of this, except that they're powerful and not good, probably
“Finally,” Laird said, dropping to one knee. He drew his pocketwatch out, then tapped it gently on the circle, like someone might if they were cracking an egg. “I’ll need your help, my friend.” Light flared, reflected off the open ‘door’ of the watch, and when it passed, a stooped, sun-wizened old man stood before Laird, practically wrapped around the staff that was keeping him standing. Hair slicked back, no beard, his eyes pinched to slits by the wrinkles and folds of his face.
Is this Laird's Famimplement in human form?
Are they gonna Grey Boy Blake?
or his house at least?
The diagram was moving. An ellipse, pointed at either end, whatever I was supposed to call that, was making its way around the edge. The various people standing on the circle began moving, glacially slowly, but moving. I saw the movement of another ellipse. Like the hands of a clock. The thuds were a ticking, as if we were in a great clocktower. “With one stroke,” Laird said. “We can remove the entire Thorburn family as a threat. I’ll get us started.” He began chanting.
Yo I'm so pumped to see how screwed blake is. I loved the tension of this chapter, it was really well executed like blake here is gonna be in a second~
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JayManiac 07-May-19 03:37 AM
Alright, can I finish 3.4 before We've got Ward starts recording? (edited)
probably not, let's go!
The steady ‘tock, tock, tock’ of the diagram was joined by confident voices, speaking in time with the ritual.
this is the most terrifyingly magic thing we've seen happen so far. We know what a single practitioner is capable of, so with the amount in this room, presumably calling the names of horrible homing missile furies, it just multiplies whatever fear is present
I talk about WbHype™ sometimes with worm (the endbringers, gray boy, s9) and I think that's a principle that's really strong in this situation
I needed to know more. What was the ritual, what was the goal, and how the hell was I supposed to disrupt this without revealing myself or getting them to hunt for a culprit?
All good questions. I think the only thing that could make this more on-brandedly terrifying is if they do this whole fuckin ritual and an innocent-looking small child pops out.
I don't know if I think blake is in any immediate danger though, apart from maybe being caught
the last chapter was super duper tense, but here they've said the target isn't blake, and that it'll wipe out thorburnkind, so I was kinda guessing ground zero was the house, which blake isn't even in right now
and with the glamour he's in a lot less danger once he leaves, so he doesn't need it as much as he used to
One glass case had an assortment of trinkets, wands, a staff and a spike-studded scepter. Primarily, though, there were watches, hourglasses, and other timepieces within.
the Behaimplements, I assume?
“Al mamlakah,” Sandra Duchamp spoke, startling me a bit. A loud, clear woman’s voice in the midst of the more baritone chanting.
I don't even know why Im pulling this out it just....spoke to me? for real though, this is some powerful writing while still being in Blake's less-ephemeral voice
talking about the whole like four paragraphs about what the duchamps add to the ritual by the way, I just didn't want to pull it all
I selected my position carefully, so I could be sure to be out of sight of anyone who saw the two kids playing under the foosball table, and I walked up to one of the Behaims. I tugged on her sleeve, insistent. She looked down at me. “I wanna see the paper,” I said, loud enough to be annoying.
See this is smart and all, but 1. not sure what it's actually gonna do 2. you're putting yourself in the open, which is more in view of that kid you're impersonating and people who can see you both
I could get the gist of it. Power of a particular type, directed inward, given direction by the inner circle. Astrological symbols on the outer rim, and then, as Laird had said, the realm, the space. Community at the center.
Oh duh he just wants to know what it does. Am dumb, don't mind me
Temporal distortion, centered on the house? No. Not the house, exactly.
👀 Am currently wondering about my jguess™ that Laird plans to GrayBakububble the Thorburn house
The vibrations that were emanating from the circle took on a harder, harsher quality. Where I’d felt it against my body before, like a speaker with the bass turned up, I could feel it running through me, now, resonating in my bones.
language escalates tension n stuff. Really good scene-building here
The ticks and tocks continued incessantly, shuddering their way through me, resonating in my bones for the one and a half seconds it took before the next one hit me. I was left just a bit breathless. The woman next to me had to shift her position to keep from falling.
Chief among the principles of WbHype, is the action/reaction pairing, and the reaction of the lady toppling sells the power behind it.
“But I’m scared!” I cried out. Loud, again, to distract. To justify the other thing I was doing. I threw myself bodily at one of her knees, wrapping my arms around her thigh.
this is devastating
One strong jerk back on her arm sent her falling back onto her rear end, safely away from the circle. The Duchamp woman straightened, and remained there, stone-faced, vaguely condemning of her rescuee and me both, not offering anything further in the way of a helping hand.
Drat. Well, that almost didn't not work
What was S.O.P. for being a guest? If I couldn’t poison them, what was I allowed to do when they were trying to fuck with me?
Ah yes, how can I be genteel about preventing my own demise!? (I know it's important but jeez Blake)
Rose couldn’t act. Couldn’t get Maggie involved. My eyes traveled over the room. I spotted the phone in the front hallway. With a child’s fingers, I hit the numbers. Nine, one, one.
these are such clever-kid solutions that I can't help but get devastating vibes from it
“Yes it is. Are you in any danger right now?” “Not unless they find me. I’m scared.” Which was truth, if I admitted it to myself.
And we're still doing practitioner-lies, which is really my favorite part of the story so far
“If they knock, and people don’t answer, it’s because everyone’s in the back room. It’s Laird Behaim and Sandra Duchamp, and other family members…” I thought for a second. “And one of them was saying… he said Mister Laird was talking about killing somebody. Murder. And now they’re all being grim and scary.”
It's just so god damn entertaining
“Honey? It’s okay.” “Before, a few days ago, he said he’d get rid of me. He… said he wouldn’t enjoy it, but I was dead already.”
Wonder if Sandra can enchant him outta this one (probably yes, because I assume she's pretty powerful and the kid won't remember doing any of this)
“And the room they’re in is weird. It’s at the back of the house, and…” I thought for a second. “It’s got this glass case with all these sticks and things inside. One of them had spikes on it. I know he’s going to try to keep the policemen away from the room and convince them it’s not important, I’ve seen him do it before.”
I wonder 1. whether this will work. We've already seen that people can sometimes just convince themselves to ignore the supernatural, and I don't know if being conscious of that will help at all. 2. whether this gets him shot with crossbows. I mean, I don't think it breaks secrecy rules but honestly I've got no clue. Maybe leading someone to discover Otherland is crossbow-bolt-inducing
“…He took me out and then he threatened me a little and left me to walk home in the dark. Some Other people stopped me and they would have hurt me, but a friend of mine made them leave me alone.”
Okay last time I snag a clever bit of wordplay because it's just really fun to read. On this call.
What the hell did it say, that even with the oaths we’d made, the one thing I’d told the emergency dispatcher that felt closest to lying was the bit where I called Rose a friend?
That you're a bit of an asshole? That your feeble attempts at security in this relationship with a person you need to be able to rely on have gone horribly and predictably wrong?
“Hell of a gamble,” Rose said. “You never said you could act.” “I-” I started. My voice hitched with emotion. A moment passed, Rose and I both silent. “You’re not acting.”
Was wondering about that. These even seemed like the kinds of solutions a six year old would come up with. Well, not exactly, but some weird combination of 20 year old Blake and a 6 year old.
Kind of like how he was being a creepy uncle last chapter
“You’re drowning in glamour,” Rose said. “The act is becoming real.”
Sonuvadrat that's not good. Is it? No it's not. Right. To feed the Glamour you gotta be aware of it.
“No. But I’m not feeling much of anything, outside of that room. Is Granny’s- grandmother’s house safe?”
These little Glamourian Slips are just perfect.
“Here, sir. Please understand, we’ve got to do this by the book. All indicators suggested we needed to act immediately, which is why you got us.” His own police officers, arresting him? I suppressed my smile, best I could.
A moment of "fuck yeah" in the midst of all this still-very-present tension
also you may have a BakuBubble around your house there, Thorburn.
but you know, at least you're a huge pain in Laird's Behaind if you know what I'm sayin
So they glamoured the thingy so it won't attract suspicion. Guessing it'll be strong enough to withstand some routine poking-around
“So… does that make this two points for Thorburn?” I heard someone ask. “I think it’s safe to say it’s two points. Another point in this department, and he’s earned three. A great deal more profound.” A point for me… but the ritual?
Are these points at all substantial or are these guys just keeping track of the score?
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JayManiac 07-May-19 04:17 AM
Oh yeah, duh! That's a good reason to keep track of the score.
“We won’t be able to continue with the party?” someone asked.
So all of Blake's resources haven't gotten Bakububbled yet
the problem is, how does Blake stop them from just getting together and doing this tomorrow? This isn't a super-permanent solution, even if it's seemed to work so far.
The only thing I can think of would be permanently removing Laird from the equation via jail or something, but I don't see he and his enchantress friend being slowed for very long here.
Or he could shake the Duchamps' faith in Laird somehow?
“We’ve decided what we’re doing!” Laird’s wife called out. “I’m sorry, but we’re wrapping things up for tonight. If your name wasn’t called, we’ll have to bid you farewell. We’ll have another event, sometime next week.” What did that mean? Had I bought myself a week?
Hopefully that's binding as Practiciopromises go, which would mean yes
“Do you love me?” I piped up. One child’s voice in the din of conversation. “Yes, of course,” she said, without even looking down. With that done, I half-ran, half-skipped away, ducking between people’s legs to get back to Leanne and her mom. “She said yes,” I said.
It's been like a bunch of messages since I pulled a thing just because it was some really cool/funny wordplay, so I'm gonna do it again and there's nothing you can do to stop me.
“What did you make it out of?” I asked. “Magic, of course,” Leanne told me. “No fibbing,” her mom called out. “You know the rules.”
Great, yep. Just train your child to follow the letter of the laws from an early age so she can eventually devastate her enemies and end up with a best friend named fuckin Arsepint, awesome.
“In six years, four if I’m extra super good, I get to have a magical friend like Donny and Ian and Heather, and she’s going to be a fairy princess, and I don’t know who she is or what she’s a princess of, and I’m only calling her Elsabelle because I don’t know her name yet, but she’s going to be perfect and nice and sweet and beautiful and she’ll be my best friend forever. Because all Faerie are noble and pure and Faerie princesses are extra special in all those departments.”
Oh yeah, do the magical equivalent of getting married in four years, that won't be horrible
i'd be terrible at being a practitioner
“House!” she said, in a stern voice. “Open!” I saw the connection, straight to the front door. A demesne?
Ah fuck. You don't want to save your ass from the super-ritual only to wind up unglamoured in someone's own personal Happyland.
I’d traded one dangerous prison for another.
You sure did did that
“I guess. Why are we even discussing this? Get out of here.”
So that Blake can work up to something even more fucking stupid?
I drew the whistle from my pants pocket. I blew.
fine
This was fine before, when you were the only one with power here
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Wildbow 07-May-19 04:32 AM
'fine' in the 'this is fine' sense of things?
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JayManiac 07-May-19 04:33 AM
More genuinely fine, but sarcastically at the same time, but genuine because Rose might not actually agree to this, but also sarcastic because it wasn't actually fine
maybe that sentence should've not been that sentence, now that I'm thinking about it.
“Destroy the books,” I said. “Destroy the treasures. Do it quietly, and you’ll manage more destruction. Start with the oldest things, you’ll hurt them more. Run if she takes notice. Under no circumstances are you to harm anyone before returning to the flute,” I said. Dickswizzle eyed me warily.
Fare thee well, Dickswizzle, you were probably a lil shit but you're sure as hell dead now, causing trouble in someone's demenses like this. I'm not sure how I feel about the book-burning here. Might be a little harder to teach the kids practitioner-ing, which sounds good until you realize that that might just mean walking around this world unprepared like Blake is doing...
Holy wow, I finished this chapter in like...an hour! It just whizzed right by. I won't count on it happening again, so I'm stopping here for now, but maybe I picked up some chronomancy from that there ritual! Or maybe I'm running out of things to say
anyhow, great chapter! managed to pack a good amount of sharkhi and ohno there
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JayManiac 09-May-19 05:49 PM
So! Guys!
I have some big news: I'm really friggin sick
And it's been this way all week, but today I'm better enough to read stuff and still not better enough to do much of anything else, so you know what that means
I might get to read more than one chapter at once!
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Vayhle 09-May-19 05:52 PM
I hope you stop being sick, enough to feel better, but not so much so that you want to do things other than live-read. So this is a mildly selfish get well wish.
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JayManiac 09-May-19 05:56 PM
The most generous a practitioner could expect. wipes away tear
Alright let's get into it: 3.5
don't know what I did to incur all this bad karma, but my mouse stopped working as soon as i highlighted my first line of text
anyhow, snagged a mouse from the electronics box and we're back onboard
The rubber boots weren’t well insulated against the cold. It was fine at first, but the cold gradually seeped in. Or, perhaps, the warmth gradually seeped out. Unjustly snatched up from where they belonged, in the wrong environment, while I tried to figure out the fastest, tidiest way of getting rid of them. They were a good metaphor for me, really. Or for me and Rose.
Just because your book is so meta doesn't mean you get to point out all the cool metaphors blake, leave some for the rest of us!
But like i've said before, this is also the way things work with wildbow stories a lot of the time: the metaphors work because they're the characters' ways of thinking about their world, not just the author's.
shards as a whole don't give a shit about taylor's bugs as a metaphor for her control-freakiness
Queen Administrator? gives all the shits.
It said a lot that I was thinking in crazy, abstract metaphors like this. I was tired, wrung-out, and emotionally drained.
@writers
Just as the warmth had seeped out of the boots, something had been leeched out of me, leaving me… not cold, but whatever was left behind when personality, identity and one’s position in the world were taken away.
We're gonna keep track of this metaphor as Blake thinks about it: warmth as representative of identity/emotion/personality.
This is such a cool way to start the chapter, telegraphing the metaphor at the beginning and then expanding on it.
When a short, shadowy figure got in my way, all of that meant I was a little more concerned than I might usually be. Given that it was an Other, the usual added up to ‘pretty damn concerned’. Fuck. I tensed as it drew closer. “Dickswizzle,” I said, as I realized what it was.
I was almost as tense as Blake was here, which works pretty well. Also heavily relating to feeling drained, cuz EBV and Glamour Backlash have some similar symptoms
Hey I wonder if diseases n shit are caused by spirits and Others when viewed through the Practitioner lens
probably
I rummaged through the things. A scarf, a hat that passed for unisex, two pairs of gloves, June’s hatchet, Leonard’s bottle, one of the bike mirror pendants, and a pair of socks.
🤔 wasn't this stuff at the house? Wait, where are we? How long has it been? Why the frick-diddley am I only asking these questions now?
“How did you lose your boots and jacket? You didn’t leave them behind, did you?” “No,” I said. I looked at the tatter of glamour that still remained. “I think my glamour soaked into them and I lost them when I changed shape… I tore them up when I shed the glamour.”
I didn't realize this could happen, but it makes sense. Let's hope that's all the universe took from you there.
They’re so naturally unpleasant they make you unpleasant by association. You can’t deal with them without sounding like a vicious lunatic. No, Dickswizzle, you can’t wipe your ass with those pages. No, Dickswizzle, no vomiting or depositing any bodily fluids. Stop that, Dickswizzle, don’t shove that hourglass up your rear end. Fuck it, Dickswizzle, no fire. Listen to me, you little motherfucker, you can’t shove that wand up any orifices, understand? It was all I could do to keep from screaming, and that was in the span of five or six minutes.”
Delightful. And imagine doing it without swearing
I was too focused on that to think before I asked, “Why was he shoving things up places? He was supposed to destroy the books and implements.” “He did. He’d get something lodged in, then break it in half. I’m really not keen to replay the scene in my head.”
Only the most efficient of destructive methods available to goblinkind
“I still don’t feel so happy about it.” “I know,” I said. “But she did take part in trying to ruin us and kill me.” “Leanne didn’t do anything, and you betrayed her and invaded her home, where she’s supposed to be safe.”
Yeah I didn't feel happy about that either really, it felt kind of...hollow. Blake isn't really trying to make friends among the duchamps and behaims, when maybe he should? I mean now Leanne's mom has a concrete reason to go after you, when it was just business before. It's almost like you didn't think this through.
“I know,” I said, again. “But if I can get roped into this because I’m of Thorburn blood, maybe Leanne falls into the same purview.
But...but you've been complaining about this the whole time! Isn't that a little bit hypocritical?
I don’t know. As far as I know, we don’t have a way of measuring that karma in concrete terms. It’s something to read up on.”
See it gets confusing: I can't always tell when Blake's talking about Karma vs just what's right or not. Like, they obviously aren't really the same thing, and I don't know if karma should become Blake's moral code here. It felt like he already had a better one, before all this shit went down.
Maybe Karma's in your favor; it's still a dick move
“That’d be nice,” I said. “But I was thinking more like, well, it’s the only damn thing I can think of that would convey how goddamn thankful I am right this second. For these clothes, for the sentiment, all that. And I don’t like leaving debts unpaid, even before all the rest of this got started.”
I can't get over how transactional Blake is making their relationship. I get that it's the Practice and all, but I can't help but think this isn't a positive direction for their partnership in the future.
“I’m so fucking tired of deception and lies,” I said. “And I am aware of how hypocritical that sounds.”
wELL As lOnG AS yoU'rE awArE Of iT
“I glanced through a reference book on Chronomancy. It’s pretty standard practice to bank time,” Rose said. “Give up an hour of your day, hold on to it, make use of that time elsewhere.”
Anyone reading mistborn for the bookclub? Sound familiar?
“Trick number one is figuring out when and how to recuperate, Blake. You keep on tapping this well of personal power when it’s nearly dry.” I nodded.
There's a lot of tension built into Blake getting a power source, rather than having to scrounge for every little scrap of non-renewable strength
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JayManiac 09-May-19 06:32 PM
Agreed, but still. It's present. Plus Wax totally cheats, since both storing weight and becoming heavier are super useful in different circumstances. Wayne wields way fairer feruchemical fury
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spinagon 09-May-19 06:33 PM
True
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JayManiac 09-May-19 06:34 PM
“You need a demesnes. Or a tool that can make any use of power more efficient,” Rose said. “Or a familiar.”
I think we've learned enough about each of these that we won't waste too much time in getting one. My jguess would be familar just because we got two case studies on that...but also that might be a good reason to save it for last.
“Maybe it would be a terrible idea,” I said. “Because we know how easily glamour can fuck with me, and that would be leverage the familiar could use to take me over. And we know how shoddy my defenses against this magic stuff are. Look at the Briar Girl. Can you not see some familiar getting a hold on me? Fucking me over worse?”
Blake's just not gonna trust anyone in his corner, is he?
I can't see a future for Blake where he has a relationship with his familiar as healthy as Tromos/Annabelle.
just judging by his current relationship with Rose.
“We make the familiar less of a thing,” I said. “If we’re going to stagger this, use one of the three rituals to get leverage on the next, and use the two established power bases to get leverage for the third ritual, maybe I do the familiar first, after all. An Other that isn’t so strong that she’d be able to mess with me, one that might be able to get us some outside knowledge or power.
Seems pretty smart, yeah. Wouldn't want to end up like the Briar Girl, and it'd be nice to add a third voice to the Blake/Rose dynamic, turn it into a trynamic
(i know that's not what dynamic means and that I've substituted the wrong latin root of the word, it's a joke for people who know etymology, from someone who doesn't know etymology)
“Andy, was it?” I asked the witch hunter.
First of all, stellar reveal of who it is, that was awesome. Secondly, I almost forgot about the witch hunters which makes me really excited for this conversation! And this is the one who isn't itching to shoot Blake, so that's wins all around!
“How did you even find me?” “Trinkets and some very, very basic investigation techniques.”
So witch hunters don't have the Sight, haven't Awakened. Makes sense, but glad we got it confirmed.
“Keeping an eye on me? You going to report on me to Laird?” He shrugged. “Does it matter what I tell you? I’m just going to lie.”
Which means we get this interesting wrinkle here. For a while, every conversation we've had has been absolutely truthful, and that's something we're gonna do for the whole rest of the book, so make this conflict more interesting by not doing that. It's cool how interesting a normal-ass conversation becomes.
You could get a fairy, that’s F-A-I-R-Y, but then you’re talking about the witless, minor denizens of their realm. Foot high things with butterfly wings. Going that route would be dumb.
Most books/movies/media choose between Fairy and Faerie, or try to mix their traits into one, but we're not doing that here. Curiouser and Curiouser.
“People keep going on about that sort of thing. I’m supposedly Blake the fool, the unsturdy rock, the guy that’s going to die within the next five years, no questions asked. Now there’s some implications that I could fit in the same box as the mentally handicapped.”
hey now, don't take it to heart. What the hell do tarot cards know anyways? Besides everything, that is.
“You can be an idiot and a threat at the same time,” Andy said. “When you’re dealing with these kinds of forces, an idiot is the bigger threat.”
How dangerous is the careless man, Kvothe
“Your sister is the one with the killer instinct,” I said. “The itchy trigger finger, almost eager to shoot someone. She’s the killer, and you’re the bookish guy who keeps her on track and on target, researching the target, right?” He nodded. Not even an iota of surprise that I might know this.
Strange and captivating, that the supposedly most human guy we've talked to in arcs is this inhuman and Other.
This conversation is reminding me of the lawyers, despite the fact that he shouldn't be so..Other.
“You’re trying to humanize yourself.” “Damn straight!” I said. “I lived on the street for a while, because all of the fighting and conflict over fucking Hillsglade House and the money we’d get from selling it. I didn’t want it then. I don’t want it now. The stress from it ate me up inside.”
Like what the fuck!? Blake has more empathy than this guy and he just transformed into a creepy little boy a few minutes ago
“Eva’s at home, I promise,” he said. “There’s a chance she followed me, but I’m honestly not trying to set you up to have your throat slit or to get you shot, and neither of us are about to murder someone without the council to cover it up after the fact. I don’t have any other help, no big plots at work. You would probably be able to tell if anyone but me or Eva came.” “Assuming I believe you.”
See that's the thing, I was super ready to take this at face value because that's the way every exchange has been happening. I even started analyzing the word choice a little bit before realizing this guy can just fucking lie
I sighed, “Listen, I’m a regular, average guy who loves art but can’t draw, who’s still figuring out how to be a friendly, decent human being, because his parents never bothered to teach him that stuff. That thing you were saying to your sister, not wanting to hurt someone? She told you it was fine because we’re practitioners, we’re not really people, right? Something like that? Well, at this stage, I think I’m still more person than practitioner.”
This serves as some really good characterization for Blake too, and a good reminder of some stuff we already knew.
“Right. When removing me,” I said. “Come on. At least have the balls to say what you mean. You’re talking in this quiet, calm, monotone because you’re trying to detach yourself from this shit.” “Killing you. Executing you. Putting you down,” he said. His eyes dropped at that last bit, then raised up to meet mine again. “Yeah. I don’t use the guns or knives or any of that, because even when it is a monster? One of the bad ones I shouldn’t be able to sympathize with at all? I can’t help but feel like shit after, and looking in your eyes as I do it makes it ten times worse. The detachment does help me deal with it. Sorry if it’s frustrating.”
How do you get roped into being a witch hunter? It seems like a pretty shitty position.
“Because family isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” I said. “It isn’t fucking half of what it’s supposed to be. See, there’s a big, big fucking difference between someone being your relative and someone being family.” “Then I guess I’d say Eva is my relative,” Andy said. “And ‘family’ plays a very small part in this.”
I'm interested in comparing Eva and Andy's relationship to Blake and Rose's at some point, I think it's something the book's pointing me to.
We don't know enough to do that quite yet, but maybe we'll get more information to that effect soon
I shivered. “Well, this was fun. Another death threat onto the pile, and I can’t even bring myself to hate you.” “I appreciate that,” he said.
Me neither, Blake. Me neither. I just can't help but wonder if Andy lied here, and when he did, if he did. It seems like a setup that he can lie in this conversation, but there isn't really an indication that he has yet. Maybe Chekhov's liar will have to wait a while, before his pants are truly on fire.
In a way, he seemed just as inhuman as some of the Fae I’d encountered. The swordswoman had been more animated, had at least had an iota of passion.
agree
“Yeah. I’m not dumb, you know. I’ve faced down worse manipulators than you.” “I’m not trying to manipulate you. I’m trying to figure you out. Do you think your departed acquaintances would want you to do this? To spend your life indentured to them?” “I know they wanted it. They said so. That they needed me to handle it, for their sakes.”
I'm sort of trying to figure out Andy too. He doesn't seem like he's been a part of society as much as blake has. Like Granny Rose, he's kind of been raised in the Other, and that might account for his inhumanity. But also, he's not magic. There's no magic keeping him in this line of work, no oaths that he can't break for fear of Sweeney Todd coming for his ass (presumably). He's just held here by pure conviction, which is admirable in its own little fucked up way.
“If the tables were turned, knowing what you know, would you ask them to don the mantle? Kill people and feel horrible about it? Have nightmares?” Rose asked. “No,” Andy said. “But that’s me, my personality.”
Okay Rose can't lie, and she said she wasn't trying to manipulate him, but this feels a little manipulate-y
“Hey, Thorburn,” Andy called out. “Your pet is starting to irritate me.”
Wow fuck you. Only Blake gets to be mean to Rose...wait, no that's also bad.
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JayManiac 09-May-19 07:13 PM
“Did any offer to be that listening ear? The confidant?” “Hm?” “Hey, Rose,” I said. “Don’t you think befriending the dorky witch-hunting kid should be a collaborative decision?”
Come on, she can do what she wants. But he did just call you a pet so maybe, maybe fuck that guy just a little bit.
“Why?” I asked, glancing away to look back at the house. “To pass on word to Laird,” he responded. There was an eerie conviction in his gaze. An intensity that I hadn’t sensed moments ago.
I mean if he's here to kill you he's here to kill you. He can say whatever the fuck he wants and do whatever the fuck he wants and those two things don't have to be beholden to each other. In this world, he's basically a god.
A circle, like the one I’d seen as part of the diagram, barely perceptible. The spirits on and above it were brighter. I could hear the tick and tock sounds I’d heard in the room, now. I wasn’t sure if it was real or imagination.
Oh fuck. Wait, but Mrs. Behaim said we'd reconvene in a week, in a week
she's a practitioner, right? She can't lie!?
“I expect he started right away, as soon as he got back,” Andy said
I guess we don't even really know how or what's required here
“It makes accessing and using your resources in Hillsglade House so inconvenient it’s pointless,” Andy answered. “The unawakened might notice something when they walk down this sidewalk, but nobody does, do they? Surely you’ve noticed how the locals avoid the property. Mail doesn’t come here, restaurants won’t deliver food to this address. You’re isolated. They can’t target the house, as it was once a demesne, so they target the space around it.” “To do what?” I asked. “Waste your time,”
Not what I expected, and so god damn clever.
Bakububble an area around the house, and you don't even need to touch Blake or the house
“This is what he wanted a report on,” Andy said. “A description of your face and actions as you realized, making sure you got the full message. He hired me to observe, to make sure he wouldn’t have to wait months for you to come after him. Assuming you might only realize when the season changes. He’d like you to know that for now, he’s hands off, until you give him an excuse.”
Sending the witch hunter just to get a description of the look on Blake's face. The bastard. I almost admire it. No, I admire it.
“Oh, you did win,” Andy told me. “You embarrassed him, you counted coup, you probably cost the Behaims more than you know, when you damaged those books, and it would have cost Sandra to tidy up that mess. But…” “He won more?” I asked.
Wait, does this mean Blake gets the point, or Laird does? Or that Blake gets the second point, Laird gets the third? Because that would be...bad.
“What about safe passage to Toronto?” I asked. “There’s no reason to stay here.” “That can be arranged for a very small cost,” he said. “Putting me in contact with the local Lord, so I don’t step on toes? I’ll need some things, as well.” “Clothes and supplies. Yes. Shall we negotiate?” “I think we have to,” I said.
I did not expect the change in setting so quickly
I think this is one thing Wildbow is really good at doing: preventing a status quo from happening
Like as soon as you start to settle into the setting, the stakes, the players and the rules, something happens and it gets yoinked right the fuck from under our protagonists' feet
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JayManiac 09-May-19 08:19 PM
Alright, I took a little snack/nap/plants vs zombies break and I'm ready for 3.6
And by 3.6 I mean this interlude that I would've missed if I hadn't used the next chapter button!
Come to think of it, that did seem like a pretty complete arc, if it ended there
I mean five chapters seems pretty short, but the arc did a good amount of heavy lifting for the plot and progression
We also didn't get a pages, are we still doing that?
Maybe we won't do that again until the house is back in the story
“Back straight. And for the love of god, stop sweating.” “I’m sorry, Auntie,” Sandra murmured.
thought that said swearing and was immediately on psyduck mode. But no, it just says sweating. You know, that thing that we can all control and is a reasonable thing to ask someone to stop doing, asshole. Am I making a judgement based solely on this line of dialogue and the fact that we know this is a Duchamp? Yes. Yes I am.
Her aunt stalked around her, fingers prodding, adjusting. Raising the chin a fraction, moving the shoulders back. When Sandra allowed her chin to drop again, the second adjustment was made using fingernails, in the soft flesh just behind the jawline. She barely flinched, but she could sense her familiar bristling.
Ooooo, the first time we see familiars interacting with their practitioners we're not even in Blake's head! Also, this characterizes Sandra's descriptive voice really well, I'm already in the scene, making judgements, and engaging with the story and it's only been three paragraphs.
Her auntie’s age had been obfuscated by a touch of glamour, so she might appear to be a woman in her late twenties. Carefully masked. Long term use and overuse with glamour led to complications. As in all things.
I'm starting to see how the line between Faerie and Practitioner could be blurred in particular. It's almost as if they just call Others who overuse Glamour and not much else "Faeries", and that's where they get the classification.
Sandra herself didn’t have the benefit of any glamour. She remained stock still as her aunt stepped close and adjusted her neckline. Redistributing flesh at the top of the corset as if she were fluffing a pillow, until she was satisfied with the presentation.
Given that the one line of dialogue we've had from Sandra so far has been pretty child-like and her way of describing things isn't really indicative of a particular age, I'm just going to go with my original assumption that 'auntie' is making sure to prominently display the cleavage of a young teen at best. Practitioners are fine.
It’s the eighties, and I’m wearing a corset. There’s something wrong with this picture.
Did people in the eighties actually go "it's the eighties?". Not doubting it, per se, it's just that I don't really go "it's the twenty-tens" in my inner monologue ever. maybe that's just a me-thing.
Nevermind the fact that her aunt was adjusting her assets as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
fine
“You look angry. Missy, tell me, what expression does your cousin have on her face? Tell the truth.”
Don't lie, sandra, you're pissed. Rightfully so! Your inner monologue rings with a passive-aggressiveness that I just assume all enchantresses learn eventually.
Also wonder if this Missy ever made her way to the Maggie Holt books
Hey actually let's talk about the Maggie Holt books for a sec: How the hell did they get away with selling to kids and having the main character's minions be named things like Dickswizzle!?
There wasn't anything in Fablehaven named Dickswizzle!!
Missy stepped away from the door to take a look. Missy wasn’t nearly as made up as her mother or Sandra were, but that was intentional. A very non-magical effect and tactic at play.
I figure the duchamps aren't leaning on magical manipulation to get the job done; I bet the fact that they can see connections with such ease means that they're super socially aware of everything they do. If you took the Sight away from a powerful enchantress (like present-day-sandra) I'm sure she'd still be a devastating social manipulator just from all the skills and 'muscle-memory' she's built up
“You look pissed, baby sister,” Missy said.
Missy missed the chance to say: you look pissed, baby sis, and this disappoints me.
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Coro 09-May-19 08:43 PM
They changed some names. For example, Dickswizzle became Richard Gargler.
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JayManiac 09-May-19 08:44 PM
And Arsepint became Buttercups I suppose
“I’m not angry,” Sandra said, as diplomatically as she could. “This is the expression my face naturally settles into.”
The ol' RBF. It's a curse. Or, no, probably not a literal curse. Sorry for the confusion.
Sandra nodded, glancing down to one side before she reached out for Hildr. In the form of a stoat, a short tailed weasel, her familiar hopped up to her hand and climbed up to her shoulders, clawed toes pricking her bare skin there.
I know it's not the same, but this reminded me a lot of Pantelimon for a second there. Lords, I still have to finish that series.
maybe it was 'in the form of' since Pantelimon was always in the form of something new that the book had to establish
For those who don't know, I'm talking about The Golden Lights- shit, I mean The Northern Compass- fuck
There was a noise on the other side of the double doors. Three heads turned. No, he wasn’t coming through. The connections weren’t there.
👀
The three of them turned their heads as the connection strengthened. This time, there was clarity, direction, a thrust to it. Motive. They were ready as the door opened. Sandra smiled.
Smiles that aren't smiles, smiles just for show. hhhhh.
The bottle was the first thing to catch her eye. His clothes were the second.
Leonard?!
I mean, probably not
but if this was someone we recognized, then the bottle would be a good telegraph
His contingent followed. Men and women, all appearing roughly ten years younger than him. She might have described them as hippies, but there was nothing peaceful or hopeful about them. Many were tattooed, dressed in blacks, browns and grays, with only a splash of color here and there. Three women to every man, most attractive, but not always in a conventional way. Not in the Duchamp’s way.
Travelling Troupe of Practitioners? I hope to Lord of the Vermont Stretch that she isn't being married to this dude
Under the artificial lights, the trickeries and shaping slipped, here and there. A hairpin appeared to be a leaf in the false light, before the woman stepped into the light that beamed in through the uncovered window. A curl of brown hair at the forehead showed itself to be a curved horn. A woman paused, while one of her female companions caught up to her, leaping up to throw an arm around her shoulders, and Sandra could see eyes with red irises, clawed fingers, and a mouth filled with jagged teeth, dark red stains in the flesh around the woman’s mouth.
Oh hell, is this the Fae? We know that the duchamps deal with the Faerie courts...but this doesn't feel like glamour somehow, and I wonder if we're supposed to know that?
yeah no, this isn't following the rules of Glamour, I don't think
and the Fae would be conventionally attractive
They collectively smelled like sex. Not that Sandra knew from experience, but she had little doubt, and she could infer from context. There was a thicker, skunky smell that she couldn’t pin down or infer from context. They also smelled like warm hay, wine, fur, grass after a rain, and faintly, lingering in the background, they smelled like blood.
Vampires? Were-skunks? Anything I'd recognize?
He was backed by his people, a contingent, very much alive and active. Almost defined by activity. They moved from one side of the group to the other, jostled one another, touched, surreptitiously groped. Their every action and reaction amongst one another was an invitation or a response to an invitation.
Just stepping back to notice the beautiful writing here, it creates such a captivating and subtly disgusting rhythm that's drawing me in here.
wait, not the fae....not Satyrs/Fauns?
Idk that's my jguess for the time being.
“I won’t pretend to be gracious,” he said. “I’m not that guy. But holding grudges and holding things over people isn’t worth my time.”
Huh, go you.
“Jeremy Meath. My friends call me Jerry, you can call me Jeremy.”
He's got a bit of that passive-aggressiveness in him too there. Meath. What's a Meath? And can I call him Jeremeath?
“Welcome,” he said, almost automatically. “Only one of them I’m interested in looking at, isn’t there? Waste of time to bring two, unless you’re not that confident in what you’re selling.”
In case I wasn't sure that Auntie Duchamp was a piece of shit
'human capital' at its most literal. Fuck her, fuck this.
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Seregraug 09-May-19 09:02 PM
Aren’t practitioners swell? fine
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JayManiac 09-May-19 09:02 PM
fine
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spinagon 09-May-19 09:03 PM
human resources
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JayManiac 09-May-19 09:04 PM
-the economization of the self, of the individual -the selling of your metaphorical and in some cases literal soul to survive -fuck
I love what the book is doing with all these metaphors
by which I might mean I love what I'm doing with all this book
I'm still pretty fresh off of "Undoing the Demos" by Wendy Brown, so that might be coloring my outlook a little bit
When Jeremy met her eyes, Sandra smiled, just as she’d been instructed. “Young,” he said. “Nineteen,” Auntie said.
I didn't expect her to be this old. She's older than me. I turn eighteen today. Fuck. I clocked this more as "day four of being sick" than "year eighteen of being alive" when I woke up this morning. I'm getting distracted.
🎊 3
She managed to avoid stuttering or stumbling. It would only play into his hands. He was shaping the conversation to put her off balance and reinforce the ‘brainless blonde’ idea. “I majored in English, minored in theology.” “At nineteen?” “At nineteen.”
Sandra you're so fuckin mad right now. Also, I cannot comprehend the utter hell that must've been. Far as I'm concerned, I barely lived through high school at eighteen.
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Seregraug 09-May-19 09:10 PM
Happy Birthday!
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JayManiac 09-May-19 09:10 PM
Thanks Sere!
“Why English and Theology?” “If you’re destined to grow up to be a scientist, you study sciences. If you’re going to go all-in as a practitioner, you have to focus on the esoteric. Symbolism, myth, ideas, and structure, among other things.”
I guess...why would you study all this awesome stuff for all these not-awesome reasons? This is really close to my area of interest and what I'm planning to major in, but I'm doing it because I want to, not because it'll be economically valuable. It's just really sad.
He stared into her eyes. No glancing around for connections. His way of looking at things sought out something else altogether. “You didn’t choose those degrees, did you?”
That's even worse. At least I worked myself to death doing things I like. Also I'm really interested in this Jeremeath guy. He seems like there's a lot more to him
“Where do we stand, little Sandra?” he asked. “How do I rate? How do you rate? I take it you aren’t the smartest, most beautiful, most talented of them?” “No. But I have my strengths.” “Don’t we all? Meaningless words. Don’t waste your time on them. More importantly, you shouldn’t waste mine. I’m not one for patience or delayed gratification.”
Something about this guy reminds be of Spider Jerusalem for some reason. He's obviously a little more of a piece of shit than Spider, but something about how he just cuts through the Duchamp's bullshit like that...
“-and I’m asking, what am I worth, and what are you worth, do you think?” Sandra collected herself. “There are a lot of practitioners we could have contacted. Out of all of them, my aunt chose you.”
He's a practitioner!? I mean, I don't know what I expected, some member of the wild hunt or something, but I didn't expect him to be just...a guy...
“The honest truth,” Sandra replied, “Is you’re seen as a gamble.” He smirked. “A gamble. An incarnation of Conquest, with no conquest to be had, our Lord of Toronto is dying.”
i guess that shoots my Bacchus idea out the window, wasn't a huge jguess, but I'm just as lost now. Is he the third/second horse of the apocalypse? Is he just some guy and should I stop making random jguesses?
“And you want to tie yourself to me, in hopes I’ll take the seat.” “No,” Sandra said. “My family wants me to tie myself to you, in hopes you’ll take the seat. I don’t play so big a role. This is between you and them.”
We haven't really seen a lot of Sandra Duchamp in the present, but this doesn't bode well for how she'll've learned to live
“There you have it. What does this cost me in the now? A dreary, carbon-copy Barbie doll tied to me for life?”
I've just been watching the negotiations take place, and this shocked me out of my stupor, same as everyone else. There's something endearing and absolutely disgusting about Jeremeath here
“You insult me,” Sandra said. “Yes. I believe I did.”
Constantine! that's sort of who he reminds me of. Okay, not exactly, but he certainly fills that particular archetype. I'm imagining him with a british accent, I don't have to imagine the bottle, because it's there. He's like Constantine, Rick Sanchez, Spider Jerusalem, Raoul Duke, all those people I like. Slightly more of a piece of shit, and slightly less endearing, but still.
Boring. “Hildr,” Sandra said, reaching out. Her familiar darted along the length of her arm, four legged. It sprung from her hand.
OH shit. you did not just call her boring. I love that this outburst has been set up since the beginning of the chapter, this simmering anger beneath the surface
Hildr touched ground, eliciting a rumble, sending Jeremy Meath stumbling back. Sandra dipped fingertips into her chalice, wetting them, and then drew her fingertips vertically down.
Guessing that chalice wasn't exactly her choice either
Putting stored power into connections, feeding that power through Hildr for the added strength and connection to the earth. The impact of Hildr’s landing and the added help of the manipulated connections served to bowl over the entire group of Others. Jeremy Meath’s bottle crashed against the floor, the remaining contents and shards of glass spreading out from the point of impact.
Oh Hells yes. This display of power and outrage and non-boringness is just so gratifying
“It’s fine, so long as she doesn’t attack,” Jeremy said. He took his time finding his feet. He had to half-walk, half-crawl to get back from Hildr, who loomed above him, breath visibly steaming. “Point taken. That was a three hundred dollar bottle, but I suppose good lessons should be expensive.”
and he's still so casual and dickish about it. Love it.
Dark skinned, white furred, Hildr was more wart and scar than clean flesh where flesh was visible, her hair and fur were long and tied into braids as thick around as Sandra’s arm, the longest braids locked into place with iron shackles that could be used to dash a man’s skull to pieces. Her arms were disproportionately long, with lines and cords of muscle visible even beneath the long, brushed fur. All in all, she was of a size and bulk that suggested she could catch a charging rhino and wrestle it to the ground.
Is this her True Form? Like Chickadee's Swordswoman form?
“No,” Sandra said. “A troll. Scandinavian. My family offered to pay for a trip, to reward me for completing my degree early. I took the time to go looking.”
See if it was confirmed that these guys were satyrs I'd be able to make a billy goats gruff joke but now I can't do that because I'm being held in mystery
“There aren’t many trolls nowadays,” he said. “They don’t hide themselves well.” “Most have been hunted or bound already. The ones who have remained are either exceptionally strong, or they are very strong and very cunning. Hildr is more the latter.”
Fuckin badass. I just remembered this person is not on blake's side and my feeling good about this is more tainted now.
“I see. And it takes an exceptionally strong and cunning individual to bind one that has survived alone these last few centuries. I didn’t expect that of you.” “There’s more to me, more to us, than you might see on the surface.”
for example, I can't help but think this comes back to bite Blake in the ass
Sandra felt her heart skip a beat. In her fit of pique, her pride and anger, she’d nearly forgotten what she was negotiating for, what she was proving. Jeremy Meath would be her husband.
Yay? You win?😬
“It’s your choice,” Auntie said, quiet. Sandra looked at the woman in surprise. “I didn’t think it was. I swore oaths.”
Huh? I was prepared for this to be horrible and bad!
“You’ll marry me to someone worse as punishment if I don’t.” “We reserve that for the girls who turn down good matches. Jeremy Meath is… what he is. It worries me that he wasn’t more willing to pick apart the deal or define terms. Seeing you in there, I think we can find you better, if you want it.” “But the family wants him?” Sandra asked. “They want to take the gamble?” “Yes,” her aunt said, and it was said in a way that suggested she already knew the answer she’d get.
Mmkay, so still probably horrible and bad.
The landscape had been sculpted. More a painting come to life than a real place. Every tree and stone had been strategically placed, with the whole in mind. The placement of every branch… it was art. Sandra could stand virtually anywhere and see how the elements complemented each other, find hidden images and decorations in the layout of things. She had taken art classes as her electives, she knew what to look for.
Sandra has a really unique way of describing things, maybe because she's a bit of a visual artist or maybe because she's an enchantress, but her descriptions have such a voice to them.
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spinagon 09-May-19 09:41 PM
Reminds me of game Witness
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JayManiac 09-May-19 09:41 PM
I'll look it up
The entire place was a kind of pressure. She knew the techniques at play. Get someone hungry, get them tired, get them stimulated. Create a need and then fulfill it, to build a kind of dependence. Cults did it. The Faerie did it better.
I feel like manipulation is a heavy theme of Sandra's chapter. It's at the core of being an enchantress, she's got a heightened awareness of it, and it's great characterization for the Fae here
Another cleared its throat, saying, “Then, if we shall sum up the first part of our bargain, Aifric, Lachtna, and Gearalt will accompany you and guarantee safe passage to you and your Hildr, guiding you out of the Faerie and into your city and your world. There, you’ll be able to pair them up with the young ladies you described, and they’ll enjoy an adventure in mortal form.” “So we hope,” she said.
Ah, so this is how the Duchamps got Familiar with the Fae, if ya know what I mean
The wind was making its way through the grove of trees, and the rustling formed almost-words, as if a slight change in direction might make sense of it all.
Ilovethis
Rest assured,” the Faerie to her left told her, “Mavourneen and I are some of the least polite Faerie you’ll ever meet.” She was all too aware. Riordan and Mavourneen were mercenaries in the court, known for their uncharacteristically brutal natures. If the Faerie were all playing a complicated, multilayered and interconnected game of chess, then Riordan and Mavourneen made themselves out to be knights that any side could use to make plays. Which wasn’t to say they weren’t making plays of their own, when nobody was looking.
Introduce rules with the exceptions, for it is the best way to learn them
They’d befriended her, offering her their services, which she had taken, because the wildernesses that stood between any Faerie-inhabited space tended to be dangerous, and she wanted Hildr in tip-top shape in case something happened. She had already uncovered one planned betrayal, and she was already betting that this wasn’t only a cover-up for a deeper, more subtle betrayal that she wouldn’t uncover, but that the whole interplay with Riordan and Mavourneen and the ambassador was part of a greater scheme. Each of the three could have practiced this play in various forms until it became second nature, and she was the latest fly to step into the web.
psyduck
I can't keep track of all that, I'm not Sylvester
“My husband. Four of his satyrs seem to have gone missing.”
do you mean to tell me: 1. that I was right sharkhi 2. that I could've made a billy goat's gruff joke there and missed the opportunity!?
She could see the weave of connections at play, she could pluck, pull and break connections if the situation demanded it, but some connections were false ones. Others were bait, strands that were sticky enough she wouldn’t be able to free herself if she tampered with them.
I barely understand what's going on here but the delicate nature of this situation isn't lost on me
She couldn’t help but feel she was following a script. No doubt the Faerie ambassador had stolen people before, had played out dozens of permutations of the same scene, learning to account for all the possible variables. She gestured, and saw the Faerie’s eyes go wide. Hildr lifted the metal patio table, tearing it from the ground, where it had been worked into brick and tile, alternating patches of grass and flower, in a very strategic and stylized ‘ruin’ layout.
"huh I guess he can see any play I make a mile away. I wonder what happens if I toss a table at him?"
“They were not yours to take,” she said. “He had no claim to them,” the ambassador said, voice strangled. “His god did. Dionysus gave a contingent of his servants to my husband for looking after. If those satyr are not returned, the god will be very upset.”
I knew something about those guys seemed Dionysian! I can't believe I was right on most counts!
“Arms and legs only,” she said. “He lives.” “Wait!” the ambassador cried out. “I can-“ The table came down like a chef might use a knife to dice a vegetable. Wrist, elbow, shoulder, ankle, knee, hip. The impacts were heavy enough to toss the Ambassador into the air like a rag doll, but the table still struck unerringly at the key points. The Faerie screamed.
She's a cold-hearted Duchamp, that's for sure. fine
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spinagon 09-May-19 09:54 PM
He's a faerie, not a person
Chop'em up
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JayManiac 09-May-19 09:54 PM
ohno psyduck
“I…” he huffed, he paused to grimace and grunt. “Hereby grant you and your troll safe passage… along with Gearalt, Aifric… and Lachtna, to exit my realm uncontested. Those who sat at this table and those named, will face no trial, tribulation or trickery by my hands. I promise” “Include the satyrs,” Riordan said, growling the words. “…I name the satyrs… unf… to be included… in the deal,” the ambassador reluctantly added. He was red-faced now, and sweating bullets from pain alone.
Ouchies. Well, you got what you wanted, and all it took was some torture!
Also just realized
Riordan
Wonder if his first name is richard
Someone here, who mattered on some level, who, by the wording, hadn’t been sitting at the table? Had her husband sent someone or something to keep an eye on her? It took a few long moments of heavy consideration before the answer dawned on her.
Well fine, don't tell me or anything
“We can get word out,” Riordan said. “Thank you,” she said. She spread her arms, then swept them together. Hildr did the same, reaching out to either side, then drawing her hands together. Except she seized the two mercenaries’ heads along the way and cracked them together.
How is she still allowed here?
She manipulated the connections between herself and the lost satyrs. A standard connection formed a straight line. She loosed it, giving it slack, and let the currents the spirits and other forces of the world were traveling carry it out. Ariadne’s thread.
Ilovethis
I just have no words for how fucking cool all of this is
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spinagon 09-May-19 09:59 PM
Turns out connection manipulation is really fucking useful
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JayManiac 09-May-19 10:00 PM
I mean, we knew that, but damn
also love how this chapter touches on some of the limitations of connection manipulation
Like, for instance, Glamour
it's probably part of why the Fae and the Duchamps are such good matches for each other: they shore up each other's weaknesses while still having the similar focus of social and impressionairy manipulation!
really beneficial partnership once you think about it
In downtown Toronto, the satyrs took different shapes.
and we get to see the city at least a chapter before blake does!
Fifteen years, and they still tried. Fifteen years, and she still imagined herself giving in. The nymphs were what the satyrs were, in a way, holding to an ancient ideal of womanhood and female sexuality as the satyrs held to manhood and male sexuality. There were differences, but the simple description served.
This is a super-awesome take on satyrs, and Dionysus in general. I wonder how much research was done here?
The fact that they ‘played’ with her husband wasn’t one of them. Such was a partnership with a cultist of Dionysus. No, it was the fact that the ideal beauty as of 200 BC was… younger than was appropriate. Or legal. Not distressingly so, but still true.
😬
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eNamorD 09-May-19 10:09 PM
😬
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agenderGorgon 09-May-19 10:12 PM
You see, in GREECE, the age of consent is....
16!!!!
Horrified Yankee Noises
AND THEY DRANK AT 15!!!!!
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JayManiac 09-May-19 10:12 PM
-not as bad as I was thinking -still pretty bad
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agenderGorgon 09-May-19 10:13 PM
Oh, I'm just joking.
Its probably even worse than 16.
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JayManiac 09-May-19 10:13 PM
Great, glad I don't get any relief
“What happened?” she asked. “Ah, right. You haven’t heard.” “Heard?” “Some men in service to a far less entertaining god have done something very ugly,” he said. “Just a year and nine months into the new millenium, our Lord of Conquest gets his second wind. Our city and our nation has already committed forces.”
So this is 9/11, empowering our Lords of Conquest ever-more. The symbolism here is really powerful.
Okay so
this next part: im not sure what exactly to pull because I realized I was just highlighting the chapter at some point
They played different roles in each other’s lives. His hand settled on hers, gripped it. It was the smallest contact, but she could see how his body language changed. Easing. That was what she offered, such as it was. To be a man was a lonely existence. Friends, family, they couldn’t reach out to share feelings or find refuge. Even with the chilled and complicated relationship between her and her family, she had always been able to seek out a measure of support from them. Not so with men, with Jerry. It was only with a girlfriend, with a wife, that they could invest themselves.
And even when I find a part to pull, it's impossible to find words to say about it! maybe it's just my constant discourse with myself about gender, what it means, what's bullshit, what's not, but this part...I'm not even sure what to say about it without getting a little more personal than I'm altogether comfortable with.
“I won’t ask if you love me,” he said. “I don’t think there’s a point.” “We work well together. Balance each other out,” she said. They’d never had infatuation, but again, how could he? How could she offer intoxication of emotion and spirit that his god couldn’t? “We’re better together than we are apart.” “This… it’s not what a marriage is supposed to be.” “So?”
This is touching, in its unconventional little way here. Maybe there's no "what a marriage is supposed to be". Maybe cut through a little more of the bullshit, Jeremeath
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Seregraug 09-May-19 10:20 PM
I don’t think Sandra has much contact with men?
Her family is all women.
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JayManiac 09-May-19 10:21 PM
Probably not, and I'm not saying her read on it is "right" by any means
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Seregraug 09-May-19 10:21 PM
Might explain her views.
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JayManiac 09-May-19 10:25 PM
but it's a sentiment i've seen over and over again, that girls are more emotionally open with their friends and guys are only emotionally open with their romantic partners. It's simple and reductive and never always true, but I've seen it repeated in a million different ways by articles online, my parents, posts on tumblr, etc. Not the most trustworthy sources, but it's hard to discredit the notion entirely, especially considering my own position within the issue. I don't agree with this exactly, but I think Sandra has a good read on Jeremy at the very least. This isn't true for all guys, but it's true for some of them.
“The Faerie figured it out before any of us did, I think,” she said. “They wanted to let a select few individuals leave their domain.” “And?” “I think there was one more member of the group I wasn’t aware of at first, they wanted me to leave her behind.” “Her?” She touched her stomach.
Oh hell. That might be one of the worse ways to find out you're pregnant, and yet so on-brand for practitioners
Sandra nodded. She fidgeted. “Gods, the idea of childbirth scares me.” “I can imagine,” he said. “If it helps, a blessing from my god can allow you to enjoy drink throughout, with no harm to the child.”
fine
I wonder how many times I'll use that emoji during pact
Will it score higher or lower than twig?
I never liveread twig so we'll never know, but one must wonder
“We’ll need to make space,” she said. “As nice as your… personal temple is, we’ll need a more suitable location for a baby.” “That can be arranged,” he said. He stood. He took her hand, and led her down the shallow steps. Together, they stepped over and around the piles of naked bodies.
More suitable indeed
“A baby boy,” the nymph said. “Swimming in warm darkness.” “Not possible,” Sandra said. But when she looked, Jerry wouldn’t meet her eyes. He stared down at the floor. Not guilty, but lost in deep thought. She let go of his hand. “How?” she asked. “My god is a god of drink, of madness, of hedonism and sex,” he said. “And he is a god of fertility, in his way.”
Oh Lords, why can't this be a normal practitioner pregnancy?
“You know they won’t let me keep it. One boy, and the line is broken, the working unravels.” He nodded. When he stepped away, she could feel the gulf between them widening. “I don’t-” she said. “My god and his brethren are fond of their tragedies,” he said.
Reading the Birth of Tragedy for class rn, so
“I wish it were different, but-“ “But it’s what it is,” he said. “No asking for forgiveness. We do what we must. It was a fragile connection, and it broke.” There was a long pause, as the two of them wrestled with the irony of their reality. “Someone’s coming your way. You’ll know him when you see him.” “What do you want done?” “I need him to not come back.” “I’ll see to it.”
Well that's sad. And forboding. Mostly sad. Actually they're chillin in equal amounts.
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JayManiac 09-May-19 11:24 PM
Lords, do y'all have pact ocs? Is there a pact rpg? Pact fanfics? Judging by twigs treatment in those departments I'd guess no, but i want there to be so badly
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Wildbow 09-May-19 11:27 PM
Pact RPG, sorta
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JayManiac 09-May-19 11:27 PM
bulba
Since asking that question ive already come up with an oc
I wanna play so badly
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eNamorD 09-May-19 11:29 PM
I think there might be pseudo-spoilers in the Pact RPG? But I haven't gone over it super well, so can't say for sure
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JayManiac 09-May-19 11:29 PM
Not before i finish, obviously
Just, eventually i want to play
Someday
I won't look it up till i'm done i pinky pinky practitioner promise
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JayManiac 10-May-19 03:22 AM
Okay, I'm gonna try tackling 4.1 and maybe 4.2 depending on how much time I have/how much of a cliffhanger I've got on my hands.
“We’re nearly there, Mr. Thorburn.” I startled awake.
I was wondering when we were going to start. The negotiations with the lawyer? Already in Blake's old apartment? Turns out, we're precisely somewhere in-between
I hadn’t asked how they knew my boot or shirt size, the waist and leg measurements for the jeans, or my brand of shaving cream. I was happy in my ignorance, right now. Happy to have nice boots on and know that the rubber boots I’d ‘borrowed’ were on their way back to the owner.
Don't ask questions, you don't wanna know. See now I'm second-guessing all of Blake's kindnesses. Is he happy that he returned the boots because karma or because that was the right thing to do? probably the former, actually. He did dickswizzle them, after all.
“I am under the impression,” I said, very slowly and deliberately, buying myself time to think while I tried to structure my thoughts, “that by asking questions, I’m agreeing to pay for the answers.” “Some answers, yes. But some answers come part and parcel with the bargain you struck.” Fuck me, what were the exact terms of the deal? I struggled to recall, but I’d been too busy looking out for danger, too tired.
I dunno, I wasn't there for that! This is a weird sort of tension, because a lot could be at stake, but we'll have to wait until Blake finishes waking up to figure it out.
“Before I say anything else, we have reached out to the Lord of Toronto on your behalf. He does not know who you are, and views you only as a new practitioner who wants to abide by the rules. He has agreed to let you return to your home and that agreement will give you some security.”
Oh hey, what a cool guy! [remembers that this guy derives his power from 9/11] WhaT a cOoL GUy!
He said, “The offer he made, does not mean that he is offering you protection. If a resident of Jacob’s Bell or a local tries to hurt you, he won’t do a thing.”
So not even as cool as i thought he was guy. Thanks Conquest God Dude
“Not for the time being. Others will be seen as presumptuous if they go after you in the meantime. I would expect the least significant players and the allies of the Lord to wait for a cue or an excuse before they act. When it’s convenient for him, he’ll reach out and arrange a meeting. The meeting will decide his stance towards you, and any stance the lesser powers can and will take.”
So if Jacob's Bell has, what, thirty practitioners and roughly six factions (duchamps, behaims, thorburns, Maggie, Bg, Johannes) then how many practitioners does a fucking city have? How many factions? My suburb/my nearest city is like a ten-to-one population ratio, and that's cuz we're a pretty big suburb close to the city, in the most populated state in america. Like, just how much shit is blake stepping into here?
Does Lord Conquistador meet with every single new faction?
“What does one typically do, for these sorts of meetings?” I asked. “A token offering. Deference. Depending on the local power dynamic, the other powers may expect something small. Respect will often do, and it will serve here in Toronto.”
Blake ain't exactly got a lot to give in the first place, so this could be problematic
also this basically cuts him off from getting a desmenses first, as I'd assume he'd want one in Jacob's Bell
So he's down to familiar or implement
I'd guess familiar is next just because it feels like that's what we're building to, but hey I wouldn't be super-surprised if we went implement instead
“The Lord is an incarnation of Conquest. He’s a sapient embodiment of a concept, and he’s been here for some time, in one form or another.”
Cool, cool. Makes sense.
“It was, once. The English presence in North America is young, and Others can be very old. For some, it wasn’t long ago at all that we wiped out the Aboriginal people and took their land. It wasn’t long ago that there was war over what European country would claim sovereignty over this land. Toronto was a site in the war of eighteen-twelve, and Conquest continued to gain power after it was released, with immigrants coming in to reaffirm the invader’s claim to the land.”
And the fact that this guy is currently feeding off of the power he's granted by 9/11 and the war on terror, suggests a kind of ethological similarity between the two things he draws from
“He’s the horseman? One of the four riders of the apocalypse?”
hey! that's what I said last chapter!
“Yes and no. There are other Conquests, who take different forms based on their history and the eras and events they drew power from. For all intents and purposes, you can consider incarnations to be powerful spirits, often ones with human hosts or an attachment to an object of particular design, an implement without an owner. Some agencies contrive to bring these incarnations into being to suit their devices. Is there an agency invested in the apocalypse and Conquest’s part in that? Yes, but not in the way you’re thinking.” “What way, then?” “The apocalypse is an idea with some traction, as are the four horsemen. Some want to use that traction.”
This is really cool, and I'm sure it would be even cooler if I understood it!
(kind of kidding, kind of not)
(I think I get it, but not well enough to paraphrase, which maybe suggests that I don't get it)
“Such agencies want a narrative, and an Incarnation of Conquest arising from Toronto is a weak narrative at best. If such things come to pass, speculation suggests that another, greater Conquest would find, best, and absorb all its lesser kin for strength before taking action.”
Nvm I'm good. I forgot my whole Jay-patented outlook on narrative in general! I've got this in the bag! I think.
“He isn’t War, but Conquest. Massed forces, takeovers, forced change. He continues to find power in other ways. Yes, he prefers warfare and bloodshed, but he can draw power from the steady expansion of civilization into nature, from real estate, from business takeovers, government, law, and other small forms of tyranny.
I can see how that might have a foothold in even the most genteel of cities; I mean I have been talking about Pact as if it contains metaphors about the economization of idea, the human subject, and the polis at large, so this is right in line with that.
“So he’s like a god.” “He is like a god,” my driver said. “And we could go into a deep discussion of the common elements between gods and incarnations, the abstract versus the straightforward, but that’s outside of the bounds of your agreement with the firm, and I believe we’re on your street.”
Headcanon: this guy just wants to talk shop with blake and engage in the dialectic but is contractually obligated not to. clearlythisisbutonemorewaythecontracthasscilencedpoliticaldialoguebetweenindividua-
Hopefully Joel hadn’t evicted me.
Yeah, uh, how long has it been? Also where'd you leave his car? Didn't Rose break a mirror?
I turned to look to my right, stupidly, then looked at the mirror. Sure enough, she was situated in the back seat, next to where I’d be if I had a reflection. There was a stack of books beside her, I noted.
Ha!!! They still have the books! They still have the books!!
I kind of see this as a win-win
Blake didn't want to be the custodian anyways, now he's back home
he has any of the knowledge he wants, but not the 'nukes' that make everyone try to kill him
Except that, well, Sandra's already sent someone to kill him. So...maybe not a win win
It was kind of eerie, to see that the driver had personality. Even to the point of geeking out about something.
I knew it he's a geek!
“I read that. Yes. Good memory. It’s easier to bind them with something that naturally opposes them. In this case, you’d want something geometric and man-wrought to oppose beings that are more disordered and natural by their intrinsic natures. Which is most things out there. The more powerful they are, the more you’ll want and need in terms of protections.”
Opposites distract, perhaps
“Five years,” he said, nodding slowly. He looked up at me, “You wanted to know why I’m sharing details? I like you, Mr. Thorburn. I feel bad for you, we haven’t exactly talked much, but I think you’re one of the good ones. Me taking you for a one-and-a-half hour drive into Toronto, getting stuck in traffic? It’s a nice break. It puts me in good spirits. I think they know it puts me in good spirits, and they divvy up jobs like this to keep the newbies sane.”
Got this vibe too, even if I don't exactly trust him...well no, I trust him, but I don't trust that the firm didn't know exactly what they were doing, putting someone so likeable in front of Blake. They're saying: "hey look at this guy, he could be your co-worker! If you sell your soul and give us a foothold in your world"
“Yeah. From the clients who aren’t so fun. Clients who hoard and have places packed from floor to ceiling with knick-knacks and body parts, clients who deal in pain and suffering like a banker deals in cash, or who do things that would have turned my stomach, back when I had compunctions.”
Who'd you sell your compunctions to, buddy?
“I honestly don’t know if you will. That wasn’t what I was saying. There are a good few people out there who try dealing in the real powers, the scary ones your grandmother trafficked in. Maybe a third survive, like your grandmother did. Another third, they meet bad ends and they probably take people with them. The last third, they get offered a way out, and they take that offer.”
Hey, and this guy's only saying there's a 33% chance Blake will die horribly! That's such an improvement!
“Call it an internship,” he said. “Carrying out the sort of job you would be doing if you accepted a deal with the firm.”
He's just a new guy in the big city, with a big internship on the way
“Or like one of the jobs you regularly do for the messed up ones, the real diabolists you and Ms. Lewis seem so damn relieved to get away from.” “That is also very possible,” he said.
fine
I also feel like, if Pact was a franchise, there'd be a Supernatural-esque spinoff (keep in mind i only watched the first two episodes of supernatural because it was scary and I was scared) that was just a demon-lawyer taking a job every episode, dealing with some new crisis while they work off their crippling debt.
Gods, you could make lawyer jokes all day
I might write this as a fanfic when this is all said and done
I've never even written fanfic
“There’s no particular rush to finish the book. I believe the threat of a deal ignored and the impact to your karmic balance is enough incentive to follow through.” I looked down at the book he’d given me. Black Lamb’s Blood. From the goat’s skull on the cover, the black leather and the script in shiny gold lettering, I knew it was a book on diabolism. This was my payment for the services the firm had rendered me. I had to read it, nothing more, nothing less.
I mean I know it's propaganda, blake says as much a little down the page, but it's also probably really useful? I mean, Blake is already known as the diabolist, whatever he is, so he might as well try to be one!
Your grandmother knew the author and was quite fond of her.
Great. Yeah. Gets my stamp of approval then.
I'm not a practitioner I can get away with this
although, I am beginning to notice whenever I'm that particular brand of sarcastic
the book. It's turning me
“So do I, thank you. Five hundred and seventy three years, four months, and four days to go, if I don’t make partner at some point. I’m bound to get some of the easier jobs.” His smile made it look like he might chuckle at his own joke. Caught off guard by the sheer volume of years he’d presented, I couldn’t bring myself to match him smile for smile. He gestured, tipping his nonexistent hat, and then turned to go. Leaving me alone and relatively unprotected.
Bye buddy! I think I'm gonna miss you!
I found my toolbox. A loaner-turned-gift when a friend’s boyfriend had gone overseas and decided never to return. Actually two toolboxes stacked on one another, with two rugged wheels for all terrain at one side, like luggage, it held all of the bits and pieces I’d collected while working.
chanting: im-ple-ment, im-ple-ment
Three rolls of painter’s tape and… there, a drywall t-square which had been abused and coated with plaster to the point that I could barely make out numbers. I ripped a section free, then went to work. I set to drawing out a border around the edge of the apartment. Turning the apartment into a magic circle, or a magic rectangle, whatever.
DIY magic, by Blake Thorburn, everybody!
Laird? I wasn’t sure what he’d throw at me. Sandra? That meant Faerie.
does it though? I really hope I don't have to watch Blake prepping for Faerie knowing that he's missing all the goats
“He was playing you, you know.” “The lawyer kid?” “Yeah.”
😦
Also i think it's more likely that the lawyer kid was fine, and it's just the firm that put him there as manipulation, but maybe that's just me wanting to trust again
“Obviously. Making me read the book, setting me up with a young lawyer I can identify with.”
And hey, Blake backs my take on it
“Yeah. No problem getting past the barrier. I either don’t pass through the barrier, or I move so fast that being slowed to a fraction doesn’t make a difference.”
sharkhi
It wasn’t the Lord’s herald or anything like that. It was my landlord. Joel. Heavy without being fat, bald, with hipster glasses and bushy eyebrows, he had a way of looking perpetually worried. He looked especially worried right now. With me.
JOEL!!!! I MISSED YOU SO MUCH
“Just got back,” I said. “You get your car back?” He nodded. “Police returned it. I’m sorry it broke down on you.” I shook my head. Not your fault.
I really really missed joel. Not just joel, but the way Blake talks to joel and thinks about him. He hasn't had a friend in ages, since apparently he isn't counting Rose.
“You look like you’ve been through hell. It’s only been a week.”
Wait what
seriously?
I mean, okay
sure!
only been a week
Lewis was right Blake ain't gonna last the month hot damn.
“Some of the others have been asking about you. They’ll want to see you, hear about what’s happened.”
As the disembodied reader existent in this story, I am desperate for friends good gods Blake needs friends
realizes that means more people to care about and subsequently cry about when they are unjustly swept up in the madness of Others
fine
“I’m not judging,” he said, “But your reaction before you left, talking to yourself, this tape project just after you got home, the damage you did to your bathroom-”
Yeah...Rose did break that mirror. Man, Blake really looks loony from the outside, huh.
“I’d like to think I can roll with the punches,” Joel said, in response to my silence. “And you know the others can too. When Natty had trouble-” “I know,” I said. “We adapted.”
See, Blake has a history, a whole story and arc before this book where he learned to slowly care about people again after being wallopped at every turn...I mean, I might not've read it, because I like magic and that didn't have magic in it, but...it's good to appreciate
I pulled the locket from the pocket of my jeans and, after a moment’s debate, wound it around my hand as I had before. Positioning it so the locket itself was bound in place, the thin chain uncomfortable.
I forgot that he still has a bunch of glamor saved up, with a way to get more. That's a highlight, at least.
if he can use it responsibly
which we know he can't
fuck
I stuffed June Cleaver’s handle down my pants leg, so the side of the blade pressed against my hipbone, the blade itself pointing forward, and pulled my shirt down around her so it was covered.
99.9% sure this was not her name, but I approve.
I nodded. “She started hearing voices. Joel’s not-so-subtly telling me that if I’m in the same boat, well, precedent says they can deal.”
that was my guess. I mean it's comforting, touching, even.
but also I've got a few mild-but-not-insane mental disorders and talking to myself as different characters helps me clear my head, so it kind of saddens me when people jump to the crazy kinds of crazy. Makes me a bit less secure, a bit more worried someone's gonna walk around the corner when I'm trying to do my thing, y'know?
“I don’t know,” I said. “No clue at all. But I’m drained, and if I’m supposed to recover personal power, reaffirm my identity and refuel myself where I was drained, well, getting my bike keys back made me feel a hundred times better than any night’s sleep I’ve had this past week. Maybe seeing my friends will help.”
Lovelovelovethis. Remember, people with support systems are less likely to trigger.
“Sure,” I said. “Please do. But if you happen to want to look up from a book, and if you maybe want a bit of a clue about who I am and where I come from… at least now you can peek.” “Alright,” she said. “That’s… really nice of you.
And maybe this helps to patch Blake and Rose's relationship a bit too. This is really touching. I'm sure nothing bad could ever happen to leave me on a cliffhanger at the end of the chapter.
“Blake!” The cry was followed by a squeal, or a ‘squee’, as the slang went. Amanda. My least favorite member of the group of my favorite people. Which wasn’t to say I disliked her. Only that she didn’t ‘get’ boundaries and I liked my boundaries.
Hmmm. Helluva start to greeting your friends, Blake. See this is why im paranoid something's gonna go wrong
I’d left the door open, and both Amanda and ‘Goosh’ had let themselves in.
Okay there's gotta be a story behind that nickname
Goosh was a little taller than me, which put her above average height for a full-grown male, her blond hair cut short, cut badly, and tousled, her lipstick a little too red for her complexion. She was also a perfect counterpoint to Amanda, in personality and frame. Amanda, petite, was like the little dog that absolutely adored everyone and everything, her enthusiasm bubbling over to infectious degrees. Goosh was more like the mama bear. Where Amanda would crumple at the slightest criticism, Goosh would tear heads off.
Goosh and Amanda have earned my trust, my love, my affection. I am weak, and easily swayed.
“Blake!” a guy greeted me from the door. He was black, hair cut short to the point it was barely a shadow on his head and wiry, and he didn’t try to hide or take shame in his body type. He wore a suit jacket that was a bit tattered and skinny jeans with gray smudges on them. “Hey Ty,” I said.
you too, Ty, c'mere. Bring it in guys.
I was right, it was right. Friends, familiarity, faces I knew. I felt more at ease. More like me, even with that big fat ‘practitioner’ piece jammed in the middle of the puzzle that was me and my identity.
this means, in Wildbow terms, that it's time to knock him right the fuck back down again. Im bracing myself.
I heard him tearing tape free from the roll. Hooray for artist friends.
I mean, really. Ty just offers to finish Blake's thing because sure, what the hell. It'd look cool, why not? Ughhh this is why I don't read pure fluff it would kill me.
“And I’ve got stuff to wrangle here, and… I dunno,” I said. “Honestly, my life’s been turned upside down, and I barely even feel like me.” “You know we have your back.” “I wouldn’t want to involve you, get you embroiled in the ugly parts of it.” “I don’t think many of us would mind.”
disagree
I think you would mind
but also if I were embroiled in an ugly magic destiny...I'd probably want my friends by my side. Even if it was in a world this horrible and terrifying. Is that selfish?
I mean, I'd want them to involve me all the same. It's more that I'd just want to be on the same page as them, in the same world, as it were. Working together, as part of a similar system
Plus I've got an agreement with my best friend that we're required to involve each other in any ugly magic destinies that either of us may or may not have so we're on the same page there
how come fantasy protagonists never make that agreement? It seems like an essential part of life!
I bet Matt and Scott have a magic destiny agreement
“I think you would, once you got the full picture. A lawyer I was speaking to… she told me that she thought I was a goner. The police chief hates me and my family, biggest most influential families have it in for me, a lot of people want the house sold so the town can expand, and I couldn’t even go shopping without getting in a fight.”
What a succinct and understandable way of phrasing all That Shit
I took the opportunity to break away, taking it all in. Amanda and Ty working on the tape, Goosh talking to Joseph. More people coming in the door, waving at me, before listening to what Goosh was saying. I took in a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. I felt at ease.
This is like exactly what I wanted. Which worries me to no god damn end.
“I’m jealous,” Rose told me. “Sorry,” I murmured, holding the cupcake up so people couldn’t see me talking to myself. “I don’t really have friends. You have this.”
Or maybe it won't patch their relationship who knows
“I hear you,” I said. “But I meant what I said. We’ll get you out, and maybe I can introduce you to my friends and acquaintances.”
or maybe it will?
I looked, too. Used the Sight to make sure that there weren’t any connections to things that there shouldn’t be connections to. No objects on their person that might point to something odd. Sure, they could hide it if they wanted to, but short of Laird trying to do to me what I’d done to him, I had trouble imagining a situation where one of my friends would be an Other or practitioner in disguise.
i'll admit this possibility has been nagging at me. What if there were Others that could create memories of friendships n stuff, like that one episode of rick and morty? What if one of them just turns on him!? So I'm glad we're kind of putting this to sleep right now. A little bit
“You need a third win. Three strikes, Laird’s out.” “You don’t think he broke my streak, pulling this?” “Different battlefield, that. But in terms of public perception, in terms of the murder, and reputation? He’s struck out twice. One more time, you’ve got him out.”
Also glad we cleared that up. I was worried Laird had the third win there for a second, but maybe not. Blake's still got a shot.
I saw two more people enter. One strange looking girl I didn’t recognize. Her eyes were small, her nose broad, shoulders drawn in. I looked at the connections, and she had a very odd connection to me. Nothing like any of the connections I had to my friends.
Uh oh. Oh no. This is how it starts.
I liked the little flaws. I could somehow look at an attractive girl, someone like Amanda, or that Penelope Duchamp girl, and on some basic level, they didn’t rate as high in my estimation. They didn’t look interesting, their dark blue eyes didn’t have more of a hold on me because I spent every second I looked into them wanting to study their faces and figure out what it was that made me find her attractive despite the imperfect details.
Yeah! Also it's probably good that you didn't find the thirteen year old penelope duchamp attractive.
I was relieved to see that she was safe, her friend was safe, and they weren’t part of this whole business with Others and magic and whatever else. A glance at their connections told me they were safe.
I'm relieved too
if by 'relieved' you mean 'really sure that something's gonna go horribly wrong really really soon'
then im relieved
This from the shortest girl in the room, smiling wickedly even as she tried not to smile. “Leave him be, Alexis.” “A taste?” I responded. “I’m seriously wondering if someone’s going to try to kill me.” I saw the shock on their faces, the stunned silence, but for Alexis’ sputtering coughing.
Well that's a partykiller. And I'm kinda glad that what killed the party wasn't like...a literal killer or anything
“When Goosh said you’d said your cousin’s death wasn’t an accident, I thought you meant it was a suicide,” Joel said.
Didn't even clock that read, knowing the truth, but it makes sense.
“Because of what the house is, and power plays, and… I don’t even know all of the motivations at work,” I said. “But I’m spooked.” “You should talk to someone,” Joel said. “Police?”
Uh huh.
Police are part of the problem. “I’m waiting for a word from someone on the subject of my personal security. Local guy, knows who’s who, can probably point things in the right direction. Or leave me fucked. Which is why I might have to run any minute.” There were nods.
I like how he phrases all these things in a way that's understandable, lets him open up without flinging open the door to Narnia
“The landlord invited you,” Joel replied. “I have a hard enough time resisting giving you noogies, don’t tempt me by being a brat.” “Give me a noogie and you die,” she said. The brief silence that followed was pointed and awkward. “Sorry, Blake,” she said, wincing. “That was in bad taste. I haven’t even had a drink yet, so I don’t have an excuse.”
I feel kinda bad for laughing at this
but at the same time
im still laughing at this
My surface impression was that she was the least ‘Tiffany-ish’ Tiffany I’d met. Shy, awkward, quiet. I usually associated Tiffanies with blonde cheerleaders.
Great, now I care about another one. I'm saying that flippantly so there won't be as much heartbreak when she turns out to be an Other in disguise, sent to make sure Blake never returns to Jacob's Bell
The snow had piled up on the balcony outside my apartment, in uneven heaps, packed against one side. I took the spot that left me standing in a foot of snow, so she would be clear.
Oh, Blake
“Never had family, never had friends. So no, she didn’t have a home, even if she had a roof over her head. She’s in the building, now.” I nodded. “She saw a picture of you, on my phone. She thinks you’re devastatingly handsome.”
devastating
“I’m not,” I said. “You’re not. But you’re handsome.”
pfft
This is all just delightful
I love it all and I'm waiting in such suspence
and I have to keep mentioning that
because if I don't it'll lure me into a false sense of security and I won't be bracing myself for the inevitable kick to the nuts I'm going to be delivered here
“I’m not a therapist or any of that. But she needs to break out of her shell, and this is the first thing I thought of. I’m doing the relational equivalent of banging stones together until stuff works.” “You want us to… bang?” “I want- yeah. That sums it up. It’s up to you, with your hang-ups in mind, obviously. Knowing you’re going through a lot of crap. But if it’d help you unwind more than it wound you up, that’d be cool.” “Me and her?” “And me,” she said. “I figure she needs a bit of hand holding, and we’re reasonable, adult human beings. We put jealousy aside and… it’s so dark I can’t make out your face and I can still tell you’re blushing.”
Blake is adorable. And his friends are weird, but the cool kind of weird that I naturally become friends with, and that can be a good weird.
I elbowed her, and she elbowed me back. “Say the word,” she told me, “and it’s a done deal.” “For once, it’s a deal I’m happy to have on the table,” I said. “Hm?” “Nevermind.”
Just the way the book establishes these friendships, it's so natural and effortless (seeming). I love it
“There are nine people in the apartment,” Rose said. “And?” “I watched people come in the front door, trying to commit names to memory, figure out who your friends were. Nine people came in.” “And?” I asked. “Ten people in all, if you count Alexis out there on the balcony. Every time I count heads I see nine, but when I go from person to person and count names, the total comes up eight, and I can’t find the person without a name.”
This is really cool
and I'm happy Rose was a lookout, because Blake was not paying attention
Joel, Goosh, Ty, Joseph, Amanda, Nick, Tiffany, and Stephen. Then I counted heads. Nine people, spread out through the apartment.
This is like that one scene I really liked with the books, and I really like it.
“Tiffany?” I asked. She looked up at me. “How much for one of your paintings?” “Two hundred?” she asked. I thought of the allowance the lawyers had given me. “I’ll pay you five hundred for your best one, but I need one now.” “Y-yeah,” she said. I looked at Conquest’s messenger, “We can pick that up on the way?” He nodded. Tiffany at my side, oblivious to the man with the gun, we strode from the apartment.
You have no idea, the sigh of relief and the subsequent gasp of excitement that I just did
Nothing went wrong, but we established stakes for this new conflict and I am pumped
I am also out of time
So I will be reading this later
if it wasn't clear from my various reactions, I absolutely adored this chapter, it had me in a weird kind of non-tension just because of how gratifying and vicariously feelsy it was, Ilovethis
Ilovethis 1
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JayManiac 10-May-19 07:37 PM
Since I've got somewhere to be in the next two hours I won't be able to squeeze a liveread in this morning, so instead, why don't we finish up that list of Exercises for the Novice, shall we?
I don't know if I'll get to all of them in the next hour and twenty minutes, but there are five left so I'm just gonna knock out as many as I can
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JayManiac 10-May-19 07:48 PM
I'm knee deep in the wikipedia articles for the history of optics right now, so this may take a while
Okay here we go
Lens Declarative: The lens is small, easily carried, and may represent a more subtle or thoughtful approach to problems. It relies heavily on the eyes, so the wearer is likely observant to begin with. A lens provides a new perspective, but a lens constantly worn may suggest ignorance, naivete, or at the very least an attachment to a particular worldview. Authoritative: The lens is used to observe, but also to focus. Given that the use of most implements involves focusing power in some way, this is not unique, but the lens focuses on a single point in three-dimensional space, and may be suited to working with raw power. A lens also filters what comes through it, and may be used to select for a particular kind of power. A more passive wearer may also use it mostly for its observational qualities, allowing them to see far more than the average practitioner. Socio-cultural: Although glass lenses were not invented until around the 1300s, practitioners have been using crystal to refocus light for centuries. The lens used to be wielded only by monks and lords with the means to afford crystal, but can be found commonplace among practitioners today. Pre-existing need for vision correction is a large factor in whether this is chosen as an implement. (edited)
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JayManiac 10-May-19 08:01 PM
Mask Declarative: A mask hides its wearer’s appearance. It is in most cases unmoving, portraying a single emotion or state of being despite what may lie beneath (see what I did there? Lie beneath? Get it?). The mask is an outward expression of identity, and pulls its wearer towards that identity. It is overtly deceptive, usually ostentatious, and appearance-oriented. Authoritative: The mask is expressive, deceptive, and sociological in its use. It alters both how the wearer is seen, and how the wearer sees, and the power it channels is likely to be of an illusory or emotional nature. Socio-cultural: The mask is involved in many sacred rituals for numerous organizations, and has occasionally been taken en-masse by a specific sect or people, symbolizing thier unity as a single force, a single identity. These groups make up the vast majority of mask-wearers. Occasionally a mask from a long-dead organization or people will be taken by an individual in order to symbolize their dedication to the values of that
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JayManiac 11-May-19 10:34 PM
it is,
in fact
time to read some more pact
4.2!
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spinagon 11-May-19 10:35 PM
sharkhi
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JayManiac 11-May-19 10:36 PM
Conquest’s place was the sort of place that looked like it was or had been a government building, fifty or a hundred years ago.
Oh yeah, got to go meet Lord Conquest of Toronto. I hope he likes the pure domination of...paint splatters, I guess
“I promised the spirit I would keep her close and keep her warm. Is there room for compromise?” “I’ll keep an eye on him,” the nameless practitioner said. “Yes sir.”
Basic promises are a lot more understandable in the practitioner world, I suppose. Or this guy's just real cool.
To me, he said, “You don’t touch her, unless you give us warning, or you’ll get shot.”
gonna go with that first read
“Noted. Thank you,” I said. A part of me was a little surprised that he’d jumped so quickly to calling it a ‘her’, but I supposed that was a part of living in this world.
Gen-lock-compatible individuals are by definition those with enormous amounts of neuroplasticity
Also if beings like Padriac are walking around as garden hoses waiting to be offended, this is a good policy
Viewed through the Sight, there was another oddity. Nothing was connected. No object had a strong tie to anything. Not to the room, not to any owner, not to events or ideas. They were isolated, stranded.
🏆 🏆 ⚔
Ghosts, if I could even call them ghosts, lingered here and there. They were so faint I could look straight at them and I wouldn’t necessarily be able to make them out. Psychic echoes of people who had been slain or defeated, many bearing grievous wounds that stood out, tied to the pieces of furniture, the decorations, and the objects collected on walls. The tethers binding them were short enough that some were contorted, bent over tables, reaching for but unable to claim swords that rested on stands, clocks and candlesticks.
Okay I guessed that they were trophies, but sweet scion this is awful. I don't know what expected from a dude named conquest but still.
Every enemy the Lord had vanquished, he had taken something from them, a piece of their home and a piece of their selves.
fine
so Blake, try not to piss him off. Just try.
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JayManiac 11-May-19 10:52 PM
The staircase existed in shambles. A staff had been thrust into someone’s open mouth, continuing into the join between two stairs, punching through tile, concrete and wood. The skull of the victim, jaw open, was still on the stairs. The flesh had long since rotted away, the remainder of the body carted off.
okay, so the whole "oh don't worry about it he's just like a buisnessman guy now that the world's less stab-y and horrible" is just, like, his day job. He's moved this to hobby but he's still pretty passionate type thing
As I crested the top of the stairs, I saw the walls on either side of me were in ruins. Open, snow-covered fields spread out to either side of the ruins, the clouds hanging low in the sky, to obscure my view.
Someone's demesnes, I'm guessing? Or is this like an actual part of Toronto?
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JayManiac 11-May-19 11:30 PM
okay, got pulled away from liveread for a moment but back now
It was cold, and the sun afforded no more warmth than it did light. It did, however manage to leech the moisture from my mouth. It was both hot and cold at the same time, with one not taking away from the other.
I'm imagining sort of the opposite of feverish, where you just feel cold and dry and sweltering
I love the buildup we're getting to Conquest
“We’re in the fallow season within the Lord’s domain.”
He's a powerful fallow then, isn't he? Just the amount of personality throughout this walk up is great. I'm building this image of conquest in my head and I don't know if the book will fulfill it, subvert it, what have you. it's also pretty tense, considering this guy has Blake's life in his conquering fists, in more ways than one.
“Please watch your step, and do keep moving. Lingering can expose you to other effects here. So can a misstep. Things broken here do not always mend as you hope they would. You can hastily patch up a wound that may take a lifetime to heal, or you can allow things to become something else altogether, after the breaking. I doubt you want to do either, if you happen to fall through the floor and break a leg.”
And the escalation is another thing. We've encountered power so far, we've seen what goblins can do, what Laird can do, what Glamour can do, what Familiars can do. And yet this casual display of power and influence is just awesome. I really do feel like we're walking into the domain of a god.
I elected to pull off my jacket, because I preferred being too cold to being too hot, and it seemed I wasn’t going to get a middle ground between the two.
Remember how I said I'd remember that Blake thinks of warmth and heat as a metaphor for identity and personhood? I remembered. Not entirely sure what 'too much identity' would signify here, but I'll be keeping an eye out
“I didn’t know a demesne could be this… out there. I mean, I read about apartments covered in flesh, but…” “This isn’t a demesne, as you understand the term,” he said. “Some beings are strong enough to influence their surroundings simply by residing there.”
And there's confirmation that this is just *that much more powerful*
Conquest stood across from me, sitting on a stone. He had a bit of a mullet, a white colonial-style jacket with a fleece collar and several belts, a rifle with a bayonet resting against one leg, and a badass beard with a waxed mustache. Two aboriginal men were kneeling beside him, shirtless, with heavy collars shackled to their necks, chains leading up to his hand. His other arm was outstretched, resting against one knee, hand open, with large green beetles crawling around the palm.
😬
That's pretty much exactly what I expected, but somehow worse
When I looked him over again, I saw the entire thing fit. I could have seen something similar on a tarot card, the posture, the very careful arrangement of elements. A composition, a living symbol. And somehow, this landscape was an extension of him. It was like he was ink, bleeding out onto the paper around him, and this… diorama was the end result. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
Oh this is so perfect, just such a literalization of symbolism and narrative presentation. I cannot express how flippin cool this is, but I don't have to because Blake is doin it for me.
Ward chapter dropped as I'm reading this but I can't take my attention from it I feel like conquest will just jump out and punch me in the face if I dare to defy his opening scene
“I would offer you a seat,” he said, “But the only seat available is the ground, and I have no reason to make you debase yourself. You may continue to stand.”
Giving someone permission to stand is like the greatest power move ever
She was big. Maybe, if she’d been human-proportioned, she would have been two or three times my height, going by the size of her head and upper body. But her body from the waist down was that of a great cat, the rise and fall of the muscles beneath the short fur very distinct. Great feathered wings were folded against her body, the snow piling on them.
Is this the real simurgh? Whatever the case, I'm gonna call her a Gryphinx until further notice
I looked away, before I could break some rule, and I saw the others. A man, bedraggled, in rumpled clothing, with two handsome men and two attractive women attending him. He sat on the trunk of a tree that had grown horizontally, low to the ground, stump to his left, sparse branches fanning out to his right. A bottle dangled from his fingers, the contents swishing as he tilted it one way, then the next. His gaze was hard, penetrating.
Hey!!! I know you! Jeremeath, it's been too long! (it's been two chapters)
“High Drunk Jeremy Meath.”
Only the bravest, the most esteemed in the service of dionysus can claim it, the title which is ever-respected in any domain the light touches
“Blake,” I said. I wasn’t sure if I had another answer. “Blake,” the sphinx said. “From English. The name means ‘the pale, blond one’, also ‘black’. A name of contrasts, hinting at duality.”
Blake? Duality? Pfft, no way! You should meet his vestige alternate self who argues with him constantly
Also, love Blake's anticlimactic introduction. Blake, the dude, son of that other dude
“Not in attendance is the Sister of Torches, the Shepherd, the Knights of the Basement, the Eye of the Storm, and the Queen’s Man,” Conquest said.
the Shepherd? Does Toronto have it's own Jesus? That would be cool, and an interesting path of exploration. Meanwhile, we've got the Knights of the Basement, who I'm frankly just dying to meet. Who named them? How'd they get so powerful with such a shitty name?
also why are more than half the powers of toronto here absent? Is something happening or do they just not give a shit (edited)
It seemed this place was more like the government, where attendance wasn’t mandatory, and only certain seats were filled at certain times.
goin with not givin a shit
Very strange, to see an otherworldly being like Conquest Given Form rolling the elastic down the length of the rolled up paper. He unfurled it.
What I would pay to see the Great Lord Conquest Himself struggle to open one of those annoying plastic containers. I can picture it, he tears at the "tear here" but the tab just comes off, so he's got to pick at the little bit of plastic with his nails once or twice until he gets one of em under...
“You should know, Lord,” the nameless practitioner said, “he artificially inflated the value, paying two and a half times what was asked.” Fuck you, Mr. No-name.
No one likes a snitch, priest of Kalzadar guy
“I would ask that you not take that to mean it’s inherently low in value,” I said. “Art and artists are fickle creatures, and it’s the nature of an artist to undervalue what they create. Once I saw it, I knew I was right. Had I been able, I would have paid more.”
This is really cool of Blake to say, and he's absolutely fuckin right. Artists are super-duper hard on themselves, and it's hard to get that sort of confidence. It's something every friend of an artist knows, and something every artist is doomed to forget when it comes to their own work.
“There are two kinds of taking,” Conquest said. “When one gives love, love is not subtracted from a total. Love can be taken a thousand or a million times over from the same individual, and that individual will not be bereft of love, if that love is genuine. I am a taker of the other sort. The sort to leave things bereft. I ask you a second time, why should I value this as a gift? Balls and fuck. I hadn’t expected to be grilled. I’d been told that it was a token gift.
This guy's a bit of a jackass. I mean, I don't know what I expected from Lord Conquest Himself. Probably a bit of a Jackass, honestly. But still.
“Then tell me, and I ask you a third time, a final time, why should I value this gift?” I stood there, a number of eyes fixed on me, thinking. Dangerous seconds passed, my mind ticking over everything I could think of. The money, the deal, the friendship… I was reaching for one connection, one seed of an idea I could use to start making my argument.
But I like what this is forcing Blake, and the reader, to think about. Especially in the context of the economization of abstract and unquantifiable concepts, which I'm becoming more and more convinced is an actual theme and not just something I pulled out of my ass and slapped onto the story.
“Nothing will hold up to the original. She came from a place of pain and struggle, as many artists do, and that pain and struggle informed the work. She put… something of herself into it. You don’t do work that good and not miss it when the piece is gone. In the future, if or when she finds her way to happiness, she’ll view that painting and the sale as a step on the journey to the happiness, and she’ll feel a pang. There’s an energy in that, I’m sure. I’ll feel a pang, because I’ll miss the money I could have spent elsewhere. For the artist and for me, the loss will shape our futures. She’ll do work without this piece to reference, and our destinies change.”
Well motherfucking said, Blake. Even if it's playing by this guy's awful rules of engagement.
“Assuming she values the work,” the nameless practitioner said. “And that it isn’t something she did on the spur of the moment.”
Dude, fuck the fuck right outta you! Even if it was spur of the moment, that makes it even harder to part with, as it was something one cannot replicate.
“It is best to be safe,” Conquest said. “Isadora? You’ve interacted with the art students at your University.”
King Conquest here does some thorough-ass gift inspecting. I guess when you walk past a skull with a huge spike through its mouth on the way up you better hope your present is worth it. Imagine if Blake had scrounged up a Starbucks Gift Card or something.
“Then I am satisfied,” the Lord of Toronto told me. “The gift is received, and I’ll accept your presence in my domain until you give me reason to do otherwise.”
Oh goodie. He passed.
“I open the floor,” Conquest said. “Abstaining,” the drunk said. “For once,” Diana said. “Ha ha,” he said, with zero humor. “That hasn’t gotten old in the past twenty years.” “We need to get it out of the way, whenever somebody new arrives,” Diana said.
Jeremeath looks like he's even more miserable than we've seen him in the past. And that's saying something.
“I would see the weapon,” the Lord of Toronto said. “Will you give it over to me?” I opened my mouth to agree, then stopped myself. “With all due respect, Lord of Toronto, I’ll lend it to you,” I said.
Clever move. I didn't catch that one.
Oh, hey, practitioners who didn’t want to kill me. I was getting a sense of how someone could get into this life and lifestyle and not be abjectly miserable. Cool scenery, neat monsters, a thrill of danger…
I mean, I wouldn't want to be thrown into it or anything, but if the life was offered I'd have a tough time saying no...
maybe that sounds a little crazy, considering
“That’s-” the drunk started. “What?” I asked. “A very foolish thing, to make statements like that. A promise, an oath.” “Oh,” I said. “I’m new.” “Clearly so,” he said. “I had hoped, for the sake of my interests and yours, to hear your answer.”
Oh, wait. Does he not know that Blake is from Jacob's Bell yet? That's a little bit of an oversight on Sandra's part I think.
In my interests? “In my… good interests?” I asked. He smiled, but he didn’t answer.
No. He's gonna try to kill you.
“I would like him to attend one of my parties,” Jeremy said, allowing himself the smallest smile. His eyes, though, remained fixed on me.
I'mma be real with you Blake. This guy? Probably throws the best gods blessed parties in the nine fuckin realms. I'm talkin prime party animals here. Do not go. It's a trap. You won't be able to leave. Don't eat the pomegranate blake, dont do it!
“We only want to get to know you better, but we can ask more innocuous questions.” Isadora said. “Answer me this, who are you?”
or you could ask some less innocuous questions.
How close had I come to giving a simple, casual answer? Had they collectively maneuvered me into this, or was it Isadora doing what her kind naturally did, timing the question so I might slip up and give the wrong answer?
I love the long monologue that proceeds from that totally-innocuous question there, well deserved.
“I’m the Fool card, drawn with the right hand, the High Priestess drawn with the left,” I said.
hahahahahahahha
“Someone told you,” she said. “I honestly figured it out myself,” I said. “And you chose the answer that served to sum up who you were, while not giving any points that could be argued.” “Honestly,” I said, “I chose the most bullshit answer that sprung to mind, because even if I was wrong, I thought it would buy me time to think or to argue the point.”
Well don't tell them that! It's like your primary weapon when it comes to this shit!
“Nobody truly understands themselves, and figuring out who we are is an ever-transforming journey,” Isadora said. “A riddle is merely a question that demands a thoughtful or clever answer. Do you understand?” I smiled a bit. “No fun at all,” she pouted, again.
I disagree, I'm havin a blast!
“I’m genuinely sorry,” I said, as soon as I thought I could talk without interrupting her. “No offense or disrespect was intended. Considering that you just tried to manipulate me into a situation where you could kill me, I think you’re pretty damn cool, as Others go.”
I think so too! I think my standards of who's cool and not for Others have taken a huge dive since story start here. Like, now that's just business as usual!
“Yes, I suppose it has. I like him, this Blake. Sharp enough to be interesting. Reckless enough to be potential food. I would not object to having him around.”
A protagonist though and through! How many quotes about stories and parts of stories could I pull from Pact if I tried? At least three this chapter, for starters...
“I care, as a matter of fact,” Jeremy said. “This Blake hasn’t given us any straight answers. He’s clever, but we don’t know where he got his power, do we? He’s the lowest value power and the highest, in Dexter’s hemisphere. You don’t find that curious?”
There's the old Jeremeath we know and tolerate! The one who I said reminded me of Spider Jerusalem when we met him, the one who cuts through the bullshit!
slowly realizes that he's cutting through Blake's bullshit
“Soon enough. But I’d like to have some answers, first. I have reason to suspect he is not what he appears to be.”
I dunno. I'd like to take a moment to discuss whether this is true or not...What's Blake really hiding? We know that Jeremeath wants to know he's from JB so he can get to killin, but the rest of them? He's just being careful right now, and I don't even know if most of them would recognize the name Thorburn if they heard it. Granny was hot shit back in Bell, but who knows up here?
I saw Isadora smile, but it was a very dangerous sort of smile. The sort of smile that would be on a person’s face while they pulled a man’s guts out from a hole in his stomach, if they were the type of person who really enjoyed pulling guts out of stomachs.
This is both hilarious and chilling. Chillarious
My instinct was to set them against one another, as I’d tried to do in Jacob’s Bell. But, thinking two or three steps ahead, I couldn’t envision many situations where that worked out to my benefit.
hey is this growth and character development? is blake learning to go with his second stupid instinct instead of his first?
“Now, earlier, you posed a riddle for me. A place with circles and covens, where could you possibly be from, hm?” I would have answered, to distract and divert, but she’d phrased it as a question. “Jacob’s Bell,” the sphinx said.
Well there goes that.
“I see a connection,” Diana said, sing-song. In a more normal voice, she said, “Hidden by glamour, even. I do think you’re right.”
Wait, she can see a connection hidden by glamour, when the duchamps couldn't?
I mean I guess most of them predate the invention of paper
but still, that's some powerful shit
“Where did you pick up the practice? A place like that, the circles hold tight to their power. Are you a refugee from the goblin’s festival of blood? Easy to imagine a practitioner who wandered that way might have lost their belongings.”
Does she know about Maggie? Or is this just a scarily-good guess based on events she knows to have happened? I guess it could be a bit of abstract astrology knology where she knows there's a goblin-tainted individual around Jacob's Bell and she's throwin out guesses.
“Thorburn,” Conquest said. “It would have to be Thorburn. She was getting on in years. It’s due time.” “Connection,” Diana said, her voice barely above a whisper, carrying across the clearing. “Female heirs only,” Isadora said.
Uh oh. Granny has a reputation here. That's probably not a good thing.
Conquest rose from his seat. Which made for one hell of an understatement. The landscape changed, as if conquest were attached to each and every thing by drawstrings. The sun descended, in one smooth motion, as he rose, burning hotter, whiter, as it drew down, while the crimson bled out into the sky around it. The walls around the hill washed away, like waves that had crashed against a cliffside and were now returning to the sea below. His flesh pulled back, straining into something macabre as he swelled in size, as if simply standing involved an exaggerated change in size. The sun, burning white now against a blood red sky, seemed more an extension of him, an accessory.
I suddenly feel like Blake is very very very small.
“I could do with a calculated measure of defeat and pain,” the Lord of Toronto told me. “You can stay here, safe from your enemies, and I will use your knowledge. I can conquer you, subjugate you, own you, and you will find a peace in surrender. All do, given time.” I felt a kind of despair, and I knew he could tell. I’d walked right into a trap. Fuck no.
Conquest is gonna be a bit of an issue, I gather. I doubt anything in Jacob's bell can hold a time-candle to what this guy can do. It kind of feels like the story's spiraling into insanity and I'm not even at the quarter-of-the-way point
“You stay,” Conquest said. He reached, and I saw him touch connections with his broad fingers and hands. “You-” He pulled. “And yours.” Rose was hauled into plain view by the tug on the connection. She dangled for a second from Conquest’s grasp. He dropped her into the powder beside me. “Let us begin,” Conquest said.
Well that went well.
This was one hell of a chapter. Conquest is an Evil Dude. I'm out of time to read more today, but I'm into this...whether I like it or not
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JayManiac 12-May-19 06:07 PM
wow yeah that's pretty much exactly how I pictured him
down to the incorrect red jacket
Also Bljake the dog
I approve
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JayManiac 14-May-19 04:55 PM
Alright, it's time to conquer 4.3. Hm? No, that was a bad choice of words, I didn't mean to imply that this chapter would be anyone's but yours, Mr. Conquest sir. Please don't kill me.
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agenderGorgon 14-May-19 04:55 PM
TORONTO!
Did you hear about Toronto before you started Pact?
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JayManiac 14-May-19 04:57 PM
No I literally knew nothing except this is Blake and we're gonna feel bad for him for sixteen arcs.
Conquest turned his back, pushing a tree aside. Where another tree would have been uprooted, his simply moved over the earth as if it were on rails. The movement stirred cold air, and I flinched.
I should not be anywhere near surprised that Conquest is a dick to trees.
Rose stared up at him, then down at her hands. “Hey, Rose,” I said, my hands in my pockets, my arms tight against my sides, trying to stay warm without being too hot at the same time. “Let me start by-” She heaved herself out of the snow, flinging herself at me with enough force to almost knock me over. She wrapped her arms around me.
bulba
Ilovethis
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spinagon 14-May-19 04:58 PM
Blake doesn't
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JayManiac 14-May-19 04:59 PM
I would have hit her, but swinging a punch in self defense was different from trying to hit someone who was clinging so closely to me. I would have had to deliver an underhanded punch to the gut, and… no. The fact that it took me a second to get my bearings meant I had time to resist impulses.
What does it say about them, that Rose's first impulse when she has a body is to hug him and Blake's is "PUNCH- wait no"
She squeezed a little too hard, painfully, one arm over my shoulder, another at my side, head buried against my chest. She was also warm, her heart pounding so hard I could feel it.
I am still allowed to love this, because it's everything Rose ever wanted and I'm gonna cry I'm already dehydrated don't do this (please do this). This is like if (ward) Sveta just magically had a human body one day
She was a real, physical person, here, it seemed. A real physical person who was digging her nails into my back.
I know this is probably just in conquest's...area or whatever, but I'm happy for her all the same
“I have further business with him. In exchange for my continued cooperation, can I ask that he be kept within the city, for the time being?”
Yeah "Blake doesn't come back to Jacob's Bell" is pretty vague
I wanted freedom to move, but Rose was still clinging to me, and it was doing everything a hug shouldn’t. Stirring ugly feelings of fear and unease, making me less calm, making me feel like I stood completely alone and adrift.
😬
I can understand both sides of this though; Rose is probably a bit starved for human contact and overwhelmed by the experience of life rn, but also Blake is panicking and that's not the best place to accept a heartfelt reunion
also: it may be time to admit to myself that he doesn't actually like Rose very much, and probably only gets along with her because he has to.
He had overlarge hands, now, plated in iron and what might have been bone, or a very pale metal, effectively gauntlets, but I could also see smaller hands, grasping, scrabbling out as if they sought to claw their way free of his coat sleeves. Or his rolls of loose skin. Or chainmail. Whatever it was that wreathed his arms, now that it was ceasing to be a coat. I could see it changing, sloughing away from an endless source, taking on a new texture and form as it layered over itself. Hot wax, melting flesh, layers of dust settling atop one another. All those things and none of them.
This is equally how I expected him to look. I mean we know barbs has a whole menagerie of unsettling thematic forms to take, so why the hell not?
His beard and hair were longer than they had been, paler.
Taking him in helped to divorce my brain from the invasion of my personal space, and I managed to get my thoughts on track, taking in our general circumstances. Fuuuuuuuuuck, I thought.
Hahahahahahahahaha yeah you're screwed buddy
Conquest continued, “…Break a man utterly, and he may well adore you for the simplest things, like bread, water, and relief from torture. He will hate you too, but one can control them while the heart is swayed by love, and chain them away in darkness when it is controlled by the hatred.” “Doesn’t it kind of defeat the point if you tell them how you’re manipulating them?” I asked.
Somehow I thought I couldn't be surprised by the shittiness of Others anymore, allow me to reevaluate
“That’s what I was going to say. I was understating it when I was telling you this didn’t go so well. He wants me to summon something.” “Something? A something-something?”
See, I assumed he was talking about Barbatorem when Conquest asked him whether he could say he didn't know the names of any demons
but he can't summon Barbs by name, so I'm guessing Conquest might actually go for our old buddy Ornament
She was wearing a button-up blouse with a dark stone at the collarbone, and a very simple navy blue skirt that sat at the waist and ended at the knee. Her shoes were an older fashion, too hard and black, with a single strap. Grandmother’s clothes, borrowed from the mirror-verse.
Oh hey, it's
smh gorgon you spoiled Rose's outfit how dare
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agenderGorgon 14-May-19 05:24 PM
Psshh.
There's WAAAY worse you can get spoiled from Pact fanart.
Search for none of the characters!
None!
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JayManiac 14-May-19 05:24 PM
I'm kidding, also uh I already searched for maggie but I'll stop there
in my defence: Sandara is like my favorite artist and I remembered she had art of maggie
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agenderGorgon 14-May-19 05:26 PM
Yeah but Sheep's art of her is pretty spoilers.
And sheep's other Pact art is mega spoilers for a one scene thing.
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JayManiac 14-May-19 05:27 PM
uh okay I'll keep that in mind
“Been a while since I had any human contact. I just realized, and I wasn’t thinking. It’s like I- I’ve been dealing with everything and there hasn’t been much support, and, even that…” “I get it,” I said. I did get it. I knew what she was talking about. To be alone and cut off for so long, and then be offered a hand… it fit with my own experience.
Don't worry Rose, I love you, even if Blake doesn't. fine
I had the locket, I had the hatchet. Hardly enough to go up against this guy. “I don’t think we have many options,” I said.
Yeah, how the hell do you plan on getting out of this blake? I don't see like...any way to do so
remembers that Wildbow likes to write himself into situations he doesn't know how he'll write himself out of yet
“I’m thinking… no, I didn’t get much useful info out of the book on glamours. But I did check out Valkyrie before I recommended it to you. Binding spirits of the dead to objects. Using their power… um. I just need to remember how to do it.” “Is this useful?” “It’s… empirical data, one way or the other.”
"Results? I have found plenty of results! Now I know of a thousand ways that will not work!" -Thomas "I'm an invention-stealing dickwad" Edison
“June,” Rose said, more authoritarian in tone, raising the hatchet overhead. “Come forth.”
Just realized that if Rose can do regular magic shit, she's just become way the hell more powerful than Blake
also wonder whether Blake saying the name Ornias would've actually worked, or if Rose has to
“What’s the plan?” I asked. “Adjusting the temperature,” Rose said. “June? The cold of the cabin, with the door closed. The cold of the room when you tried to get the fire going.”
Rose!? JUNE IS NOT AIR CONDITIONING
It wasn’t just having had the chance to talk. I felt okay because the weather wasn’t bearing down on me. June had broken the effect, and the heat was taking its time to bleed back into our surroundings. It was still cold, but it wasn’t cold and hot.
....
I stand corrected
“You will answer, or I will punish your companion,” he said. I glanced at Rose. “You gave her your coat. You’re attached to her. I must assume you would be upset if she were disfigured or crippled.” Fuck.
Not as much as you might assume, Conquest. But yes. Blake would be upset. I would be upset.
I clenched my hands at my sides. The locket’s chain bit into the webbing of my hands. But it wouldn’t be any use here.
we're slowly running through Blake's tools and making sure they're all useless. I'm really tense for what comes at the end of that list. Will it finally be time for some...decorating? 🎄
“Okay,” I said, “Fine! Cutting past the shit and the figuring… you can hear anything in your realm, so there’s no real point to me whispering and conspiring with Rose, is there?” He tilted his head slightly. “Got any bright ideas, Rose? Because I’m running pretty dry, here.” “I don’t have a lot,” she said.
Oh cool, so he's like "yo I guess we never have privacy so I'll just discuss my clever plan right here in the open". Blake's brilliance never ceases to amaze me
“Because the alternative is that cliche line like, hey, you know what’s at stake, so you’re okay with making the sacrifice, in exchange for my silence.” “Fuck that, would you say that?” “No,” I said. “Neither would I! Unless you’re saying that I’m a vestige, so I don’t count!” “I’m not,” I said. “I’m saying I don’t know what the fuck to do.”
Blake's brilliance has ceased to amaze me
I envisioned it. The flow of events, giving him Ornias’ name. The summoning… Conquest would become mightier, and as an Incarnation, he could deal with the fallout. Probably.
Okay, so we're doin Ornament
“They were bound once, they will be easier to bind again. I can expend power, shape my domain into a prison.” “Right,” I said. “Except… I’m not sure the one I’d be calling has been bound before.” He stared down at me with the black orbs in the midst of his pallid face. He wasn’t smiling that horrible rictus smile, now. “The one I’d be calling would be strong, and the people who gave it to me, well, I can’t guarantee that any being they put me in contact with was necessarily bound at any point. From the description, this being could be one of the big names, someone who sits on a throne and bosses the others around. Looking for a way to get here.” “You can’t guarantee that is the case,” Conquest said. “I can’t guarantee it isn’t,” I said.
Holy shit, Blake's brilliance starts to amaze once again, motherfuckers!
this was really smart
“I could break you for your impertinence,” he said, hauling her up until her face was level with his. “To give me orders?” His breath in her face was enough to stir her hair. She had the hatchet, still, but… god damn, I hoped she wasn’t dumb enough to swing it at his face.
and this is really funny
In her shoes, I probably would have, but I processed things differently than most, when it came to personal space.
so is this
because it's literally Blake admitting he's dumb enough
When she’d recovered, while Conquest paced, I met Rose’s eyes. I could tell we were thinking the same thing. If we could get him to enter the circle…
Well, three things could happen: he gets trapped in the house, he's fast enough to leave the house quickly and thus escape the effect, or he's powerful enough to break the circle. And that's a two-out-of-three win for Blake and Rose, so hell yeah
“If you’re immortal,” I said, “Then yes, there is a trap our enemies set before us, but it will barely affect you, while it could have some pretty grave consequences for us. You can go, get the books, bring them to us, and we could summon whichever sort of being you required.” “You’re scheming, diabolist,” he said. “At this stage of things, I’m just scheming to buy us some time.”
Clever wordplay, considering...he's planning to buy a little more time than Conquest might anticipate
Because when it all came down to it, push to shove, I wasn’t really much of a man. Not when someone or something bigger and stronger than me had their hands on me. Not when I was unarmed and certain there was nothing I could do. I had precedent for that. Once he grabbed me, I was as good as dead, because I’d stop thinking until I was free again, and there was nothing thoughtless I could do to get out of this situation. I wouldn’t listen to reason, and it wouldn’t be me fighting like a cornered rat. I’d maybe manage to lash out, fail, then I’d shut down one hundred percent.
fine
“Fuck you,” I said, moving laterally along the wall to try and put distance between myself and him. But the wall was his. “Piss-poor excuse for an Incarnation. What the fuck is an Incarnation of Conquest doing in Canada?”
Wow, alright! That's an interesting choice of strategy there
“I find it interesting, to see what is revealed of people, when they are broken down,” the Lord said. “With things relatively stable here, it’s been some time since I had the chance. You’ve defaulted to scheming, impertinence, then aggression. But it’s only when the pressure is increased, your very being challenged, that we’ll see who you truly are.”
devastating devastating devastating
I mean it's not exactly him, but he has some healthy respect for the concept
“Fuck you and your fucking philosophy,” I said.
Unlike some people
Hey I wonder if Sylvester and Blake would get along? Hahahahaha no they wouldn't
Then I cursed myself for even thinking that. Because I wasn’t entirely sure I wouldn’t blurt something out in panic. He was everything I couldn’t deal with.
This is really distressing to read
In like a good way
but still, just in general this chapter is not a calming experience
*book
No, we had one little thing. Twice now, June had damaged the environment. Breaking the cage, and dispelling the heat for a time.
But correct me if I'm wrong, June's Hatchet is a limited resource, unreplenishable. You can't just keep swinging her, even if a vestige is more powerful in a demenses...I mean, maybe this is less of a drain on her power than usual
I’d called him out on the strangeness of him leaving Rose and I to talk. Why had he done it? To give us succor and manipulate us? No, it had been strange that he’d even explained that. I’d called him out on that too. Why had he done it? To change the landscape? To change it so it snowed black? What had been the point of that, when he could have started squeezing us for what he wanted right away?
Please let Conquest's power all be one giant fuckin bluff
Think. Why had he taken the time to adjust the area? Did it require constant maintenance? No. I didn’t get that feeling. But maybe he’d wanted to strengthen it at the core level, in anticipation of the arrival. He’d been fairly confident he could control a creature that had already been bound, which fit, given that he was Conquest. Or a Conquest. But maybe he hadn’t been entirely confident. With that thought, other things fit into place.
I'm still pretty lost, is conquest's power just a bluff? Is Blake gonna scare him shitless by actually saying the name of Ornias?
And, I couldn’t help but note, again, he’s a fucking Incarnation of Conquest in Canada. I’d just invaded the Behaim household under the cloak of glamour. Why the fuck was I putting so much stock in appearances? If I stripped it all away, if I looked at everything he’d said as if he had no power at all… This bastard was the fucking Wizard of Oz.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha this is a fantastic reveal, and it works so well
I even noted how we were building up to conquest, how he was all the power we expected him to be
But do Isadora and Jeremeath and the others know? How could they not?
A small, insecure, relatively powerless being, and a whole lot of pretending.
Ilovethis
It wasn’t a realization that won this for us. We were still in his domain, he still had power, and not everything was appearances. If I’d realized this, one of the other powers had to have a glimmer of the same idea. Chances were good they knew. They had other reasons for backing off, and many of them weren’t small fry.
Hey I was just saying that! I love how on-the-same-page blake and I are, considering that I have a helluva lot more time to think
“Being the sort that diabolists deal in. A human twisted by a mote of diabolic power, left in the wake of a being that passed this way long, long ago. A twisted goblin that even other goblins steer clear of. And an abstract sort of devil, not so powerful that it is worth the trouble of binding it, unless you have an expendable diabolist to attempt the deed. I want each bound, captured, and brought to me.” Okay, fuck. A little more than I was expecting to have on my plate. “We accept,” Rose said, “With the proviso that we may need some things, and some more information.”
Hmm. I mean, this is a strange way of maybe-winning but being terribly inconvenienced at the same time
But hey! You'll get practice at summoning and binding things!
“If you want to leave my domain to carry out these errands, you’ll wear it,” he said. I felt that ugliness worming its way through my gut once again. Horror, nausea, unease ratcheted up to eleven. I looked at Rose, and I saw her expression change. Concern?
Blake ain't takin that deal.
I couldn’t really surrender, not like that. As if on an impulse, Rose stepped forward, extended an arm, and forced the shackle shut around one wrist.
Oh Rose, Why are you the best!?
Rose and I both walked to the door. I grabbed her hand, then for safety’s sake, I grabbed June too. In my hurry to leave, I pulled her behind me. As we passed through the doorway, I felt Rose’s wrist crumble in my hand. When I looked behind me, there was no door, and there was no Rose. When I looked in front of me, I saw a parked car. Rose stood in the window, where my reflection should have appeared, faint. Wearing my coat.
Fuck. This just broke my fragile heart
“Am I helping? Are you telling me the particulars?” “You are, and I am. Between running these errands of his, binding the demons and the Über-goblin, we’ve got to wrangle a mutiny, and get some of the other locals and powers on board for unseating Conquest from his throne.”
Looks like Elliot's prediction might just turn around! I don't know about Isadora and the others, but if Jeremeath becomes Lord of Toronto, that has to win him points with the Duchamps too, hopefully? Plus, I think it'll be good practice to start binding and summoning stuff, and it shouldn't be too much trouble to wrangle some extra power up on the side, right?
“Fuck.” “I know.”
I wonder if this is a three-beat? Probably a six-beat, one for each Thorburn.
Anyhow
That's all for today, but I'm all for viva la revolution!!
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JayManiac 14-May-19 07:45 PM
Well that's a tough question, there's what i want to happen and what i think will happen, and it's hard to reconcile those two. But I think a good narrative thread for the story to tug on right now is Sandra Duchamp: we know her well, she's fresh in our minds throughout this whole section still, and she's got an ongoing interest in dethroning the Lord of Toronto. However, she might just view Blake as his pawn and not an ally, especially since Conquest is currently undoing all of the magic circles hard work. I think we'll be catching up with her in the near future, and that her influence will be scarcely enough to keep Blake alive, but also something will get in the way of her and Blake directly becoming allies (because that would be too easy).
I could be wrong, and we could be going the Jeremy route, but at the start of the chapter he straight up swears not to move against conquest
Also: by the end of the arc i predict at least one of Blake's friends will know his secrets and be dragged into the world of Others. Probably Joel or Alexis since we've spent the most time with them, but could also be Tiffany.
We could also just hold them as the stakes of conflicts without involving them, but i think Blake gets desperate enough to share, one way or another
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JayManiac 17-May-19 06:01 AM
It's been longer than I'd hoped since I've been able to read, but it's time to get into 4.4! Last we left off, Blake was planning to usurp Conquest, who turns out to be all-bark and still-more-bite-than-blake (edited)
What did it say about me and my situation when my first thought when I got dressed wasn’t what looked good, but what would serve me best in a bad situation?
That you're aware of your tendency to encounter bad situations, perhaps?
I grabbed a pair of cargo pants from one drawer and frowned a bit. Not my first choice. Free clothes I’d gotten at a shelter, I hadn’t liked the pants then, I didn’t like them now.
Hey! I wear cargo pants! Pockets are important and they're quite breathable!
It wasn’t that I wasn’t grateful. It was more… well, as Joel had gently put it, not long after I’d moved in, they had probably been out of fashion for a few years before their previous owner had bagged them up with a bunch of other clothes and dropped them off at a shelter. But they would have been out of fashion in Ontario, which put us about two to four years behind the times. By the time I traced it back to a time when it would have been in fashion, I was thinking the late nineties.
Did Blake just Victoria himself, and by extension me? I think that's what just happened and I'm not sure how I feel about it.
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Wildbow 17-May-19 06:06 AM
The cargo pants reaction is a staple at this point.
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Seregraug 17-May-19 06:08 AM
One day cargo pants shall reign over all other choices.
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JayManiac 17-May-19 06:09 AM
Alas, it seems that zip-off-into-shorts cargo pants- which can fit twelve packs of raisins if you're a really weird person- are simply too good for this world
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Wildbow 17-May-19 06:09 AM
I have prAna cargo pants but they're like... stealth cargo
I know some people wear them to work and nobody comments or notices.
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JayManiac 17-May-19 06:10 AM
T-shirt. Knit hooded sweatshirt to get the two added pockets.
Pockets are an important part of being a wizard - Kvothe, probably. Also me.
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Seregraug 17-May-19 06:11 AM
Wearing cargo pants to work is the CS way. (edited)
If you show up in more than business casual then you get the weird comments.
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JayManiac 17-May-19 06:13 AM
Looking at it, I noticed the small wound on the back of my hand where I’d stabbed myself. It wasn’t scabbed over, but it wasn’t bleeding either. Tender. Infected, or had I just washed away the scab while showering?
Blake I've got some magical advice: your wound is cursed, and you've got to perform a ritual or else vile spirits will be drawn to it, rendering it useless. Luckily, they can be repelled. The first thing you need is some purell...
“I’m trying to shake the idea of this Faerie hair crawling into the hole in my hand and winding its way through my entire circulatory system.” “That’s grisly.” “It’s not impossible to believe,” I said. “And if I let myself think it’s possible, then it’s going to become more possible, and once I get hair threading its way through my bloodstream, pain, physical changes, well, there’s no way I’m just going to meditate and convince myself it isn’t real. So how would I stop it? Even if I pulled it out, could I be sure I got all of it?”
Would it be...an ingrown hair? Ah, I already regret contributing to the train of thought here, my hands are physically reacting to the thought of being invaded by magic glamour hair
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Wildbow 17-May-19 06:17 AM
When you tug on the hair at your hand and you feel answering tugs in your crotch and your throat, simultaneously.
stare 1
fine 1
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JayManiac 17-May-19 06:19 AM
I just sat there, trembling, face twisted in disgust and pain for several seconds after reading that
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Seregraug 17-May-19 06:20 AM
WB has many gifts. Many of them also happen to be body horror descriptions. (edited)
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JayManiac 17-May-19 06:22 AM
A box knife found its way to the kitchen table. I found a set of small glass jars of acrylic paint, and weighed them in my hand before setting one aside. Hole punch, good. A few smooth-headed bolts, nuts…
See I can't tell what Blake is planning here because I feel like these are the correct materials for any endeavor, and you should have all of that, a roll of duct tape, some tic tacs, and at least a handful of loose sand on you at all times. This may be why I wear cargo pants.
“I guess I kind of woke up this morning and the plan doesn’t seem so hot as it did after way too much intensity and too little rest.
was kind of hoping Blake was gonna do that thing where he realizes why that stupid thing he did was actually really smart instead of stupid. Ah well, can't win em all.
I took the small jar of paint to the sink and washed out the little paint that remained, making sure it was clear. Then I took a pair of scissors and removed all of the hair that was crawling free of the locket. Lighter, spoon, burning hair, some water… I emptied the resulting ink into the paint pot and placed it in my pocket.
Hi. I'm Blake Thorburn, and we've got great deals here at the Thorburn Glamour Farm. We'll even let you try a free sample, in exchange for not-killing-us! Now that's what I call an innovative enterprise. Our products come in a handy array of colors, so you're wearing the adaptable illusion that's right for you
Box knife into the other pocket. Handful of hook screws in a sealed plastic bag, some string, pencils, a compass and protractor from a math set, a marker and two pens.
Why is Blake me preparing to go ghost hunting in the old barn across the street?
“Don’t look, Rose,” I said. “Taking my pants off.” “M’kay,” she said. “Not asking why.”
I'm asking why!? I mean, this is standard prep for any adventure, but im so curious
I used a remaining length of belt to form loops, slid the hatchet through a few times to make sure they were a good fit, and attached the upper and lower portions together.
Well this part makes sense, at least. It seems like overkill, but if it works.
“Probably going to chafe the hell out of my balls,” I muttered. Boxer briefs or no. “I said I wouldn’t ask why,” Rose said, raising the book so it blocked my view of her face, and her view of me. “I’m not asking.” “Okay,” I said. “Then tell me.”
Hey buddy she's got even less context than me, and I couldn't tell you. Why don't we ask Sokka's instincts?
“If devils are fires, motes are sparks,” Rose said. “Best comparison I can come up with.”
Cool, also because...motes are just sparks anyways.
“The Lord of Toronto wouldn’t be content to leave things to unreliable and untrained diabolists, if things were at that point. That leaves two options. It’s either an organized mote, which one of the three books I glanced over call imps, which means it’s still linked to the one that made it, or it’s independent, a blaze in the making.”
😈 We got the lowdown on imps from the briar girl too, when she was explaining her whole dark magic thing. And I feel like I'd heard the word imp before that, but I can't seem to remember where?
“The organized ones have a mission,” she said. “The independent ones don’t.”
A mission like "make sure the flashlight dies before it illuminates a dead body". They're kind of like...well, not hitmen exactly...more like shit-fucker-uppers, if you will
(okay that's the last one I promise...but not a Pinky Practitioner Promise because I'm totally gonna make more imp jokes)
I thought about how I’d figured out why Conquest was operating the way he was, how things had fallen into place. Knowing about the motivations driving my enemies made it a hundred times easier to interact with them. It put everything into context. Was it strange that I hoped the thing was part of some organized group?
Yeah no, I can't imagine what the motivation of one of these things unhinged would be. Much easier when it just wants books, or land in front of your house, or Lordship of Toronto, or your untimely demise or something
“And the host?” I asked. “I learned my lesson last night. Fuck of a lot easier to deal with something that’s human at the core.” “Conquest was human once,” she said. “I almost forgot,” I said.
That's still something I want answers to: are there actually Others who were never human on some level? I mean once you have humans and spirits, eventually you get humans who get themselves to god tier power and higher, but how far does that go? Was Padriac human? Some seem to think so. But was Barbs? That seems harder to imagine...
“Kind of similar, really. Let a mote get carried away, you end up with something that isn’t recognizable as human. Our advantage is if this thing isn’t that far gone, there might be something human at the core.” “Can they be saved?”
Love love love that this is Blake's first instinct, even if being 'saved' is relative here
Conquest’s man, Fell? With all the info we’d been promised? I headed to the door. Not a practitioner. Joel.
sharkhi
“I was talking with some of the others. Goosh, Alexis, Joseph. This fear you have, that someone’s going to kill you?” “Oh yeah,” I said. “I’m just wondering, where do you feel you’re at, mentally?”
Ooo, yeah. Blake seems crazy. I mean crazier. Like Alex Jones crazy.
“Because I’m going to be upfront. I’m worried about your mental health.”
Man, the way this friendship is portrayed is always just so powerful and moving. Joel's a really good friend, upfront, honest about his concerns and won't dance around the topic at the expense of an open conversation. I'm so glad Blake has someone like this in his life and that that's how it'll be forever
also: given what we now know about Blake and personal space, that makes the hug Joel gives him in the first chapter that much more meaningful.
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JayManiac 17-May-19 07:11 AM
“No,” he said, more of an agreement than a counter to what I was saying. “You don’t fit many of the symptoms. You’re not irritable, you’re not distant. You know that’s sort of why I said I’d invite people over? To see how you fared? And because it looked like you really needed people?” “I didn’t, but it makes sense in retrospect,” I said.
Joel is such a good friend and he's really got Blake figured out here. The sad thing being, of course, that Blake has to dance around topics and give indirect answers, which probably really hurts Joel because they have this kind of rapport and he doesn't know what Blake's hiding, or how to help. That kind of feeling can tear you up from either end.
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A bird 🐦 17-May-19 07:18 AM
Imagine if Joel was malicious
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JayManiac 17-May-19 07:18 AM
“It usually starts with something bad happening, like the death of a family member. Which got me thinking. But you didn’t seem too distant. Alexis said you seemed pretty together when she talked to you on the balcony. You didn’t get angry when I raised the idea that you might be losing it. So when you say that people might want to kill you…”
Aw Hells. Yeah, now he doesn't even know how exactly to be worried. I've had friends get involved in way bigger things and it's some scary shit.
OH MY LORDS WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT!?
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A bird 🐦 17-May-19 07:19 AM
Hehehe
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JayManiac 17-May-19 07:19 AM
I can't unsee it
for this entire conversation I was completely prepared to meloncholollly enjoy, I'll be thinking: but wait (edited)
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A bird 🐦 17-May-19 07:20 AM
I'd say I was sorry for derailing you, but I'm not 😄
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JayManiac 17-May-19 07:20 AM
I almost wish you'd just eaten the bad karma for that one
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A bird 🐦 17-May-19 07:21 AM
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JayManiac 17-May-19 07:22 AM
“It’s… more that I don’t want you guys embroiled in it,” I said. I could tell that saying as much annoyed him.
If my best friend said this to me I might just slap that mf
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A bird 🐦 17-May-19 07:23 AM
Blake has particularly unique reasons for saying such an asinine line, to be fair
disagree 1
There's space for a view of being Awakened being equivalent to being infected with a pathogen
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JayManiac 17-May-19 07:26 AM
I understand why blake thinks this, and it's understandable for him, but this is from earlier in my read
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A bird 🐦 17-May-19 07:27 AM
I didn't say they were sufficient reasons
but they're certainly better than the usual (edited)
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JayManiac 17-May-19 07:28 AM
That you did not. And yes, they are.
“You don’t need to do this alone. Do you want backup? We’ve got flexible schedules, for the most part. If you need company, someone to watch your back, we could set it up, so you don’t have to go anywhere alone.” I knew why he was being so persistent, I just wished he wouldn’t be. “No backup, not right now.”
Maybe my prediction that his friends would become involved was just wishful thinking on my part. But also, maybe Blake could benefit from having the unawakened at his side sometimes; they get certain protections. But also of course, they'd be horribly inconveniant to have around sometimes, becuase he couldn't like...talk to Rose and stuff.
(edited)
But like, that's the thing: maybe Joel would want to be involved, if you let him. Maybe if he knew everything he'd look back and think it was the right decision. And maybe not.
I tossed all the extra stuff I’d placed on the dining table into the toolbox. “I’ve got a bunch of… I guess you could call them errands, these next few days. A few people I need to see, to try and make sense of it all.” “Accountants?” “In the loosest sense, maybe,” I said. “I’m liable to be out late.” “You want something in the fridge, for when you get back? A waiting meal?” “That’d be excellent,” I said. He smiled.
I'm glad he's finding small ways to let the people in his life help anyhow, even if he's unwilling to take that one step. These people are here for him and want to help, and blake sure as nine hells needs help
“Lean on us, Blake,” he said. “You’ve damn well helped us out without getting paid back in kind. If you’re in trouble…”
i have absolutely no trouble believing that Blake is the type of person to just help, for no other reason than wanting to. He's just that kinda guy, and I'm worried about what this life will turn him into...
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A bird 🐦 17-May-19 07:34 AM
I'm finding it much harder to bite my tongue today
I want to discuss damn near every point you make
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JayManiac 17-May-19 07:36 AM
in a spoiler-y way, or just in general? Don't hold back if it's in general, I like discussing the book more than I like finishing chapters in a timely manner
“What if I told you this guy was one of the people who might be trying to kill me?” He frowned a little, but it was very little emotion for what I was telling him. “Is he?” “I don’t know yet. But maybe remember his face, and if something happens to me in the next few days, assume it’s him?”
Helluva dead-man's switch you pulled there, but I don't know if I can see it doing all that much. I mean, I suppose not everyone's as handy with connections as our esteemed mrs. duchamp, but I somehow doubt setting the unawakened on your enemies is much more than an inconvenience. Then again, if the most you can do to avenge your own death is annoy the heck out of your killers, might as well.
I popped into the kitchen, found the plastic container and grabbed a cupcake. I offered one to Fell, and he shook his head.
This feels like that scene in the first avengers (not to be confused with the first avenger) where Tony walks into the tower and starts talking with Loki, offers him a beer, the works. Can't get a read on Fell here. He seems like a dick, judging by how he handled Blake's gift situation, but also he didn't want to interrupt the party?
polite, but an asshole? I mean, not something new in the Pact world
He glanced at me, clearly irritated. “Don’t do something like that again.” “Seeing what the limits are,” I said.
welp, turns out I was pretty much right. But hey, probably just Blake's instincts again. At least he learns stuff.
“You invite someone into our world, the costs are on your head,” he said.
Interested in the full implications of this, and what blake has to lose, besides probably his friends. How do regular people become a part of this life? Is it mostly maggie-like situations? Will we be hearing about the old Holt Family Traditions in a hundred years? Oh there's the Thorburns, Diabolists; Duchamps, Enchantresses, and the Holts, oh they're Goblin Queens
“I wasn’t inviting him to our world. I was telling him you might try to kill me, which you might. If you use magic to fuck with him, then the costs are on your head.” “Mm hmm,” he said. “Do you really want to tempt me to go after your friends?” “I’m thinking,” I said, “That if I already haven’t, I’m going to take steps to protect my friends postmortem. You don’t want to see the sorts of traps I could set up.” “I can see the connections around you,” he said. “And I know bluster when I see it.”
Bluster or not, Blake is a delight. Really reminding me of that Tony Stark scene, how he's casual and Loki's all magic-speak and hellfire. It's a cool contrast to strike here
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A bird 🐦 17-May-19 07:53 AM
Not spoilery in the "Dumbledore dies" sense, more just that it could inform your interpretation
Especially because I'm also following Deep in Pact quite closely and might get the relative progress confused
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JayManiac 17-May-19 07:58 AM
Well, I'll give you a tip: they are...two or three arcs ahead of me, so don't do that. But also hey, I listen to Deep in Pact as I go and I think it more...enhances my interpretation than informs it. I still feel like my thoughts about the story are my own, but also sometimes they notice things I didn't. I'll leave it to your judgement whether you think it crosses the line
“How does a guy like you wind up working for Conquest, anyways?” He didn’t reply. “Shadowy guy, going almost completely unnoticed, apparently good at manipulating connections. What’s the rationale?” I asked, before taking a bite of the cupcake. He gave me a look, but again, he didn’t reply.
I was ready for this guy to launch into melodramatic backstory time, but also no I wasn't because he's not that kinda guy
He handed me a piece of paper. C. Dowght. 1412 SunnydriveEtobicoke, ON “That’s… not terribly helpful,” I said.
I almost thought we were really gonna get the low down there, but of course not. As Conquest knows, being polite and amiable about directions for your underlings gives them power and usurps your rule
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A bird 🐦 17-May-19 08:03 AM
I was just double checking the literal meaning of melodramatic and the first description I found specifically points out that it takes precedence over characterisation
So it's no wonder we don't get much melodrama out of 'Bow
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JayManiac 17-May-19 08:09 AM
Yeah, I was just thinking about that word choice of mine and remembering nothing that felt melodramatic, except in times when the characters themselves were being melodramatic
“This and this as well,” he said. He handed me a large splinter of wood and a bone. I held both in one hand and used the other to raise the cupcake to my mouth for another bite.
Cool. Awesome. Just what we needed.
“C. Dowght. The possessed guy, I presume?” “Possession is the wrong word, but yes. He’s cut himself off from friends and family, and neighbors have started to complain about smells and pests.”
Aww, is Blake about to perform his first exorcism? For a Thorburn, that's got to be practically a rite of passage! Look at our little hellblazer growin up
“In the past, the mote has touched other individuals. Trash collected around them, and animals were drawn to the trash. Stray dogs, raccoons, rats…”
I wish I could speak in Pact terms to my friends, like sometimes I get to speak in references to ATLA, or Worm, or Young Justice. It would just make communication a lot easier if we'd read a bunch of the same things. Like how if my parents had read pact, they'd make this joke about my room right now
“And it’s interesting that it’s roaming. That suggests something about it,” Rose said. “It doesn’t need to micromanage whatever it’s doing.” “So… it acts, and then it leaves things alone, focusing on damage control?” I asked. “Keeping the authorities from stepping in?” “Something like that,” Rose said.
I somehow didn't realize till now that Blake and Rose have to hunt down actual specific entities. I mean I got that they were specific requests, but not for individual things that exist in toronto, so that's maybe easier and maybe harder
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Wildbow 17-May-19 08:20 AM
What were you thinking it was?
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JayManiac 17-May-19 08:22 AM
I thought it was to bring him a goblin touched by darker powers, not that goblin touched by darker powers. I got that the list was asking for specific kinds of things, without getting that it was asking for actually specific things
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Wildbow 17-May-19 08:22 AM
Aha
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JayManiac 17-May-19 08:23 AM
“It was identified by context alone, and it is very possible it has been in the general area for some time. It was brought to our attention by a local group of practitioners, a collection of dabblers more interested in socializing than their practice. They were looking for a place to set up shop, where they might be able to establish a set of demesnes well out of the Lord’s dominion. You understand, I’m sure, that he doesn’t like demesnes being formed inside his city.”
See, like, there's groups that seem more casual about all this stuff than Blake has been forced to be. Like the girl who turned her boyfriend into a spirit accidentally, or these guys. There seem to be parts of the practitioner world that are a little less life-and-death, although obviously that can spill over.
“Meaning people aren’t getting there,” Rose said. “Or,” I said, “They’re disappearing. Not just them, but all records of them?” “And both groups that were intending to explore it had members walk unwittingly into the trap,” Fell told me. “The practitioners, the Knights of the Basement, took every possible precaution and visited the location. They found a being they identified as a demon. We believe they may have lost more members in the ensuing retreat, but there’s no way of knowing.” “Annihilated in every respect,” Rose said.
Well that's easy, we know what this is. It's one of the Shadow People! So we'll just call John and Dave and they'll bring their stereo and bible bat and we'll call it a day
but seriously, there's no fuckin way Blake and Rose can deal with this, is there?
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Wildbow 17-May-19 08:29 AM
Ez pz
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JayManiac 17-May-19 08:30 AM
“You said this fucking thing was minor,” I said. “It is. A greater devil or demon wouldn’t have let someone escape. There would be less limitations binding it. It could move quickly, but had to draw close. We assume. All reports suggested it was more animal than anything else. Feral, unthinking, acting according to its particular pattern.”
Oh awesome, no yeah that's fine, so long as it acts predictably they can handle it. You know when you just know what the tiger will do, and can beat it in hand to hand combat? Fine. Doable.
“We’ll need to talk to these guys,” I said. “The Knights.”
Yes please. I always enjoy getting to see practitioners who do things a little..differently...which i guess is all of them, but these guys in particular. They feel a bit like the Super Magic Dream Parade of Toronto, and I'd love to know more.
“Just as serial killers form patterns, many Others do too, and they find power in those patterns. The hyena is a big enough threat that our Lord believes he could fit in among the demons and devils.” “Why?” I asked. “What’s the pattern?” “It eats spirits and Others.”
Because you know what? Regular goblins are too damn boring, you know? We just needed a little more flavor in there
“It doesn’t eat all of them. By which I mean that it doesn’t finish eating anything. The park where the goblin resides is littered with elementals, spirits, ghosts, and other beings that have been maimed, left half-devoured. They’re lashing out in blind pain, and everything they touch is being twisted in turn. Their pain is causing them to attack fellow Others, which only perpetuates the problem. Dealing with the hyena would be tricky enough, but it has goblin followers, and it’s a treacherous road.”
Well, but also maybe a park with a bunch of discombobulated Others is a good place for Blake to pick up some more medium-strength sources of power. I mean it's a place to capitalize on the pain of suffering creatures for your own benefit, and we all know that's exactly where Practitioner power comes from 💵
“Sounds like a whole lot of what Conquest was looking for,” I said. “Not just this guy, but the pain and general suffering around this… Dowght’s place?”
Sure, but also he's probably hella scared of some of these things, considering his relative power...which I still don't know well enough to make judgement calls on
“We would like you to remain in contact with us alone.” “You have books? Because I did mention that I don’t have access to my grandmother’s stuff.”
That's a clever way of not saying you have access to your grandmother's stuff
“Wonderful,” I said. “Fulfilling the letter of the law, here?”
Like you didn't do the same thing three sentences ago
“Is this at your master’s bidding?” I asked, getting just a little angry. “Should I pity you for having to serve an idiot or pity you because you’re one?”
Oh shit. I know this is dumb, but I'm just like "fuck yeah, stick it to em" at the moment, which hey, maybe not the best reaction, but I'm rollin with it
“Report all of this. He put up a fucking big show, last night. Lots of threats, an awful lot of time and energy into getting my partner and I to do as he asked. So… is he too dense to realize he’s going to get us killed and lose everything, or are you the idiot who thinks he’ll let it slide if you don’t tell us anything?”
I mentioned not being able to get a read on this guy. Welp. I'm thinking I'll get a pretty good read on him now, bugbox style
“I do not take orders from you, diabolist,” Fell said. “No? Because you take orders from him, and I can’t help but feel that it’s kind of pathetic on some level.” “Keep this up, and I could leave you bleeding to death in this lobby. A sprinkle of sand, and your body will sit here and rot. Your friends will hold their noses and step over your corpse, but you’ll remain here until the animals take you to pieces.”
Well there's a fuckin read alright. Maybe pissing him off was a bad call, but it lets us know more about him so I'm actually all for it.
“Requesting information and assistance that would allow me to better assist your Lord,” I said, trying to sound as respectful as I could. “I’ll talk to my Lord and get back to you,” he said.” “It’ll have to be fast,” I said. “There are only so many hours in the day, and I’m working with a deadline.” The look he gave me was a cold one, impassive. Why didn’t I think he’d hurry to give me an answer?
and he pretty quickly just gets back to business, after dropping that little tidbit there. I can't imagine he doesn't know how weak conquest is, but he's obviously got some investment in keeping him in power. Hey maybe this guy's even the Long Feng of the whole operation
“You know I could go to Grandmother’s and get her contact book?” “I… had almost forgotten about that,” I said. “But maybe it’s better that we play by the rules, and avoid letting on that we have access to more books.”
This feels a little like a justification for an instinctive action that you took to get information you might've already had
however
I forgot that too, so touche
I held up the paper so she could see through the mirror. “We’re catching a ride on the subway, so we can visit Mr. Dowght, the unfortunate imp-blighted man.” “We’re not actually doing anything, are we?” “Looking,” I said. “If we’re going to talk to someone and talk mutiny, we might as well ask informed questions.” “Sounds good.”
I really don't know if I see this thread going anywhere. I mean, you could try calling for one of the council members you met last night, saying their name and tugging their connection, but that might not go over well.
I wonder if he remembers the fact that Sandra Duchamp has it out for the Lord of Toronto
probably not, or else he would've thought about contacting her, at least
Someone walked through the flock of pigeons, and they took off, scattering into the air. Except for one, which lingered for a half-second before taking off. I watched it as it flew, joining others in the air, weaving in and out, focusing my Sight. No connection to me, but there was a cord that stretched between it and a distant location, some distance to the east. Someone in Jacob’s Bell was keeping tabs on me. Via Pigeon? I couldn’t imagine it was Maggie. It didn’t fit Laird, and it didn’t seem like it would be the Duchamps. Mara? Briar Girl?
Probably. Good on Blake for catching this, it's got to be a super subtle difference with reality that you have to be paying attention to get. But also, it might mean you're of interest to people, which in turn might mean you have something they want. Any press is good press, and all
I descended the stairs to the subway, paying and then pushing my way through the turnstile. The train arrived quickly, and I braced myself, closed my eyes as the crowd pressed in, pressed close. When the opportunity arose, I pushed through the crowd and moved back to the most open space, in a corner, bracing one foot against the wall so my knee jutted out. A subtle discouragement against pressing against me, unless someone wanted a knee pressing into their thigh.
I like this personal space beat we keep hitting, it really serves to ground us in the character, especially if that hits home for a particular comfort
The person nearest me bent down to grab his bag off the floor just as the car pulled to a stop. He lurched, off balance, planting a foot on the ground, and banged against my knee. I bristled. I didn’t want to, but I tensed, bothered. “Sorry, miss,” he said, as he caught himself, standing. He straightened, then glanced at my face, and there was genuine surprise there. I raised my eyebrows. “Sir,” he said. He looked genuinely embarrassed, but he smiled, showing me bad teeth, very white but in dire need of braces. He glanced at the window, then back at me, and I saw momentary confusion on his face. “Sorry sir.”
Well that was weird. I mean, I get it all the time, but my visual relationship to the gender binary is strained at best. Blake doesn't strike me as the easily misgenderable type, which makes me wonder if this was a Padriac-like entity, or if maybe Rose's essence is bleeding into normal people's perceptions of Blake
either is interesting and/or/worrying
No sign of anything suspicious, with the Sight. An ordinary person. I looked at the window, the same spot he’d just glanced, and I saw Rose, standing in the same spot I was standing, an open book in her hands. Had he seen her?
So the book's pushing for more the second option, but I won't discount the first, considering what glamour can do
Okay so we reached one of these dot thingies
and I'm reading far slower than usual tonight, and I'm also still very sick and need sleep, so I'm going to wrap up this read first thing tomorrow morning! Sorry to leave on a commercial-break-hanger rather than a chapter-end tonight, it's just a call I've gotta make. Hope you enjoyed, and I'll be back soon
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JayManiac 17-May-19 05:26 PM
Aw, thanks guys...(I think, in bird's case). I'm back and refreshed to read the rest of 4.4! When we last left off, Blake was giving off Rose vibes to random strangers👀
Right away, I could tell that something was wrong. Crows gathered by the dozens in nearby trees, making their characteristic unpleasant cries. The homes were big, the cars in driveways undeniably expensive cars, as a rule. But things looked just a bit unkempt. Driveways weren’t shoveled, I noticed two broken windows, one BMW that had been plowed in and abandoned for the spring.
Blake's eye for the subtlety strange seems to be sharpening. also I have to keep reminding myself that there's snow everywhere because that doesn't click for me
That earned me a critical once-over, as she looked at me and apparently deemed me unsatisfactory. “You’re with the city?” “I was asked to handle this by someone who is,” I said. “We already told them everything.” “Tell me,” I said.
Lords, Conquest is really a dick. Does he even want Blake and Rose to succeed? I get that he doesn't lose much if they don't, but I was under the impression that this kind of power was a genuine want for him. I guess maybe he could just not know much more about the situation, but Fell seemed to imply that no, he did, he was just being a dick.
Even the way they held themselves, heads ducked down… Was that the case with everything here? With everyone? The cawing of the crows carried through the general silence. The roads here weren’t active.
Maybe it helps that I'm listening to a cacophony of morning birds right now, but this writing is so...empty. It's really drilling in an eerie vibe and I love it
“We think someone’s pulling strings,” I said, “Stalling investigation by dealing with stuff behind the scenes.” I saw them exchange glances. “And,” I said, “You should know that if I don’t deal with it, there’s a good chance this will keep getting swept under the rug. At least until it gets so bad there’s no choice but to address the problem.”
had to take an extra moment to figure out how this wasn't lying. I guess that's probably part of a Lord's explicit duty, keeping magical influences from being investigated too thoroughly.
“And property values plummet, we get embarrassed, and they do the bare minimum necessary, procrastinating until someone else takes over and foots the expense.” “Ah,” I said. “But it’s the embarrassment, really?” “Now you’re being rude.”
Sometimes being Not a Dick is more important than being right, at least out loud. Not that Blake is the type to tread carefully when it comes to civility, we saw that from chapter one.
“It’s that man. He feeds the animals, and they get dependent on him, but then he stops, or he starts feeding different animals, and-“ “I’m getting the picture. You wind up with a lot of hungry mice, stray dogs, cats, and whatever elses who are collecting in the area, dangerously hungry, and a human looks like a good target.”
Okay, so this is obviously horrible, but also it reminds me of this story my dad told about his college (went to a school where pranks, referred to as 'hacking', are popular). So apparently there was one guy who, every day for the entire summer, wore a black and white striped shirt and went out to the football field, blowing a whistle and throwing birdseed. He was persistent with this, every day. So then when the football season came around, and suddenly a bunch of guys in black and white striped shirts were blowing whistles, the seagulls descended.
“They’re in the basements, the pantries. If you seal it, the mice get at it. If you don’t, the bugs get in it. I can’t turn my back on a glass of orange juice without finding a fly drowned in it.”
the fact that even little sparks of the infernal can terrorize a neighborhood this thoroughly just hints at the whatthefuckian nature of the devils we could see Blake dealing with at some point.
“There’s no easy fix for this,” the first woman said. “Even if you deal with him, the infestations, and the upset to the ecosystem…”
I wonder if this is true? Do the problems caused by the spirit's influence go away with the spirit, or will Blake and Rose just be removing the inciting concern?
A hare, or a rabbit, charging me. Mouth opened wide, incisors ready to bite- I shifted my weight and kicked. It sailed over a snowbank and into a driveway. Crows on nearby trees flapped wings and shifted to different branches. “Rabbits scream?” I asked. “Yeah,” Rose said. “Startles predators.”
There are some things that you learn and just have to include in a story, and I assume a screaming rabbit is one of them. My favorite example of it is in twig when Sy taught me that closing people's eyes peacefully doesn't work irl. I can't unsee it, with every movie I go to, it's just a perfectly Slaughterhouse 5-ian detail.
I saw the rabbit lying there, on its side, breathing fast. I thought about using June, then settled for using my boot instead. “I know it’s not your fault, bunny. Sorry I have to do this.” I stomped on its head full strength, twice, then backed away, scuffing my boot in the snow and slush.
Ow. I know it's the right thing to do, probably, but ow. It still makes me really sad and uncomfortable.
“Act one. The three witches call out an invocation. They call out the names of Graymalkin and Paddock.” “Demons?” “No. A cat and a toad.” “I’m not sure I follow.”
Me neither, Blake. Macbeth is still on my to read/to watch list, since it gets referenced so often. But why read that when you can read Through the Looking Glass (and what Alice found there) a third time?
“Humans paying obeisance to animals. Back then, the natural order was that god ruled over all things, the king served just under god, all the way down the line to the lowest order of mankind, but mankind was given dominion over the earth, power over the animals.” “Right, okay,” I said. “But the witches, well, it’s a sign that they’re something twisted and wrong, that they reverse the natural order of things. Animals on top, and the king brought low, as in Macbeth’s case.”
That's a suitably sapiocentric view of things, sure. Bring it up with Briar Girl, I'm sure she'll take to it. I thank the Lord of San Francisco every day that I'm an unawakened with all of my sarcasm faculties.
I glanced up and around, taking in the crows. Were more looking at me than before? The caws had stopped. I’d had feelings like this before. Where my instincts told me nothing good was coming.
I went and looked up The Raven, and it doesn't have much in common with these passages except black birds and being creepy, but still. Also I think this might be the third or second raven beat we've had this section
I bent down and picked up the rabbit with gloved hands. “Blake?”
I get that wildbow protags are uniquely suited to be different kinds of unsquemish, but I am approximately none of those kinds. I cannot kill a spider with a gloved hand, and certainly not a mammal. And even after I find a suitably large book to squish it under, its body forever decorates that surface cuz I'm not touching that thing.
“Blake?” “I saw this on TV, a bit ago,” I said. I gripped the rabbit in both hands, one hand around the ribcage, the other at the base of the ribs. The mangled head drizzled blood on me. “What the fuck are you doing, Blake?” I squeezed, forcing the contents of the rabbit’s lower body down.
AAHHHHHAHHAHHHHHHHH psyduck fine 😱 I DON'T EVEN HAVE ANY EMOJIS THAT PROPERLY EXPRESS WHAT I'M FEELING NOW
When I’d turned a complete circle, returning the tattered remains, blood and rabbit shit to the point where they’d landed, I straightened. The birds were veering off before they reached me. “A circle,” Rose said. “Like repelling like,” I said. “Blood, fur, shit, freshly sacrificed life… holy fuck, I’m glad that worked.”
good thinking. And by good thinking I mean I wouldn't've thought of it because DEAR LORDS OF GIMEL WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK BLAKE
“Imp!” Rose shouted. Her voice rang out. “I, Rose Thorburn, bid you to announce yourself!” The tone of the fluttering changed. “My line has dealt with others of your kind. Announce yourself, or be diminished! You are not so strong you can ignore me!” I heard a growl behind me and turned. A dog, so thin I could see its ribs sticking out. A cat appeared at the edge of a gutter. More dogs appeared on the fringes.
I imagine this is a little bit what it's like to deal with the Undersiders. There are just birds. They're everywhere. And dogs. Rachel and Aiden should rally up to form Ratcatcher and the Beastmasters. I'm getting off topic. But hey here's an Imp so I guess not that off topic
Two feet tall, proportioned like a baby, it was lipless, its mangled double row of fangs exposed. The eyes were pale, like a blind man’s, the skin somewhere between ashy gray and black. “Pauz, of the fifth choir, feral and foul,” he said, in a deeper voice that didn’t fit his frame. Oddly cute, in a fucked up way.
Gonna imagine morgan freeman's voice coming from a nature baby now, cool.
“You hear what I said about Macbeth?” Rose asked. “Uh huh.” “Want to help take down a king?”
Fuck yes
I didn't realize they were gonna consult the things they were binding for conquest to help take down conquest, but maybe I should've expected it
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spinagon 17-May-19 06:14 PM
@JayManiac you forgot the insects everywhere
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JayManiac 17-May-19 06:14 PM
Meh. Taylor and Aiden were never part of the Undersiders at the same time, I had to pick one and birds were more relevant to the scene
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spinagon 17-May-19 06:16 PM
I always imagine pauz something like the imp from HoMM
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JayManiac 17-May-19 06:17 PM
For this one I pictured more of a House Elf but I see where you're coming from
I'm making more comparisons between pact and other things in its genre since I've started reading, partially because it's caused me to dive headlong into stories with similar magic systems. Pact is still a standout, but god damn there are some cool stories kickin around. The newest run of Hellblazer is pretty good, but I wouldn't call it great (not yet anyways). Good Omens and John Dies at the End aren't strictly similar, but they've got some similar vibes goin on and they're hilarious.
The real kicker I've rediscovered, are the Bartimaeus books. I read them when I was in third or fourth grade, and I remember I never finished the series because I was less okay with lots of death and terrible shit back then.
but I picked one of em up as an ebook yesterday and hot damn, they hold up. You might find me making comparisons as I move forwards, because there are some certain similarities and several key differences
Anyways, I'll try to get another chapter down later today, but I've got a lot to do this morning so we'll see how it plays out. See y'all soon!
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JayManiac 17-May-19 07:57 PM
I revisited it after reading a David Foster Wallace essay that made excellent use of footnotes, because footnotes was one of the things that stuck in my memory
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JayManiac 19-May-19 10:15 PM
Alright, I've been havin a bit of a Day™ let's see if Pact makes it better, worse, or my personal favorite: both!
4.5!
Fuck. I didn’t want to see him listening. “Ix-nay the ealing-day ith-way evils-day,” I muttered.
Wait, so this wasn't the plan, then. The plan was what I thought it was, talk to everyone else n stuff. Did- did Rose just pull a Blake?
“Thirty languages of mankind,” Pauz said, his voice far too deep for how small he was. When he stood, he used the claws on his hands to perch. When he moved forward, he used the claws to keep his balance, with the oversized head and heavy slouch. His blind eyes were heavily lidded, as he glared at me. “I have learned from each host that I have taken. But I do not know this tongue?” “For real?” I asked. “For real,” Pauz said, deadly serious.
it is an ancient tongue, having taken the name of a long-dead language to facilitate secretive communication.
“Then he is right,” Pauz said. “I am a danger to you.” Was it bad that a very small part of me wanted to laugh in response to that? Rationally, I knew he was in no way harmless, but… so tiny.
Blake dealing with cute demons is delightful. "aww, yes you will destroy humanity you little gremlin hahaha"
Pauz climbed up the side of the car, onto the hood. One strike of his claw punctured the window where the cracks already spiderwebbed out from the impact site, leaving a hole I could maybe have fit my head through. The imp hopped onto the roof of the car, while a skeletal dog climbed up and wormed through the hole in the window, the edges of the glass slicing it here and there. I could see the dog through the car windows, moving in between the driver and passenger seats, into the back seat of the car. Not sitting there, but hiding on the floor of the car. Something told me it wouldn’t act until the car was well in motion.
Pauz is an asshole. I mean, not as much as Conquest or anything, but jegus. Is he really what you want for your team of mutineers? Even as an adorable mascot?
If a politician was brought under the influence of Pauz the way the animals here were, then they might do as Pauz wanted them to do, while working against civilization and society. I wasn’t sure I wanted to think about what kind of damage someone could do, given zero compunctions, an imp on their shoulder, and a powerful position.
Get used to it Blake, we've been thinkin about it for three years and counting
“Remember the nuke analogy? He’s the equivalent of fallout, the radiation, pollution, whatever you want to call him. Handle with fucking care, Rose.” “I know. Back me up? Trust me?” I had to think about it for a second.
Blake! This is literally what you do all the damn time!. Granted, that makes what Rose is doing a bit hypocritical, but come on, man
“Mm?” Pauz responded. He was watching crows tear apart the rabbit. “You’re not getting very far, are you? You’re seeding your malignancy here and there, but something’s going wrong, isn’t it? You keep changing hosts. You’re not getting traction. I’m offering you a shortcut.” “You’re offering me a king.”
You just went through all the fuckin trouble of telling yourself why this is a bad idea. HHhhhhhhh
the thing about this, though, is that I'd absolutely be doing the same thing, which is probably not very internally consistent of me.
“A little more subtle than that, Pauz. I’m thinking… If we simply bind you and release you, it’s too obvious. He’ll bind you himself, whether you agree or not. But if we give the contract a time limit.” “Hm?” “Yeah,” I said. “I’m on the same page as the Imp here. Hm?” “If we did the binding now,” Rose said, “and I’m not saying we should, we’d give it a time limit of sixty hours. Then you’re free. No fanfare, no announcement, nothing overt changes. We could even mock up a fake connection or binding to hide it, in case he bothers to check… but I don’t get the impression Conquest knows the ins and outs of demons and devils. He wouldn’t be dealing with this or relying on us if he did. You’re in our service and in our power when we turn you over to Conquest, as payment, the time limit runs out, and you’re free to do as you see fit, positioned right next to him.”
See, this is smart! Real smart! As long as your only goal is beat Conquest. What you have the potential for here is an incarnation of Conquest piloted by an overtly malicious imp crashing into Toronto's magical scene at Mach 1. It's like "hey you know that evil dictator guy? Why don't we give him a shard! That'll show him"
“And,” Rose said, “If we can manage it, you’d have distractions.” “You’re thinking about the other two,” I said. Fuck me, Rose. This isn’t playing with fire. This is playing with the big red button. I’d almost protested out loud, but she’d asked me to play ball. I’d asked her to play nice enough times… I supposed this was where we really were the same person, or were siblings. It was only natural the tables would be turned, that she’d reflect my own personality traits.
hahahaha. I get it. Cuz she's a mirror. Fun. Also she's gone Full Thorburn™ and yes this is exactly how she feels whenever you do
“You can return tomorrow,” Pauz told us. “The Dowght home. My realm.” “No,” Rose said. “Tonight, not tomorrow. We’re on a schedule.” “Tonight,” Pauz conceded. “Neutral ground,” I added.
That's a surprisingly quick concession there
“We’ll also need a promise of safety, for my companion, when he leaves this circle,” Rose said. Pauz didn’t reply.
Oh.
“I suppose it’s up to you, imp of the fifth choir,” Rose said. “One more death at your hands… or a chance to manipulate Conquest itself, possibly affecting this whole city.” “Or,” he said, “I ask what you’re willing to give me.”
That's more what I was expecting there
“My name is Rose Thorburn,” Rose said. “Your kind knows of my blood. Demons greater than you have dealt fairly with us, insofar as there is ever a fair deal. What will they think, if a mere imp were to disrupt that arrangement?”
Oh yeah, she's good at all the Epic Talk™. I hope this works, or at least she gets an inspiration bonus for one of her rolls soon (I mean hey, spirits like cool fantasy prose)
“You’re not even a pawn to them, Pauz,” Rose said. “You’re not even a pawn on their pawn’s chessboards, so to speak. You’ve been largely forgotten, and I don’t think you want to be remembered. Not when you’re in the act of spoiling a longstanding working arrangement. Not when I could ask them to remove them from the picture as a bargaining point they wouldn’t even think twice about.” “Brave words, from the woman in a mirror inside a very fragile circle,” Pauz said.
Pauz on the other hand, is buying it less than I think we'd all have liked him to. That said, he just got destroyed by that pRose there. "not even a paun on their paunz chessboards", sweet scion that's 🔥
I had only a split second to think about it. I stepped out of the confines of the rabbit-gore circle, passing the threshold, moving closer to Pauz.
But if Blake is pulling a Thorburn...and Rose is pulling a Thorburn...then who's flying the plane!?!
June: it's up to you and the fairy hair now
I had to move around the snowbank that separated the two driveways to draw closer. My hand involuntarily clenched as the sense of distortion built up. The noise of it steadily increased, dissolving my thoughts now. No longer did I have that one concrete line of thoughts, all the other thoughts at the edges, cross-checking, comparing, searching for ways to expand or elaborate the thought. Just one, one idea plodding along, and everything outside of that one line of thinking was noise and chaos, working against instead of with. Dimly, I was aware that what I was doing was stupid, walking headlong into the radiation. I heard flapping nearby, the crows drawing nearer. The idea became an action, singular, an impulse.
This whole section just works. I can picture it perfectly, experience it perfectly. Blake doesn't always have a particularly vivid inner monologue, but when he does...
I thrust it out, into the side window of the car. The top of the hatchet’s blade punched through the glass, and frost spread out from the impact site. Pauz moved back a half-foot as the frost spread along the car’s exterior.
Don't fuck with the Thorburns yo. They're a danger to themselves and others. An ultrabadass words/enchanted weaponry danger.
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JayManiac 19-May-19 10:59 PM
“Because my mind turned off, and because… I don’t know. I was sort of trying to show we weren’t to be trifled with, and I wanted to break the car window.” “Huh?” “When they see the damage, they’ll look,” I said. “It’s… close as I can figure, the only way they’re going to see the dog that’s inside the car. Maybe they’ll shit themselves when they walk over to the second broken window and the dog starts barking and snapping, but at least they won’t find out about the dog while they’re driving on a busy road and it bites their arm or throat.”
Blake does this a lot, where he retroactively assigns motivation to his instinctive actions. Firstly, that's a really cool character trait that I've never seen done in quite this way before. Also, I wonder how good he is at this kind of self-reflection. I mean, in this case I believe him. So far, he's been all about mitigating the damage to the common person when he can. But it's also not like he thinks about breaking the window, or weighs the cost of the window and that damage against the cost of a possible accident. Not a difficult choice to make, sure, but he doesn't have a hint of that process show up consciously. Maybe that's part of what makes Blake seem like a more distanced protagonist than Taylor, Sy, or Vicky: he doesn't have that kind of thing bouncing around in his conscious head, so his actions almost feel like they're being taken by someone else until after the fact.
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JayManiac 19-May-19 11:07 PM
“The books warned against using labels, putting things into tidy category of goblin and demon and whatever else. So maybe Pauz is more on the goblin-ish side of the spectrum.”
Also, given what we know about Others and given all my theorization about them in general: Pauz may well have started out as a human, or a vestige. Maybe that's a stretch, but I'm wondering more and more if there are any sources of magic and Otherhood that aren't human. From right now to when the pyramids were constructed is a 20th of the time humans have been around; that's enough time to become warped somehow. And hey, maybe after the first few things that are goblin-like are created out of a weird sludge of the primal spirits, humans, and animals, they can self-propagate. But one thing I love about Worm is that the structures of magic come from people, and I have trouble believing that Pact is any different in that regard. Stretching the boundaries of what we can call a person? Sure! Breaking them explicitly? Never.
“I think so,” Rose said. “It’s what I imagine, when I picture the situation and the relationship between the imp and its current host. That thing doesn’t seem like it would take good care of someone it’s using, not if it’s not taking care of the animals. If we extrapolate… I don’t think it considers events beyond the present.”
Tim Urban would call that an instant gratification monkey, and I would hazard to agree. this might be closer to a rogue mote than you thought, it doesn't seem to have very specific plans, just a general want. This is a cool metaphorical monster to be dealing with in general
“In part,” Rose said. “It might be easier to deal with the two of them than it is to deal with Conquest and Pauz separately.” “Unless they get along,” I said. “Let’s hope they don’t,” Rose told me. “Because this is the closest thing I can come up with to a backup plan.”
It seems like what I said about Rose flexing her agency with this newfound ability was dead-on, and now we're getting to see Blake as the passive Thorburn a little, which is a really interesting reverse of their dynamic. I don't know how I missed that they would be reflecting identity and role back and forth, because duh that's what a mirror friggin does
“There was one thing that bugged me, by the way,” Rose said. “Hm?” I grunted. I was uncomfortably close to a bystander, a guy standing just inside the subway entrance to smoke. Which was illegal, but still. “You ask me to trust you, cool. I’ve made that leap, knowing a hell of a lot less going in than you knew going into this. But I ask you to trust me, and you hesitate?” I rounded the corner as I descended the stairs. There were people on the platform below, but not in earshot. “Dealing with demons,” I said, “A little different.”
NO IT ISN'T! Briar Girl and Laird are probably way the fuck more dangerous than this guy when it comes down to it.
But the sound of my voice seemed to tip the balance. The dog bit its owner, tiny white teeth disappearing into the meat of her fingers, exposed gums meeting flesh as blood welled up. I fled, backing up, moving to the far end of the platform. There was nothing I could do. Only distancing myself.
oh great. He's been tainted by imp-ness. I was worried that his whole show with the axe was a good idea for a minute there
Crows in nearby trees called out as I walked down the broad footpath. Taunting me. Maybe threatening me. The buildings were old, or as old as buildings got, in a country that only dated back a couple hundred years. Stone, stately, majestic. The Sphinx’s domain.
Viva la Mutiny! All we have to lose is our chains! And our lives...and our minds, and our souls, and our friends, and our apologies, and our asshattery, and-
Isadora, I tried. Nothing. I looked for a list of professors instead. Phixopolous, Isadora, Professor of Ethics Not even trying to mask it. She apparently wasn’t concerned about other practitioners finding her.
I do not trust Isadora with teaching ethics. Or teaching students, for that matter. If she asks a question and someone gets it wrong...
One at first, then – I saw him wave over some others out of the corner of my eye. A whole group of college-aged guys peeled away from a cluster in the open area just beside the university center. Following me. They moved in twos and threes, but they formed a general group of about eight or so. The connections between them and me marked their interest in me.
We know Blake well enough to be real uncomfortable with this...is it a magic interest or just a regular interest? Or a "why is that guy wearing a motorcycle side-mirror" kinda interest?
“But… I feel like there’s an energy there. I don’t know if I feel it or if I’m seeing stuff I can’t put my thumb on. Like, they’ve got a vibe, good looking, they’re high-energy, naturally outgoing people, and they get people swept up in their attitude?”
I mean, that seems like it could be satyrs and nymphs, maybe even bacchae, right?
And it says they're even drinking, so that's my guess
my Jguess™
“Our older cousin,” I said. Rose’s comment was on the mark. From what I remembered of her, Ellie could play at being charming, if she wanted money or favors. Ninety percent of the time, however, she defaulted to a low intensity glare, like she hated you and hated life, and she needed no excuse to switch to a more intense attitude of ‘I hate you and I’ll hurt you if you get in my way.’ No filters, no impulse control.
Yeah, Ellie was a bit of an asshole as I remember. I wonder if Rose might just also have a bad association with women in general, having grown up with so many antagonistic girls in her life....Something to keep an eye out for, I'm not super confident in it.
“They’re with the boys, but not with them. Yeah, they’re the ones you want to worry about. Not quite so harmless looking as the boys.” “The ‘boys’ didn’t look harmless to me,” I said.
Yeah, I'mma put a pin in that last thing I said. Also I'm increasingly sure that this is a bacchae/satyr strike squad
“It’s part of that vibe I get from them, I dunno. Like, the air they give off. The friendly, slightly immature sort of guy who wouldn’t hurt you.” “Yeah?” I asked. “You’re, like, saying ‘like’ a lot. Twice that I remember, in the last minute.”
The teenagerness will, like, drag you under and stuff. Gotta pay attention to ur lingo, gurlfriend.
Im never saying that kind of sentence again
A guy I didn’t know, heavy and sporting the sort of beard that had been grown for length more than style, and a girl I did recognize. Tiffany.
Oh good! Maybe they're...just college students...? Maybe Blake and Rose are just paranoid this time? I don't know if I buy it, but I guess that's what we're going with.
“Hoping to,” I said. I turned to look at her, offering a little smile. My motives were twofold. Putting her at ease was one fold, getting a glimpse of the group behind us was another.
Or not. Nope, still dangerous
“I’m not walking you away from where you need to be?” I asked. Say yes. “No. I’m- I could do whatever.” Damn. I glanced at her, and saw she was averting her gaze, looking down at the ground as she walked. It wasn’t just the here and now. It was the way she was. No personal confidence.
Yeah, also I would lie! If it was someone I was mega-crushing-on, what's a little late for class or something? If I have limited personal confidence establishing boundaries in the first place, it's gonna be that much harder with someone I want to please.
“You’re going to school here, huh?” “Alexis helped me apply for a scholarship. I have no freaking idea what I’m doing next year, but even one year of University is more than I ever thought I’d do. My family doesn’t have a lot of money. Or any money, really, and I kind of have a little learning disability, not a big one but I actually have been postponing a visit to the disabilities center to talk about my exams and… I’m saying all the self-pitying stuff that I’m not supposed to tell people the first time I meet them.”
Aw. Tiffany's oversharing here is just adorable..and a little bit heartbreaking.
“You know all that helpful, well-meaning advice they’re giving you?” I asked. “Hm? Yeah.” “I’m really bad at following it, personally. So I want you to know that with me, you don’t have to sweat it, okay? I’m absolutely going to take it in stride, or I’ll try to.”
For someone seemingly socially sideways, Blake is actually pretty endearing here. I think he handles it well
“She really is,” she said, followed by, a second later, another unprovoked hit to confidence. “I feel like a bit of a pet project sometimes.” “Take it from another pet project of hers,” I answered, “Don’t sweat it. Joel was just telling me earlier, it doesn’t all have to be equivalent. Take the good, don’t question it, and be glad to give what you can back. They’re a good bunch of people, just… enjoy them.”
and you know what? Blake is his own little brand of adorable, too
“Yeah, just take it in stride, relax,” I said. “Speaking of giving, the painting you sold me might have saved my life, last night. Thank you.” “Really? You paid too much for it.” “I truly believe it was worth what I paid. More than, even,” I said. “I needed a gift, for a… very eccentric guy. A bottle of wine wouldn’t have worked, and I needed to get in his good graces. It got a good reception from just about everyone present.”
I love the Truth Dance Blake has to do when talking with the unawakened. Also no, wine wouldn't've worked, Jeremeath has got wine up the wazoo, and you ain't beatin him
“I meant what I said,” I told her, my eyes straight forward now. “If I were to judge solely by the decor of his front hallway, I might say he doesn’t have a real sense of aesthetic, taste, or consistency. He needed other people to chime in before he could decide for himself, about your painting. But it did end up doing what it was supposed to, and a good number of people did like it. Really. Many of whom know what they’re talking about. Take that for what it’s worth.” She didn’t take her eyes off the ground, but I saw her expression soften, tension disappearing. She unconsciously reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear.
I may have made some comments in the past that may suggest that I don't like Blake as a protagonist. This is not the case. While he's not up in the Sylvester range for me (yet?), he's still an awesome character, and easily within my top 20 already. Part of that is just that I feel like I'd want to be friends with him.
Which I can't say for Sylvester, really...
or even Victoria
“One errand, I’ve got,” I said, walking backwards, mixing up my words in the hurry to get the idea out, “And I’ll treat you to coffee?”
that almost sounds like a promise...careful with those, blake
The two of us reached the front door of the building. I side-stepped to open it for her, and a hand stopped it from opening.
I'd almost forgotten about the tension, but here it is. Wouldya look at that
Oh. He was one of the guys from last night. One of the ones who’d been with the drunkard.
sharkhi Ayyy!! psyduck Ohhhhhh
“I gather your cult leader has a problem with me?” I asked, loud enough for Tiffany to hear. “Cult?” Tiffany asked, her eyes widening. The guy I was talking to gave me an annoyed look. “That’s not exactly fair. Or appropriate.” “Yeah?” I asked. “How would you describe it?” “More like a frat,” he said. “Minus the initiations and douchebag stuff. Very laid back.”
Satyrs fulfill exactly the stereotype I'd hoped they would.
His eyes narrowed. “See, now you’re upsetting me a little, and I’m a really hard sort of guy to upset.”
We wouldn't want you to get...
gruff🐐
“I’d like to say we’re more like a frat minus all the stuff that makes frats unpleasant,” another guy chimed in. “Question is, how often do you have a number of rather attractive young men expressing interest in you?” I could see Tiffany trying to process the idea, as if it was a first-ever.
No. Pls.
Physical contact was not a thing I really did, but I reached out and found Tiffany’s hand. I gripped it, then pulled her closer. When she was beside me, I put my arm around her shoulders.
I know I pulled this, and you expect me to have words to say, but I just don't
“I’m having a really hard time thinking of why I shouldn’t just let her at you,” he said. Fuck. With Tiffany right here? I couldn’t do anything with her nearby. I- The window five feet to my left shattered violently. Then another.
Oh thank sweet sphinxes
Coming face to face with Isadora. Human, but her face and hair were very much recognizable.
sharkhi
“I’m sure,” Isadora said. “I know what you’re going to ask, Mr. Thorburn.” “Yeah?” “You don’t have a sense of the big picture. Or just what it means when you come to my doorstep, smelling like… something foul. I’m sure you know what I mean.”
Yeah, I figured there wasn't much chance of convincing her; there have got to be reasons everyone didn't move on conquest before this, after all.
Avatar
JayManiac 20-May-19 12:01 AM
Sorry, had to pause there for a minute
or should I say
had to pauz there for a minute
Ahem.
moving on
“He… doesn’t smell,” Tiffany said. “You don’t have to be such a bitch.” Wait, what? This wasn’t the Tiffany I’d been talking to just seconds ago.
Uh, yeah. People are different people in different contexts. Maybe in Tiffany's experience, Isadora's a bit of a bitch
Nonetheless, I’ll cut this short, so you can be on your way. No. Not with the sort of business your family has done. If you try anything, I’m going to work against you, if anything.” “If you could put me in contact with some of the other locals-” “No, Mr. Thorburn, and goodbye.” With that, she was gone. All for nothing.
Fuck. Well, I thought he'd have more of a chance than that at least, but this is pretty in line with what we saw at the meeting
I could see why Alexis had connected to her. Tiffany and I were similar in some ways, different in others. Alexis hadn’t been completely off her rocker when she’d considered introducing us. Only just a bit off her rocker in the how of it, maybe. This wouldn’t be an obligation coffee, or a rescue-coffee. I was pretty confident in that, now. I just wished I could feel half as confident about the radiation and its momentary influence on her.
I guess that could be it? My impression was just that Blake doesn't know this person. He's only really seen her interacting in a few contexts...
then again
Blake might've noticed something wrong internally, but hasn't expressed that to the reader because he hasn't consciously noticed it. Something actually unnatural about how she's behaving.
Or about Rose, who might have suffered for those two windows she’d broken. Or the deadline, and the Imp we had to figure out how to bind. Or anything, really.
that's a good summary of your story in general
Anyhow, that's the chapter! Feels like five chapters rolled into one somehow, but that's almost common in this book
I'll see y'all for the next one
Avatar
JayManiac 23-May-19 04:26 AM
I accept the terms of this agreement
probably
Anyhow! Hi Scott! Maybe don't read too much further down this page
because we're reading 4.whateverthefuckwe'reonguys!
it's 4.6
When we last left off, Blake was screwed. I should have that auto-post every time I say a chapter name
More specifically, Blake is radioactive, his revolution is less successful than Korg's, and he's gonna get coffee!
I’d seated myself so the crowd was at my back, with the idea that I’d be able to see the window, hopefully spotting danger, or seeing if and when Rose turned up. I felt the absence, and I felt a bit of mounting pressure alongside it.
Hope Rose didn't expend too much energy on that whole window thing that I didn't catch last chapter
“So,” I said. “I dunno about you, but I’m wracking my brains, trying to think about what to talk about, and I have no idea. Family’s off the table, we talked about occupation, I don’t think either of us are really in a place to look beyond the immediate future…”
Hi, welcome to not only every first date I've ever been on, but every offline conversation I have with anyone except my family and two best friends.
“I’m doing the same thing. Except maybe not thinking about it so much as not thinking clearly about anything particular.”
Still, good to communicate that
plus, now you can talk about talking about things or the lack thereof
“Sorry,” I said. I couldn’t say if it was because of her just being the way she was or if it was because of my influence. It was too similar to how I’d felt near Pauz. Radiation? “But I don’t mind just being here. Having company.” “No?” “No,” she said, avoiding eye contact.
This is so very accurately awkward that it's making me feel all the awkward and I'm not sure if I like it
But then I remember that it's this or WombRooms and I decide that maybe it's okay
“No. I’ve been out a few times. Some back when I was in school, friend of my cousin. Some later, there was a girl I hung out with on the streets, until she decided to steal my stuff.” “Oh, oh wow, I’m sorry.”
That feels like it'd be a lot shittier than Blake is making it out to be. Makes sense that he seemingly had trouble trusting people for a while
“I mean- um. This is a date, right?” I shrugged, hunched over my coffee and the table, so the steam was in my face, and my face was closer to her, allowing me to hear her in the general noise of the University coffee shop. I was covering one hand with the other so the locket wouldn’t be the first thing she saw when she looked down. “Yeah. Kind of? Let’s call it the best of both worlds.” “Can we do that?” I smiled. “Why the hell not? If it works out, then we call it a date. If it doesn’t, we were just out as two people with a mutual friend, who might become friends.”
Cool, cool. Love how this cute little wholesome moment is punctuated with a thought about hiding your horrible magic destiny secrets from your new friend
“Well that’s a relief. See? And I could say the thing with the singer was a horrible comedy of errors, including me having an ear infection for the better part of the so-called ‘relationship’, meaning I couldn’t really hear her when she did a show, and I tried to bluff my way through it. Then she wasn’t considerate when I wanted to take things really, really slow, on the, er, intimacy front, and I got upset. Maybe ‘comedy of errors’ is the wrong term. It wasn’t funny, now that I think back on it.” “Alexis sort of mentioned some things. I wasn’t sure if I should bring it up, or how to ask, or if I should.” “See? The ex topic isn’t a bad thing, since it lets us gently bring up this sort of thing, right?”
Smooth, Blake. The funny thing is, as I type this I'm still not sure if this is actually really smooth or just Blake stumbling around to the right answer by pure insti-
never mind
it's that
“I’m talking about the party, and the way you’re sort of tense now.” Tense? I looked at what I was doing, leaning over the table, both arms resting on the surface, coffee in front of me. I could maybe see how it might read as guarded. I shifted position, pulling my chair closer to the table, sitting up straighter. I forced myself to relax some, though I remained very aware of the people going this way and that behind me.
Wonder why Blake could possibly be tense, knowing that the people whose shitlists he's on include Wine Vampires, powerful enchantresses, a sphinx, and reality itself!
“It’s fine,” I said. “You aren’t hassling me about it, or prying. I’m not looking forward to when the other guys start losing patience. Joel’s already sort of frustrated with me.”
The secret of the magic destroying Blake's relationships is an eventuality that would almost be more painful than if one of them died, he said, vainly hoping that their lives could be saved by his pain
I nodded some. “But things change when you’ve reached that good place, and she keeps wanting to help. Get you from that good place to a better place. Which sounds awesome, except, you know, it can be awfully nice to just enjoy that good place for what it is, after so much bad. Sometimes you don’t want that extra push.” Sometimes, I didn’t say, you didn’t want to be matched up with some singer or architect, or you don’t want that offer of a casual three-way.
oh my gods this reveal!! I love how it plays
“We were talking about Alexis. I’ve had moments where I was angry at her, after those crazy intense arguments and it took me a while to realize why I was so upset. She wants me to emerge from my shell, but shells exist for a reason, you know?”
I feel ya, Blake. But I kinda feel her too, you know? kinda like Tiffany would if you did took her up on the offer hey-yoh gods im so sorry for that one
“I… just wanted to know if she did your tattoos.”
I think the answer is yes? was that confirmed? also this means another Blake Tattoo Check-in! How we doin this week?
My heart might have skipped a beat. I’d been too caught up in this, too caught up in the normal. I was being careful not to lie, but I was forgetting the things that were different. The birds that were perched on the branches on my forearm were… a little worse for wear. Feathers sticking up, dirtier, the glint in their eyes was glintier. The background had more red to it than it should have. “It’s more intense than I expected,” she said. “The detail is beautiful, though.”
Well that about checks out. I still wonder what exactly these represent about blake, rose, blake and rose's relationship, or the state of the local wildlife
“Well, in an ideal world, I’d say I’ll be there to keep an eye on Alexis and help out if she gave you a hard time, but I don’t-” A crash nearby startled me. I was out of my chair in a second, back to the wall, as two guys wrestled. Trays had scattered all over the floor by the door, knocked off the top of one of the trash cans. A shove or an overly aggressive friendly bump between two guys in hoodies had started it, and it looked like violence was going to finish it.
I was wondering when the other karmic boot was gonna kick Blake to the curb
I’d hoped the animals would be the only things affected by the radiation, had told myself that Tiffany’s outburst against the Sphinx was a reaction to an authority figure, but this…
Or that. Could be radiation too, gods blake really is screwed six ways from Summoningsatanday
Damn. Two incidents. I could only hope that I hadn’t made the University donut shop the site of a brawl, just by being there. I really hoped I hadn’t started a riot. I really, really hoped this would end soon. I’d stepped in shit, I was tracking it everywhere.
hey if there's any science side of the doofscord, what would the negative side effects of...uh...walking through a university campus tracking godzilla's radioactive shit on your shoe?
I glanced at a shop window, half-expecting to see Rose there, sharing some silent commentary on what had just happened. She still wasn’t there. How easy it was to get used to mirror-dwelling people-figments.
ohno I've gotten used to everyone's favorite mirror-dwelling-people-fragment too and this is making me worried
“I’ve never been in a fight, not… not that sort of fight. But it makes me angry. Makes me want to hit them, beat them senseless for being so stupid that they’ll beat each other senseless. And now I’m worried I sound like a freak, or an idiot. I’m not sure which, or if it’s both.”
See, I wasn't buying that Tiffany's just too reserved to be angry because of anything but the radiation. I mean, I buy that he's got it, but there are sides of her that he just hasn't gotten to know yet.
“I’m… I know I’ve frustrated some people, by being slow to change. But I think it’s worse to betray myself and expect too much of myself in undoing a solid lifetime of bullshit. Excuse my French.”
Just pulling this. Can't super-duper articulate why
“Take this for what it’s worth, Tiffany… I think I can see why Alexis likes you. I’m starting to like you too, insofar as I’ve gotten to know you. I think you’re pretty cool.” “Oh god. Don’t start saying stuff like that, or I’ll die right here.”
bulba
I also think Tiffany is pretty cool
I'd normally shorten to Tiff, but that makes me think of this character from one of my favorite anime
🇹 1
🇮 1
🇫 1
“Go easy on yourself,” I said. “I think I would continue to enjoy your company if you didn’t change from the way you are now. But if you are going to change, give those changes time, to work against nineteen years of history. Yeah?” “I’m- I’m sort of worried I’ll get lazy and fall back on old habits if I don’t work at it.” Which was an indirect, unintentional stab at me. Criticizing my way of handling things.
Well, Blake, I already feel like you're calling me out, so if she wants to take an unintentional stab at your way of handling things I'm lukewarm on it
I saw another window, absent my reflection or Rose’s.
I'm tippity tappin my third beat feet
“Yeah. Is it alright if we do this again, in the future?” “Maybe,” she hedged. “Maybe?” I hadn’t expected that. She was interested in me. I had a hard time grasping why, beyond our common ground, but she was so nice and generally passive that I hadn’t expected anything other than a yes.
I mean, same. But also, get over yourself. But also also I can understand this blow to your fragile self esteem and I would like to genuinely console you for it.
“Maybe… But I need some promises,” she said.
fine
oh yeah promises no cool cool those won't get my soul eaten if I fuck em up or anything god dammit I still gotta tell a secret to a little behaim girl and I don't know what kinda time limit that shit's got but no let's just pile em on while we're here why don't we
“Okay. Well, hear me out, first. The first promise would be that you have to forgive me for mucking this up and making it into more of a therapy session for me than anything.”
Well that one's actually pretty fine as promises go, maybe this won't be so bad
also if your first date isn't a mutual therapy session are you really right for that person?
(this is a joke, I know nothing about dating)
(but if I stumble into something profound be sure to let me know)
“Okay. The second is, well, I need you to not demote me to some label like ‘the singer’ or ‘the big sister’. Because I’m really afraid of what that label would be.”
see I didn't even notice that Blake named his exes like that...which is weird, because I don't really know anyone who names their exes like that so it should've seemed weird to me
“That’s- I don’t think you’re the sort to do that in a mean spirited way, and it didn’t feel mean, but I don’t want to be the Weird Girl or the Shy Girl or the Girl Who Takes Way Too Long To Eat A Donut Because She’s Nervous.” “Did you?” “I felt like I did.” “I didn’t notice. I hereby swear that you will not, should I be able to help it, become the Donut Girl in my estimation.”
I think she just might've. Also these two are friggin adorkable together. Also also we've had two harmless promises and you know what that means🙂 🙂 fine
“Oh god. Donut Girl,” she said. But she was smiling. “That statement sounded so important and meaningful when you said it like that.”
Hey maybe Blake has picked up a bit of pRose now that Rose is deadpsyduck
“-I’d give you a chaste, quick kiss right now.” She turned pink. “Sorry,” I said. I squeezed her hand, then let it go. “Another time? Something I don’t have to cut short?” She nodded, very quickly, unable to maintain eye contact.
AAAsharkhi AAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!
bulba bulba bulba
That was so cute
im ready to be absolutely destroyed now
But I’d needed this, much as I’d needed the party the previous night. I’d eaten, I’d touched base with me, in a way, done as much as I could to recharge that supply of personal power. I was getting more of a sense of what was going on with my tattoos, though. They were a barometer of sorts, a kind of representation of what was affecting me on a mystical level.
Thanks for clearing that up...although I'm not totally sure you're right or anything we'll have to keep watching
Rose had told me that I was pale, before, that I’d been diminished, when my personal power was drained, my defenses low, at the same time my tattoos were brighter and more intense. My defenses hadn’t yet recovered, so Pauz had been able to affect me all the more. Had I changed here as well? How would I change, under a demon’s influence?
Luckily, Blake gives us the rundown of all those things I basically forgot from before!
It was hard to say. I hadn’t been paying attention to this particular bird… but maybe it seemed a bit less ‘intense’ than it had? Was that because I was bleeding off the conflict and radiation, donating it to innocent dogs and people in donut shops? Or was it because I’d bolstered my personal power on a level? The other possibility, I couldn’t deny, was that it boiled down to wishful thinking coupled with imagination.
Not that that gives us any conclusions or really any useful information at all
also maybe wishful thinking coupled with imagination can metaphysically improve your current state you don't know how this shit works our lord and savior Placebo's got your fuckin back man
Rose would be recuperating, hopefully, while grabbing and researching the various books pertaining to diabolic bargains. My job would be figuring out how to draw up a quick, effective circle, using the tools I had at hand. I’d also need a way to protect myself.
Didn't realize you two had hashed all this out before she expended all her energy and died
(I don't actually think rose is dead but just in case I'm gonna say I called it and that'll balance out the horrible sadness)
look-what-you-made-me-grue-style
No way was I letting this radiation get worse. Thinking about tattoos gave me other ideas.
Yesssssss this but a tattoooooo
I got bleach from under the kitchen sink. Zero idea if this would work, but I was operating without books. Rose was the one with the reading material, and she was AWOL.
Oh my god is he actually gonna? Magic circle your crotch-belt-thing!
I laid out the shirt flat, smoothed out the wrinkles, and set to work. A droplet of bleach on the underside of a glass, a nail, and gentle scratching of the fabric. The bleach marked lighter lines in the fabric. Lighter lines were joined by other lines, carefully measured, geometric patterns, shapes…
Or shirt, whatever.
Pauz was an imp of things foul and feral. A being of wanton chaos, of overturned order. He was weak enough that he could be subdued by ‘like’ elements – fur, blood, and shit, in his case. It was why the rabbit circle had worked. But Rose had told me, essentially, that the preferred way to go was to fight with opposing qualities.
We'll soap im to death you'll see!!
Bleach, I hoped, or the aftermath of bleach, was ideally a material that opposed him. Man made to contrast the focus on the natural, purifying, to contrast the focus on rot, foulness and stagnation.
I'm betting that the mere fact that I think this is reasonable and you think it's reasonable probably is reason enough for the greater reasons to reason that your reasons reason out
I didn’t really want to think about what happened if Rose didn’t show up. I was starting to regret not figuring out more about the mirror world, or Rose’s interaction with it.
"If only I'd been nicer to Rose, oh gods why" Blake twenty minutes later when Rose is back: "Oh cool, fuck you."
I had no idea if it mattered or if it did any good. I’d imagined that the framing of it and the way that the lines and triangles pointed towards the openings at the bottom of each leg would make it stronger, but now I wondered if it would only serve as a weak point. When building a bridge, was it better to simply use the strongest elements available, or did one try to anticipate the stresses, accommodate the terrain? No. I was overthinking it. Besides, it was done.
Generally I think the rool of cool wins out and if it looks like it's gonna be some Powerful Shit it's probably some Powerful Shit
except if it's conquest
Hot water didn’t really kill germs. Water hot enough to kill bacteria would generally be scalding. But hot water could be symbolic, and as long as I was pulling countermeasures out of my ass for the upcoming confrontation with Pauz, I was going to treat myself to a second hot shower for the day. Wash away the filth and radiation.
Oh yeah, heh, this nice steak dinner im treating myself to here is also..very...symbolically relevant. It's quite important that I also eat twelve packs of smarties that I bought on a whim at CVS last friday. Quite.
it's a joke, but it's also my chapter snacks
i'm pretty sure i've had more than twelve
I gathered up every pen in my place. The clock on The Shitty Little Stove, as I’d come to unfondly regard it, told me it was three.
How much time is he gonna waste doing tons of pointless shit that he convinces himself is important?
Compass, protractor, some finangling to get the pen into the compass, and a pink nub of eraser ripped off a pencil I drew a circle around my heart, off-center in my chest, using the eraser-nub with the compass so the little needle wouldn’t prick me. Liver, pancreas, bellybutton… Lines joined it, helped by a set-square, and each line was subsequently joined by an impression of cold metal against skin. Three twenty in the afternoon. Still no Rose.
Watching Blake dick around in his apartment for three hours is surprisingly tense and nerve wracking
I hadn’t seen anything suggesting she was still there. And if she’d destroyed the windows, she’d destroyed the very reflection that was allowing her to be there. The way she’d described shattering the pond’s ice, she’d been shunted to another location. Forced to the nearest safe ground. So… why hadn’t she found her way back to me?
Rose isn't actually dead, is she?
is she!?!
I can't be sure! I've injected too much doubt into the situation now
A triangle, carefully measured, not with right angles, but still very carefully drawn. The lines didn’t match up, forcing me to make the ensuing line thicker and avoid it being broken up. The line across the small of my back was harder, slower. I cheated, leaning against the dining room table until I’d left an impression in my skin, then using the set-square to keep it straight. Spent far too long trying to get the ruler in place again when the line wasn’t a hundred percent there, after I moved it. The diagram called for a triangle across my back, pointing up at the nape of my neck. I debated if I’d have time…
What the hell is blake doing, by the way!? Did he explain this part of the plan to us? I think he totally didn't explain this part of the plan to us.
Four o’clock. Legs, arms, hands, feet, including the soles. Faster due to their location, but my speed at figuring out the process was balanced by the awkwardness of some of the angles, and the fact that I needed the use of the very limbs I was working on. Rose hadn’t appeared to demand to know what the fuck I was doing to myself. She hadn’t shown up, shrieked at seeing me in my underwear, drawing on myself.
I cannot take this. I feel like this chapter is just "unconventional types of feelings and tension: the chapter"
Tie, yes. I picked a red one. I wished I had the goblin flute and the paper goblins, but they hadn’t been mine to keep.
Well shit. I kinda hoped we'd have more dickswizzlin
I had to be selective in terms of what I brought, this time. Only so many pockets. I chose the basics. Pens, cord, the hook-screws. Five o’clock. Five o’clock and I would take action.
How much duct tape you got, blake?
I cooked some pork chops, brussel sprouts, and grilled up thick slices of sweet potato, more to keep myself busy than anything else. Healthy body, covering all of the bases, to counteract the demon that upset the natural balance of things. Four twenty. I’d hoped it would take longer.
This is overpreparation at its finest. Which is weird, considering this is fucking blake we're talking about
The drawer in my bedroom whisked open. I collected the book. The only one I had. Black Lamb’s Blood.
I scrolled down a little but I half expected this to be the last line of the chapter and we'd get a pages
I didn’t read the rest of the book. I skimmed, looking, hoping for charts, for something concrete. But it wasn’t a magical tome. Not really. There were no rituals within. No charts, nor ingredients or diagrams. No proper terminology for bullshitting contracts in an hour. Not what I needed, even in the slightest.
If only he were back at the house. Can you imagine: "hey barbs, I need you to find Rose for me real qui-, no, don't cut her in half or anything, put that down, just gotta find her, and bring her back with all her hair and limbs n shit"
I needed Rose. I needed her help to establish a game plan.
You don't miss somethin until sniff it's gone...
“Rose Thorburn,” I intoned. “I summon you.”
No no no, see Blake you're the body, you gotta get rose to do the voice thi- oh yeah...
A vestige was fragile. Rose had already been abused, hauled into a strange Conquest dimension, chained… I fidgeted briefly, messing with the chain on my locket-hand.
If Rose is dead I'm gonna cry
“Rose Thorburn, you are me and I am you, one step apart, I call you.”
See the reason that didn't work, is because you rhymed "you" with "you". Spirits don't go for the sloppy shit, Blake, you gotta step it the fuck up.
“Rose Thorburn, by all your frustration with me, by the oaths I have sworn to you and the oaths you have sworn to me, I bid you to return to my side.
Rose he bid by all of your frustration
that's like...a lot
power to rival a god
“Rose Thorburn…” I didn’t know how to finish. “God damn it, Rose, I need your help. Don’t leave me hanging.”
Rose I really wish you were here to see this Blake is almost appreciating you look!!!
I debated calling the lawyers for help. Had they expected this? Had they helped it happen? It would be so fitting if they were somehow in league with Conquest, if they were orchestrating this entire thing to put me on this road.
Jeez. I mean, sure, but...I think if that's the endgame here you might as well just die while your soul isn't bound to go to the worst possible afterlife
If I was going to armor myself in my own self and identity, I’d damn well stick to my preference of being clean shaven. I’d spent too many weeks with wispy teenaged beard growth while I’d been on the streets. I was going to be the best Blake Thorburn I could imagine. The sort of Blake who could look good in an almost-suit, but still pull off his button-up shirt and start working on framing a new art installation, or do prop work for the theater, or something. I’d armor myself in my personal ideal, hold it up to give myself courage in a situation where I had very, very little.
Yeah!!! Also stop dicking around! Also HELP IS SHE DEAD OR NOT LORDS OF GIMEL IM GONNA BE MORE DEAD THAN SHE IS IF I DON'T FIND OUT SOON
The inked out magic diagrams across my skin couldn’t hurt either, as armor went.
Yeah I still don't know what that's supposed to do but if drawing on yourself for a couple hours was therapeutic maybe that's enough yknow?
I walked down suburb streets until I started seeing the telltale signs of Pauz’s influence. Crows, and watching animals. Every house had curtains drawn, every light on, otherwise. The Dowghty house was the only one that had no lights at all. Flocks of crows took off as I approached, but they didn’t attack me.
I didn't anticipate Blake having to maybe carry out Rose's plan all by himself
will he stick to the plan that he already maybe doesn't agree with?
Who knows?
it's Blake!
Not even he knows!
A broken old man, clearly malnourished to the point that he should be in a hospital. His reactions were delayed as a cat hopped up into his lap to nibble at something that really didn’t look like it belonged on a dinner plate. Not cooked, barely taken care of. His arms were pocked with injuries where animals had nibbled on him and he’d been too slow to react. Some looked infected.
I knew this would be disturbing, I mentally prepared myself.
I haven't gagged on my twenty eighth pack of smarties yet so that's something
“It looks like it’ll be just me today,” I said. “I know,” Pauz responded, confirming suspicions I hadn’t even allowed myself to voice.
OH YOU MOTHERFUCKER
I didn't anticipate that at all im just reeling
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Seregraug 23-May-19 06:04 AM
😈 🍿
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JayManiac 23-May-19 06:04 AM
HHHHHHHHHHHHHH
That chapter end got me the most out of all of them
it was so well built
Should I read the next chapter?
I don't think I have time tonight
But HOOOOOO Boy that was a doozy
, he said, freaking out over the one chapter that has zero explicit magical things happening whatsoever
-forgot that Pauz is there for a couple lines and he counts as explicit magical shit
but you get the point
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JayManiac 26-May-19 05:10 PM
It's been too long! I gotta know who put Rose on pauz!
4.7 let's goooooooo
The smells, the little movements as trash in the corner was nudged by rodents, the noises and scrabbling sounds, and the heaps of filth all made the space seem smaller than it was, almost as if it distorted around Pauz and his host. The dust, moisture and dead bugs on the sliding glass door to the backyard made even the light seem dingy and insufficient.
Oh Pauz, how I didn't miss you at all dear Lords
I was going to fuck this up on some level. It was practically inevitable. I just hoped I could reduce it down to a level I could manage.
Now I would never call Blake an...optimistic type, and you know it's probably true, but where's that go-getter attitude?! (you may laugh, but this is a universe where having a go-getter attitude can make the magic work however the fuck you want sometimes so I think it's a valid question)
I needed Rose here. I was flying fucking blind.
If only Rose could see Blake appreciating her more. See? He's gonna literally die without you in a few seconds, isn't that touching?
He traced a clawed fingertip along Dowght’s cheek. The man, sixty or so, reacted as if he were underwater, as if every action faced resistance. He slowly raised a hand to stop the imp, but Pauz was gone well before the hand reached him. I realized, belatedly, that the man wasn’t old. He was withered. Atrophied.
fine
“I’m assuming he’s aware of… our business?” I asked. “He’s not aware of anything,” Pauz said.
Still cute, Blake?
I dropped the tome on the table, aiming for impact, hoping to scatter the animals. It made a very satisfying ‘bang’ with the landing, stirring dust and various papers across the table. The animals, however, went straight for the ‘fight’ instinct. Bristling, teeth bared, poised to jump on me.
This nails all the "disruption of the natural order" stuff so hard it's just plain unsettling to read and be in
I’d already fallen prey to magical influences with very little warning, not to mention how being forsworn was technically losing the rights to defend oneself against spirits. Pauz could probably take advantage of a small falsehood or karmic foothold, much as the Sphinx could leverage a false answer to justify murdering someone. It would be very easy to slip up and give ground to Pauz. Ground I couldn’t afford to give him.
And here's the kicker. We spend all this time with Dowght and how screwed up this whole situation is, and then we say: hey this could be Blake's future. And I kind of believe it, and that's terrifying because I don't want to spend any more time with Pauz than I have to
“Stamp me out?” he asked. “They can try.” “They can succeed,” I said, knowing I was taking a risk with a brazen statement, “Could be Conquest, could be someone from out of town, or it could be all of them. They could kill your corrupted animals, invest time, money, energy and other resources into containing or cleaning up this area, and you’re done. You’ve missed a chance.” “Mm,” he said, “But I’ve done damage. Diminished mankind and the world, hm? That’s all my kind seeks.”
I think Blake is actually doing okay in these negotiations, considering all the factors including how scared shitless he so clearly is
All that his kind sought. Maybe that was true, maybe it was only true when his kind were described in abstract.
See, like this is the kind of thing that you think right before you figure it all out! Or lead yourself down a stomped-head rabbit hole of assumptions and get yourself Imp'd
What sort of person lived in this upscale sort of suburb where all the cars were nice? Not lowlifes. Successful or successful-ish people. These were his victims. Pauz took a bit of each person. Those pieces, as I understood it, formed the sum of his human side. He took pieces of lawyers, doctors, computer people, businessmen, bankers and whoever else.
Yeah! Pauz is like a mini-scion! ... considers all the things I just said in the order I just said them
Bird! I've cracked it! (not really but this'll tie into the sixteen-video-series I'll be doing on Pact eventually)
“Is that really all you want?” I asked, emphasizing the ‘you’. “A dent in reality and an ignoble death? Let’s not pretend you’re uninterested in the possibility of what we’re offering. Don’t you upset the natural order of things? You could theoretically have access to an Incarnation. To something fundamental. You could upset something monumental.”
Well it's no pRose, but so it goes, and Blake is goin pretty well as far as I'm concerned. Anyone who lives in houses like this (if im picturing the neighborhood right) is gonna be swayed a lil by the "you have a chance to be someone" argument
I studied him, looking for a tell, but I was getting distracted by the subtle ugliness, the way his entire body looked like worn callous, stained gray-black, the teeth, the eyes, the glare…
Cute, huh? To each their own.
“Then we agree to talk about terms,” he said. “With nothing binding until we sign and verbally agree.” More words, more terms and ideas to complicate matters. I was making the wish to the genie that was hellbent on twisting the terms of the wish to screw me over. More than that, I was dealing with something very inhuman, in a context I didn’t fully understand. Here we went. Dealing with a devil. “Sign by putting pen to the very set of pages I’ve outlined the terms on?”
I just love the set of ideas that Blake goes through here. "huh. I'm screwed. I'm about to fuckin die because of this dumbass thing I'm gonna do. Ah well, here goes nothing!"
not saying I'd do better, but that's not the kinda bar you wanna hold yourself to in general
“Agreed.” Circular reasoning, to agree to the terms of ‘agree’, but fuck it.
We've come so far! Stage one is not being aware of phrasing. Stage two is being aware of phrasing and constantly analyzing everything so as not to fall into any linguistic deathtraps. And now we're at stage three: being aware of phrasing and equally aware of the principle of "fuck it"
“Pauz, given of the Marquis Andras, both of the fifth choir, feral and foul.”
of the markwis andras
“P-A-U-Z,” he said. Huh. Not the spelling I’d anticipated. It rhymed with ‘ooze’ when heard.
Oh sure, tell us how Pauz is pronounced but not Marquis!
also this means that I'll have to put all my pause jokes on pauz
clearly it should be spelled pooooooze
or puse
as in "Arimfexendrapuse"
points if you get that reference
“No. Andras is bound, and only those bearing the saber he was bound to may call him forth. I am a lowly imp, and my name has no power, spoken or written.”
Glad to know there's a sword lying around that is metaphorical fire to this guy's spark. Just, happy to know that exists as something that can be called forth
I mean, for all we know Blake has worse shit in the study, but still
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A bird 🐦 26-May-19 05:38 PM
Bird! I've cracked it!
CharmanderHi
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JayManiac 26-May-19 05:39 PM
Mini scions! It's an epidemic!
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A bird 🐦 26-May-19 05:39 PM
And it's Pa-ooze
You'll hear all about it in Deep in Pact
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JayManiac 26-May-19 05:40 PM
Gotcha. Blake is really in the Pauz Hauz now...z
im aware that it's two syllables im just pronouncing everything there as if it had two syllables
“At which point I am given over to the Incarnation’s possession,” Pauz said. “Or you are forfeit.” “Forfeit what?” I asked. “Your word, your being. Whatever I desire,” Pauz said. To hell with that, I thought.
Literally!
“And you make some attempt, overt or otherwise, to ensure he keeps me until such a time that the contract’s terms end and I am free.” “Unless such an attempt would work against your goals and mine?” I asked. “Hm?” “If he obviously intends to keep you, and pushing him further would look suspicious.” “Granted,” Pauz said.
Blake is keeping way better track of this agreement than I am. Good on him!
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A bird 🐦 26-May-19 05:42 PM
I'm off to bed, but I'm excited to catch up tomorrow on the essay about how Pauz is like Scion
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JayManiac 26-May-19 05:43 PM
Good night!
, he said, at 7:43 in the morning
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A bird 🐦 26-May-19 05:43 PM
Australia is a magical place
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JayManiac 26-May-19 05:44 PM
Ever since laird got it with that chronomancy beam
“I stake my being on this, what other penalty would suffice?” Pauz asked. Meaning the imp wasn’t so happy with the idea of making a small scar in the universe and then dying ignobly. Suspicion confirmed.
I think a good general rule is that beings don't typically want to be pitifully snuffed out. Like, I'm sure there are exceptions, but just as a starting point
(edited)
“It’s what I’m offering you,” I said. The only thing I can reasonably offer you, if it’s even that reasonable. It could be too much.
If dowght gives him a crack, what do you think the fucking house will do?
“How much space?” “Fifteen square feet, parceled out as I deem appropriate.”
Oh okay, just a lil bit. He can be neighbors with Briar Girl! I'm sure that they'd get along
“I’m a novice,” I said, “But I know some things, and I know what you want. Take it so we can move on, or I’m going to start having second thoughts.”
I'm a novice. Hells, I'm not even a Practitioner, but even I know that telling this universe to cut the shit is gonna get Blake in trouble some day. The shit is an important part of the process
I took a deep breath, the immediately regretted doing so.
Reminding us that everything smells like shit is a nice touch
I hesitated. “Any other power you interact with must agree to the same, and they must agree to bind anyone they work with to the same, in turn, ad infinitum,” I said.
I love how Blake closes this loophole I didn't even see. Like, it's so obvious and this is why I wouldn't make it four days if I were a practitioner
“Are you telling me that there’s a loophole you’re already planning on abusing to slip from your duties?” I asked. “I’m telling you I want clearer, narrower terms,” he said, growling the words. “And defined penalties.”
If I didn't already know this chapter was gonna take me two hours to read, I'd be down for a huge dissection of how this conversation builds and releases tension across itself. Like here, for example, when there's this vague undefined threat that's definitely there and he has to catch in his own language or Pauz will wriggle free and murder all his friends
Okay, I was pretty sure I saw it. His hand? Archaic language, or was he justified in using his foot, his teeth? Even his claw?
Almost fucking certainly. If you said his hand, you meant his hand
“If you fail to keep your end of the bargain,” I said, “You forfeit every hold you have in this world. Every person, every animal, every place, idea, every whatever. You undo it all.” “I am starting to think,” the imp said, his eyes flashing in the gloom on the far side of the table, “I should kill you after all.”
This term is so laughable that I literally laughed at it. What the actual fuck, Blake? I know you want to help people, but baby steps. You need practice making demands.
“I take it you don’t like the terms,” I said.
Blake!!!
“I’m doing most of the suggesting, you’re dismissing my suggestions, and I really should be reading this over to look for mischief,” I said, knowing full well that there was mischief, and he didn’t want me to look. “Take a minute.”
Oh this is fucking sneaky of Blake I almost take back my numerous assertions that he's an idiot. I still think he's an idiot, but he's also pretty smart sometimes.
“We define the conditions for penalties,” he said, interrupting me. “I break free of my own will, or I take action that interferes with the goal, or I take action to harm you or yours, as we covered in the other part. Connect it.” Suspicions confirmed. “And… you agree to the penalty clause, then,” I said. “Forfeiting all that you have claimed and corrupted? Undoing the damage?”
Holy shit, he actually wins that. Wins both of that, if I'm reading it right!
“A neutral party, or a party professional enough to be neutral and unbiased with both a mortal human and an imp. Someone we both agree on, with further stipulations to prevent one party from simply refusing every suggestion.” He cackled. The little bald, shark-toothed, clawed baby was surprisingly good at cackling. “Fine.”
Hey laawwwwyers!!
Addendum: Do not appear in my house, that was a joke, I apologize
“Granted,” Pauz said. “Amusing thing to imagine. I don’t think neutral parties exist, in the midst of this, but yes. We can try, or form another compromise.”
I disagree. I think that the lawyers in particular have an interest in either party, as entities that functionally want the world to degrade and yet also want Blake to join them, I think they'd benefit from making either judgement and benefit from keeping the neutral position
“Maybe you don’t,” I said. “But if that’s true, if you’re that shortsighted, you may well be doomed to being small fry forever.” “You think me small?” Well, there I went, insulting him and turning a bad situation into a worse one.
"Yep. There me goes! Bein me! Making everything horrible for me
The intensity of the radiation was growing. “It would be more correct to say,” I said, very carefully, “I think that you could be bigger.”
You'll be a polititioner in no time! (Shoot! Just revealed the topic of video#3)
Thank you, Rose, I thought. It was always so much easier when I had an idea of the motivations at play. You’re helping even when you’re not here.
Yay! The Thorburns are getting along! And all it took was one of them maybe dying!
sharkhi fine
“Damnation. I will, to the best of my ability, prevent you from coming to harm, that implicitly or explicitly derives from me in any way or form.” I wrote it out. “You’d damn well better be able to deliver,” he said, clearly perturbed.
This. Felt. Awesome.
“It’s up to you to decide how you’re going after Conquest,” I said. And it’s up to me to decide how to deal with you both. Rose had suggested this and then disappeared on me.
😬 okay so maybe "getting along" was stretching it a smidgen
“Agreed,” he said. “I’ll find a weak point. I always do.”
Lords of Gimel, why do I actually find myself liking Pauz after this?
“Hm,” he said. “I thought you were on a schedule, diabolist.” “I am,” I said. “Were you calling me diabolist, before this?” “No,” he said. He smiled. “Because you weren’t. But you are one now, hm?”
That line would be solid enough to end the chapter on. Perfect.
It was tedious work, slow going, with me taking my time over every word, thinking in abstracts, in terms of symbols, and in terms of the very literal.
it doesn't, though, and that's fine too
“No,” Pauz said. “Blood.” I glanced at him, eyebrow raised. “I know this much. To give it power. Almost always, when contracting with my kind.”
Learn something new every day. I mean hey, it's not called Black Lambs Ink now is it?
“You’re inferring more than I’m saying,” he said. “Your partner is asleep, in more ways than one. Think about why.”
This is so friggin tantalizing
“My biggest regret in accepting this bargain,” he said, looking up at me with an intense expression on his tiny round face, “Is that I won’t be able to see the look on your face when you realize.” “When I realize?” “Yes.” “Realize what?” I asked, knowing I wouldn’t get the answer. He only smiled wider, showing more teeth, his tattered, bitten tongue visible in his mouth, and turned his back on me, looking at Dowght. Fuck.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
I needed something to bind him into. I placed the tome in the center.
You mean the tome that you promised to read but now have to give to conquest and thus can't read?
“Pauz,” I said, holding the contract up, “By the terms of this contract, I bind you.” The wind turned, the contract flapping violently in my hand. The outer circle of the diagram collapsed, the cord snapping into the center, until Pauz was well and truly bound up, in a series of very careful knots and shapes, ten times more intricate than I could have managed, all connected to the inner diagram that still remained. Bound as he was, I didn’t miss the pale eyes staring at me. Smug?
This is so awesome and so unbearably ominous
He’d do everything in his power to protect me, from the moment he was bound on. Just like he’d said… I couldn’t transfer property to him on my death if I had no property the moment I died. He couldn’t protect me while he was bound.
Oh fuck. He's gonna get this little scheming son of a marquis bound and everything, in a stellar fucking contract, and immediately get mauled to death by rabbits
Pauz was bound, and the connections that allowed him to control his creatures were severed. Taking no overt, direct action, he’d let me trap myself.
The payoff is so satisfyingly shitty
I love it
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JayManiac 30-May-19 03:59 AM
I've been Pactically dying to get back to this book
...i'll show myself out
and by 'out', I mean 4.8!
wait how do I start these again? I had a good intro phrase...
oh yeah! When we last left off, Blake was fucked!
No sudden movements. June was in my hand. With my other hand, I reached out for Pauz. I hooked my fingers into the cords that bound the outside of the book, my thumb encircling the spine.
I like this intro; it establishes the tension, the tools, and the stakes in really quick succession
oh! Also! I realized why Blake seems like a...how do I say it...a less good protagonist than all of WB's other ones.
They all want something concrete that's established at the beginning of the story; I read the first chapter of each to be sure. Taylor wants to be a hero, Sy wants the thrill of mind-battle and the longevity of his Lambily, and Vicky wants to fix this stupid fucked up new world
Blake, by contrast, wants to not-die
it's a worthy pursuit, but not really a pursuit actually
His wants are actually quite reactionary at the beginning of the book, so it's taken longer for me to warm to him
Fighting them? If it came down to pure numbers, they won. A hatchet and a heavy book could only deal with so many at a time, and even a withered, diseased, half-dressed guy could catch one of my arms. I glanced at Dowght, moving my head slowly so I didn’t provoke anything. I saw him picking up a steak knife from the table. There was still food crusted on the blade. Okay, he could do worse things than catch one of my arms.
I wonder how much of a problem this guy is gonna be; we just spent a couple chapters describing him as weak and pitiful but with Pauz's magic gone...
“It’s done. You’re free,” I said. “All the things that have been hurting you, the confusion, all the parts where you feel horrible, they can stop. Work with me, leave this house behind, get healthy again, stop being so cold and hungry…” He was already shaking his head.
Cool. Just shut that solution away right off the bat before we think this could go well
“Mine,” he rasped. His expression was twisted in anger and fear.
I really hope he doesn't mean Pauz
“I have to take care of them. You want me to leave?” He transitioned to more fear than anger, from the point he started the sentence to the point he ended it.
oh. That might be worse. That's probably worse. At least he probably won't pursue blake too far past the house though
The animals were creeping closer, where my back was turned. I shuffled around, changing position, so the animals were to my right, Dowght to my left, table behind me. “…a shitty status quo seems awfully damn good, when life has conditioned you to think that nothing better might ever come your way.”
Oooooo, so this is theme-y too! I never thought of it as relevant to blake and situations he's already been in, but it's perfect now that he's drawing that connection
“You want to take them away?” Dowght said. “They’re all I have. You… bastard.”
Oh. This is just...heartbreaking
he's way too far gone at this point
“I’ll kill you,” he said, unwittingly offering some truth my statement. “They can eat you and they’ll be happy and fat, and everything goes back to the way it was.” There was no way he’d come back from this.
Man...screw Pauz. This is awful.
The animal went on the offensive, scratching, clawing at the book. Bad. If it cut the twine- I dropped the book, caught the far end of the table with my hand, and swung my legs around. With the leverage, I was able to stab the very end of the hatchet at it. No awkward angle there. I struck it, knocking it to the ground.
I like that we get explicitly that releasing pauz is the stakes, even if it was evident before, by outlining what exactly the animals would need to do to undo all Blake's hard work
A cur of a dog lunged up at one corner of the table, but didn’t succeed in getting up.
I had to look up "cur"
oh that reminds me! I heard the word "copacetic" in something other than worm the other day! It's in Young Justice, said by Robin (because of course it is)
I turned my head, to see him rounding the table. The dingy light from the sliding glass door lit him up, highlighting how pale he was, reflecting his pallid skin, the thin hair on his head, his open eyes focused solely on the knife and where he intended to stab it.
If he were just shambling that would be one thing; the fact that he's conscious enough to babble and show how far he's gone adds a whole nother layer of unsettling
All it took was one impact to knock me over. The cur was on top of me, jaws on the space between my shoulder and neck. Crushing more than piercing. Leaving me on my back, without purchase on the trash-littered ground.
this is a really really tense fight scene
it's fitting, considering we spent last chapter talking about legal contracts
which was only slightly less tense
Something bit my ear, hard. More claws scrabbled at my scalp. Mice. Rats. Something in that vein. I felt pain, and the pain intensified with further contact, joined by other sensations. Blood welling.
These injuries are all minor enough that I can imagine them more clearly than (twig)Sylvester's eye being stabbed the fuck out. Like, I've been bitten by a hamster that didn't like me, I've been bitten by a dog, been scratched by a cat. I'm not saying the weight of more serious injuries doesn't land, but these are way more relatable and that puts this fight scene on more engaging ground
These things were diseased. Filthy. Covered in fleas. Lice. Other things.
plus it's all still really fucking gross
“No,” Dowghty said. “My dog, no. Oh no, no.” I very deliberately avoided looking at him. “No, no, no. He was a good boy.”
He really wasn't
(edited)
it wasn't his fault, any more than the fact that you're shambling around is yours (probably less so) but I don't exactly blame Blake for the horrible shit he has to do here
I think the fact that Pauz abuses animals hits harder for me than the fact that he makes life hell for rich people, and I'm not sure what that says about me
that's almost concerning
Teeth like inch-long blades, more, smaller teeth, half an inch, a quarter inch long. Biting. Scratching. I did not know that rabbits had claws.
Well now you do. They scream, they have claws, they're practically demons already
This would be so much easier if Blake had a holy hand grenade
or Dickswizzle
oh Dickswizzle, how I don't miss thee
“No, the dog, no!” Dowght cried out. I kicked swinging the hatchet to dislodge one of the larger rabbits and scare off a cat that was getting braver. “No! Stop, you bastard!”
I can almost imagine how this looks to him; this is painful to read in the best way
I could barely stand. I was one good bite away from losing all strength in my legs. My back against the glass door, I swung the hatchet at Dowght’s hands. I’d expected him to recoil, to draw back or protect himself. He didn’t.
this beat of ignoring self-preservation really sells the unnatural-ness
With the noise, every animal looked up at me, going still. Some had their mouths on or teeth in Dowght, muzzles bloodied, as their focus moved to me. Whole clusters of them were on or immediately behind the table. The light from the window made their eyes seem brighter than they were. Dowght, for his part, wasn’t even fighting in self defense.
what the fuck did pauz do to these animals
I bellowed at them, arms spread, weapon in hand, looking big. As intimidating as I could manage. They dogpiled me. All attacking, all at once.
That was maybe the dumbest thing you could've done, Sokka's instincts
The animal smell, the weight of them, the lack of any personal space, to the point that I could scarcely breathe without risking that a mouse would find its way into my mouth, it all built up to one moment, the connections forming. Not good connections, not a good moment. Only the sort of moment that made me turn down an offer like Alexis’. Like the moments where I turned down an offer for a hug from Joel, who I trusted as much as I trusted anyone. I dug deeper, for something more primal, drawing from reserves I shouldn’t. Blind, furious swings. I threw them off, kicked, struggled, wasted far too much energy shaking off animals that weren’t even there.
psyduck
My head still bent, eyes on the ground between me and the animals, I felt a single tear roll down my cheek, stinging as it ran across scratches and bites. I was, I realized, standing about three feet away from where Dowght had been sitting, at the head of the table. This was it. There was nobody coming to my rescue. Even Rose, if she happened to show, could do nothing.
I can't say anything clever here it's just been paragraphs and paragraphs of hopeless destitution
Pauz had made his play, and it had been a clever one. Short sighted, but clever. Distracting me at pivotal moments, keeping my eyes off his prize. I had no idea how the property transfer worked. If Rose would disappear when I did, if Pauz could get the property through her, or if the next Thorburn would inherit the debt, as I’d inherited Molly’s, and Molly had inherited Grandmother’s. Or, perhaps, if Pauz was simply content to have me here, a ghost he could manipulate and use, infect, so a piece of me could relive this end for a few decades or centuries.
AAAAAAAAA I TAKE BACK EVERYTHING I CARE ABOUT BLAKE I'M SORRY HE'S NOT REALLY A BAD PROTAGONIST SAVE HIIIIIIIMM
As ends went, I supposed, being torn apart, piece by tiny piece, by various wild animals, it wasn’t the worst possible end I could face, given the way my life was going. Kind of funny really. Except for the part where there was anything remotely humorous about this.
😦
All I had to do was relax. Let my guard down. Stop fighting.
DON'T DO IT BLAKE
Come on man, you never stopped before
There would be pain. Or more pain, and then… whatever end I had in store. I sank, my legs relaxing, my back sliding down the wall. Half-inch by half-inch. Easing myself down gently. Feeling every hole and scrape on my body send its insistent, signal to my brain, a signal that peaked, vying with the others for the whole of my attention.
We've so rarely seen Blake actually truly alone, and that makes this all the more powerful
The hatchet still sat in my hand. June.
CUZ HE'S NOT ALONE MOTHERFUCKERS
Heads down, ears down, afraid. Subdued. Not even attacking as I let down my guard. Ahh. So ice and cold hadn’t been the only thing I’d been dashing all over the place as I’d fought. There was the emotion that June carried with her, too. Double-edged sword, that.
This. God Damn. Reveal.
Ilovethis
I dug for the things that drove me. Rose. Promises. Molly. My friends. Even the rest of the world, as abstract as that seemed. Or my fucked up extended family, which was very not abstract but simultaneously hard to justify on a rational level. God damn it, I’d been lower than this before, and I’d fought my way back. I was not going to diminish my past triumphs before by giving up now. Maybe that was a lie. Low in a different way, maybe. Yeah. Low in a different way. Right.
Okay. This chapter alone has completely sold me on Blake as a protagonist. Good Lords of Ba sing se, I'm just realizing how much I don't want him to die
Call the lawyers? No. Maybe I would have, if I’d thought about it before, while in the throes of despair, but right now it felt too much like admitting defeat. Giving up.
the thought did cross my mind, but I never believed Blake would go for it
“June,” I said. “I need your help. Come forth.” No luck. That was Rose’s power, not mine.
well at least that means she's probably still alive
not june, rose
june's hella dead
But… right there, I felt like I was on the brink of something. Ideas. I raised my head some. First of all, I was thinking in the wrong direction. I needed to work backwards. I realized it as soon as I worked out the second point: that there were names I could call.
Dickswizzle come to my man's rescue
Technically, I could call any name to forge a tenuous connection. I could use those connections. Third of all, a completely unrelated idea… I had the means to cheat. “Fell, servant of Conquest, servant of the Lord of Toronto. I summon you,” I said.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha I didn't see this coming at all
I shifted my weight, planting my feet to raise myself up some. “Fell, you creepy-ass gun-toting bitch of Conquest, I summon you,” I said.
Oh shit!
he just said that!
that's hilarious!
“Fell, I call you again, errand boy, connection manipulator, the practitioner with no name. Get the fuck over here.”
I'm living and dying laughing at this it's fantastic
Blake is done with the universe's shit
I reached into my pocket. With two fingers, so I didn’t need to bend down and dig deeper, I drew the jar free.
I knew something from Blake's utility belt would be useful!
I just
you know
forgot it existed until right exactly now
this is what I get for reading each chapter so slowly
I drew a line of the liquid across my throat, as if I were slitting it. There was no room for doubt or hesitation. “June!” I cried out. Not in my voice. Not in Rose’s either. The Thorburn voice. “Come!” I nearly lost my grip on the hatchet as she leaped forth.
Holy fucking hellblazers that worked!? I guess this is the epitome of "if you think it works" and it's so fucking awesome
the world likes symbolism after all, and that's some bloody good symbolism
“Why is hunting slow?” I asked. I needed an in. A connection. “The animals sleep during the winter. I’m so tired.” “It’s cold,” I prompted her. “The animals are asleep for the winter. It’s winter.” She echoed me. Caught up in the words. “It’s cold,” I repeated. “The animals are asleep for the winter…”
Speaking of "if you think it works..."
I have no doubt that this is one of Wildbow's signature "i didn't know how this character was gettin out of this shit" moments (edited)
“Fell,” I said, as she got into the flow of it, a rhythm. The temperature in the room was dipping precipitously. “I summon you.” I could feel the connection to Fell. I touched the residual blood on the hatchet, and found only what was frozen there. I scraped off what I could with my gloved fingertips and cast it out, at the connection between Fell and me. “Come, Fell,” I said. “I fucking order you to come.”
I don't know why he thinks this will work, specifically
haven't worked that out for myself yet
“Bastard,” he whispered the word. But he took hold of it. I hauled him to his feet. He was lighter than I’d thought.
I knew blake would want to save dowght, but I didn't think he actually would
A larger animal slowly paced into the middle of the street. Ominous as fuck. A deer, antlers fully grown, a dozen points that could pierce a heart or an organ. A crown of points. Promising danger more than it promised self defense. There was blood around its mouth and nose. Tatters of flesh and fur hung from the blunt teeth I could see. “What the fuck happened to Bambi?” I asked. “He’s beautiful,” Dowght said. “Majestic. A tyrant, a despot. My third favorite.”
Please don't attack blake, please don't attack blake, please don't attack blake
“You’re going to a mental asylum,” I said. “Just to be clear. I don’t think you’re fit for ordinary society any more.” “Handsome. Noble,” Dowght muttered. Oblivious.
Good call. He's nuts. That's not a squirrel pun either he's just psycho
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A bird 🐦 30-May-19 05:02 AM
It can be both
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JayManiac 30-May-19 05:02 AM
it can be both
“Fell,” I said, using the Thorburn voice. “Come on.” The deer shifted position. Mouth slightly agape, teeth showing, it lowered its head. Points aimed at me and Dowght. Not a mating thing. Not self defense. Just murdering me with its freaking horns because it could.
Seems on-brand for these guys, yeah
“Deep sleep,” I intoned. She flickered, then disappeared. No. The impact I felt to the hatchet was feeble at best. Almost imperceptible.
what is losing june gonna do to blake? She doesn't have very much...her left
I could see the deer recovering. I found my feet, closing the last few feet, just as the deer lowered its antlers, points aimed at me. I blocked the points of the antlers with the book that dangled from my hand, huffed out a gasp at the impact. Stupid, I knew, to use the book like this, but accidentally freeing the imp from his bondage was still better than dying. I was pretty sure.
AaaaaaAAAAaa Holy shit he's fighting the deer
(edited)
I planted the hatchet in his neck, blade grinding against bone. The deer collapsed like a puppet without strings. “No!” Dowght hollered. “No! No!”
Holy shit he kicked the deer's ass!!!
Dowght reached the deer, and he embraced the corpse. Openly weeping.
I feel more bad about this than triumphant actually
No. One person was watching. A boy. Eyes wide. He’d probably seen the deer murdering scene, from the shock I could make out. I looked, taking in the scene, imagining how he might see it in the gloom. Oh. Maybe that’s why he seemed so alarmed. There was a bear in the shadows between two houses. Hard to make out, but most definitely there.
I'd like to imagine the children's book that's written about this random kid and his adventures in the neighborhood of fucking hell
“Fell,” I said, again. “Fell. Fell. Fell. Fell…” I saw headlights at the far end of the street. “Fell, Fell, Fell…” The car approached. Stopped. The door opened. Fell stepped out, glancing around. I saw him throw a handful of sand around himself.
HA! It worked!
he showed up in a car
why the hell didn't I expect that
He drew his gun, pointing it at me. He paused. “Welcome to the neighborhood,” I said. “I’d shoot you right here, but you look bad enough it might be a waste of a bullet.”
sharkhi
“In many circles,” Fell said, “Calling a practitioner that way is considered terminally poor manners.” “Noted,” I said, eyeing the encroaching animals. “I’m new to this, I’ll keep it in mind.”
calling them the bitch of conquest might not be the best manners either
just puttin that out there
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A bird 🐦 30-May-19 05:09 AM
"In for a penny, in for a pound" - Blake on bad decisions
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JayManiac 30-May-19 05:09 AM
I thought it was explicitly "fuck it"
but that's a better way of saying "fuck it"
“It’s ten thirty, he wants this imp by midnight. Give me a ride, and we can both enjoy the rest of our evenings. You go back to… watching late night TV, I don’t know. I go tend to my wounds and prepare for tomorrow.” “Not my responsibility.”
god, fell is such a dick. I'd call him "bitch of conquest" but I don't have enough spite in me to type all that out every time I talk about him
Fell looked at the broken man. “We won’t bring him, but we’ll secure his safety.” I watched as Fell approached Dowght. “Fucker,” Dowght said, sobbing. “Fuckers! Bastards!” Fell cast sand around the man. “Ahh! Fuck you! In my eyes! Fuck you, you crab-dicked fucker!”
Dowght is among the most fucked-up of guys, but I thank him. I thank him for calling Fell a crab-dicked fucker
I'm glad that what I assume is his last moment in the story is a heroic one
“Stop talking,” Fell told me. “Unless you’re talking about your diabolism, I either know already, or I don’t care what you have to say. This is what I do. I clean up and handle details.”
Blake handles devils, you handle details
together, you're flake
don't actually
“Am I putting myself in danger?” I asked. “Bleeding out onto his rug? Can he use my blood against me?” “It isn’t blood given. Could he take it? Yes. But he could do that regardless of your wishes, if he had a mind to.”
This Rug is mine by right, and by your blood it shall enslave you
I threw the tome to the ground between us. I need that back, I thought. No use dwelling on it right now, though.
Blake is done with the universe's shit, I get this, but you still have shit to do with conquest, and maybe you shouldn't piss him off
Oz or not, he's leagues above you
“Hm,” Conquest said. “You appear to be worse for wear, Diabolist.” “I do,” I replied. “And that task could have been handled much more gracefully.” “Not when you give the job to me,” I said. “That was handled exactly the way it was going to be handled, with Blake Thorburn on point.
Guys, this book is the fucking best
“There’s also the astrologer,” I said. “Why her?” Fell asked. Can’t you just agree and make life easier? “I’m going to have to deal with an abstract entity in the next two days. I’m thinking the astrologer could be useful.”
I'm sure she would've given you her number if you'd simply asked, sugar
“Can you bring her here? Gently? I’m… somewhat concerned about her.” “I’m not inclined to obey the requests of underlings.” “Even when those requests serve your interests?” I asked. I dropped to one knee, grunting in pain as injuries opened. “Please, Lord of Toronto. I ask this, knowing you are among the only ones who can help me like this, knowing it puts me in your debt.” He took his time. I didn’t budge. Head bowed, body aching, kneeling. “Diabolist,” he said. I looked up. Rose dangled from the chain. Unconscious.
Oh thank fuck. Well, looks like Pauz wasn't lying about her coma, and also looks like it wasn't a plot by conquest, or he probably would've refused
“What’s wrong with her?” I asked, again. To Fell, this time. He smiled a little. “Consider my silence a fair repayment for the summonings. And, perhaps, the blood on my car’s upholstery.” “And the fleas, I imagine,” I answered him. “And the lice.” I saw his expression twist. “You’re not doing yourself favors, diabolist.”
I wonder how much easier blake's life could be, if only he didn't enjoy pissing off fell
A little worrisome that I didn’t have Rose’s advice on what to do next. I’d finished one big step in her scheme. I had Pauz and Conquest in one place. For better or worse.
Just figure out what you would've come up with if you'd been born a girl, lived your entire life, and been bound to an idiot and trapped in a mirror
then you'll be good
this was such a good chapter
agree 1
Also: i resolved to draw at least three detailed shaded faces a day and the other day i decided to draw my favorite thorburns (not that they have a ton of competition)
Ilovethis 1
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JayManiac 30-May-19 07:03 AM
I agree with you on all counts, David, except that it enhanced the experience for me, because I'm a glutton for punishment apparently
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JayManiac 06-Jun-19 05:15 AM
It's Collateral 4.9 time!
Ilovethis 1
💜 1
sharkhi 1
spoop 1
transbulba 1
gaybulba 1
bulba 1
CharmanderHi 1
I'm sorry I haven't been able to do as many reads lately, I've had more spaced-out free time and haven't been able to grab the two hours I'd want to finish a chapter
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Wildbow 06-Jun-19 05:16 AM
Woo
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JayManiac 06-Jun-19 05:17 AM
When we last left off, say it with me now....Blake was screwed
but surprisingly okay, for him
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Fursuit Lightsaber 06-Jun-19 05:17 AM
I may be excited for this
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JayManiac 06-Jun-19 05:17 AM
I may have noticed! So am I!
sharkhi 1
Blake was only background-screwed. As in, he's still screwed in a general sense, but you're not sure he's gonna die a paragraph into this chapter
Not about the countless lacerations, scratches and scrapes. Not about my general level of exhaustion, or the countless things I just couldn’t shed light on.
And he doesn't! But yes, I agree that Blake's friends do not want to see post-pauz-house
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Fursuit Lightsaber 06-Jun-19 05:19 AM
Oh... Yeah this part
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JayManiac 06-Jun-19 05:20 AM
Or actually: maybe they fucking would and Blake should tell them about everything he has to deal with
I could absolutely be wrong here, but I always back the Magic Destiny Friendship Agreement boat
Food is in the fridge. Your cousin stopped by. -Joel
😬
please be paige, please be paige
remembers that we already have a bunch of innocents that blake cares about and could be ripped away from him by this arc
Please be peter, please be peter
I owed Joel something. I wasn’t good at this. Taking without giving back. He’d been upset when I’d insisted, but I didn’t like this imbalance.
This is kind of an admirable/honorable trait, but also could play into a transactional view of friendship that isn't being helped by all this practitioner shit
The water that ran off me was pink-brown, and it wasn’t the lines I’d drawn on myself that made it brown. When I bent down, I saw that the brown was composed of specks. Bugs. Thousands, so small I could barely make them out with the naked eye.
AAhhHHAHHHHHH BUGS ARE SO MUCH WORSE WHEN THEY AREN'T EXTENSIONS OF OUR PROTAGONIST'S WILL
💜 1
More soap, shampoo. As if I could simply drown them in chemicals. The hot water ran out long before I was absolutely sure that I wasn’t seeing any more fleas in the runoff.
my skin is crawling just thinking about it. I hadn't considered the aftermath of what happened last chapter, since I was a little distracted by Blake's existential crisis and also his my-face-is-being-clawed-off-by-a-rabbit crisis
Pills, pills… Antibiotics I’d been given by Ty after a bad bout of coughing. I hadn’t taken them because it was a fucking stupid idea to take antibiotics when you didn’t have to.
I love the little connections with his friends that we're reinforcing here, even if I know it might mean we're establishing stakes of they're-all-gonna-die in the near future
There was paint thinner, which I used sometimes after work, but I suspected it would be a bad idea to pour it on myself with the number of open wounds I had. Rubbing alcohol… same issue.
The magic words to instantly incapacitate me for a few seconds are "purell on papercuts"
I had no idea how bad I looked as a whole. I did know I was covered in marks. Enough that I’d draw attention in public. Enough that I might even scare people. One of my eyelids was torn, and was promising to swell up. My ear was tattered at the edge, going by touch. The bruise at my shoulder was ugly, already purple in spots.
I love/am revolted by the time we're taking with Blake's injuries. We've done similar things with WB's other stories, grounding the narrative in real life by exploring the consequences of narrative developments and treating injuries with weight. And hopefully lots of bandaids
The birds were… somehow better than they’d been. A few less feathers sticking up, less hostile, feral, less beady. But the birds were vivid in color and definition, the branches seemed a little more wicked, more angular and sharp, and the watercolor was a darker cloud, more like the bruise at my shoulder than the lighter hues I’d had before.
Well, Rose isn't back yet, so the birds likely don't represent her specifically- not that I thought they did, but it's good to rule out. It could still be their relationship, which has kind of one-sidedly improved as Blake has realized how fucked he is without her
I had the eerie sensation that the cloud of watercolor behind the birds was shifting, like clouds moving across the sky. But when I looked, I couldn’t see it. A little disconcerting.
Gonna call this coin-counting in honor of Ms. Lewis' original explanation
(edited)
The hair was more like wire. Augmenting the chain, adding to it, mimicking it. Where it cut into my hand, the glamour was giving the chain a sharper edge at the seams where metal had joined metal. Spurs and barbs. The imp’s influence, or was the glamour simply adapting to circumstance?
the evolution of Blake's tools is something that really draws me to Pact. The constant scraping for little vestiges (pardon the pun) of power, and getting to explore each source in detail and see what happens to it, how Blake uses it to its fullest
I hesitated, my hand still wet with ink, poised over another set of scars. Narrow ones, years old now. There was only so much ink to spare, and there were dangers. But the idea that I could cover them up, remove one more reminder of the bad old days… I wiped it away. Photoediting real life.
Hey I bet Padriac started like that too
one day, three millennia ago, Patrick was like "man, I've always had this crooked nose" and now here we are.
I couldn’t say what the backlash would be, but I told myself the alternative to the glamour was me not being able to function or show my face to my friends.
This is just Blake admitting to lying to himself right? Admitting that he's probably misusing the glamour and taking unnecessary risks?
It was one in the morning. The hour told me I shouldn’t call, but he or she had come by twice. I questioned whether it was urgent, or if more repeated visits would prompt more questions from the people around me. In the end, I was too tired to really care about social norms. I wanted answers, not more things hanging over my head.
You are braver by far than me, Blake. I mean, duh. I would've taken one look at june and hightailed it back to hillsglade
That said, there are fantasy protagonists who'd fight sixteen goblins bare handed and wouldn't make a phone call
I called. “Hm? Hello?” A girl’s voice. I narrowed it down to Ellie and Paige. I almost thought Molly, but Molly was gone.
😢
“The police were asking around, looking for you,” she said. “They got in touch with everyone.” Fuck. “Oh?” I asked. “Any particular reason?” “Molly died, then you disappear? It raises questions.”
Stop questioning, Paige. You won't like the answers.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “You have the house now?” “Yeah,” I said. “Fuck that,” she said. “Why? What did you pull? Did you strongarm Molly?”
Okay, not paige then?
“God, I haven’t been able to think straight, I’m so fucked up over this, and I’ve got exams coming up.”
It...is Paige?
yes, I think it is
“Over this. All of it. You. The inheritance. Molly. I thought that I’d look into it, get in touch with you, get some concrete answers, settle my thoughts. Then you weren’t there, which made things worse. I wound up going back, and you still weren’t there. Your landlord said he’d seen you… I need answers, Blake. None of this makes sense.”
I wonder why she was last in Granny Thorburn's running for the house?
While she talked on the phone, I got the meal Joel had prepared from the fridge. Lasagna. I put it in the microwave with a small glass of water.
💜
“You don’t know the half of it,” I said. “I don’t know what answers I can give.” “Why you?” “That’s an awfully good question,” I told her. “I wish I knew the full answer.”
Who knows? Maybe because Blake was...uh...Blake enough to call her a rancid cunt to her face and she admired that? I could see her admiring that and creating the Thorburn Workaround
“She did?” “It’s already set up. If something happens to me, then it goes to the next person in line.” “Really?” “Yeah.” “Do I- Do I want to know where I stand on that list?”
It's cool how we're never told this is paige, but it's very obvious this is paige
“I… damn it, I worked for it! I did some stuff I’m not proud of, but not against Molly or Ivy. Only against my sisters, who were already playing dirty. But I didn’t make it an obsession. I made myself my own person, worked hard at school, and I made it something that could be. Not something that had to be.” Except somewhere along the line, it sounds like, you let yourself believe you were the only one who deserved it, and you pinned too many hopes on it. I didn’t say that, though. “When she asked, you know, I said you should get it.”
I wonder if this is the reason. It wasn't among my theories, and I'm not too sure it makes sense. I think maybe Grandma wanted a little more ruthlessness, a little more practitioner-ness, a little less attachment to the real world
This conversation is so painful
“We were friends,” I said, again. Firmer. “Back when we were kids. Then we got along at the inheritance meeting. We ran into each other at school. Talked in passing.” “In passing. Nothing more.” “Why are you so dead set on denying any connection we had?” I asked. “Because we didn’t. We weren’t friends, Blake. We just moved in some of the same circles, and you’re pretending the past has more significance than it does.”
Aaaaaa. Family sucks. And extended family is difficult like that, where you don't really know each other well enough to get a good read on the relationship and it's really awkward and the only thing that could possibly get you to clear the air is murder
💜 1
(omitted from this general complaint are the three cousins I played minecraft with for years. They're awesome.)
Also I'm gonna pause for dinner real quick but I'll be right back and I promise I'm not just delaying the inevitable emotional psyduck that is this conversation
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JayManiac 06-Jun-19 06:25 AM
Sorry about that, Am back
“I think you’re a genuinely good person, Paige,” I said. “So I’m going to assume that it’s the late hour and pressure that are making you obsessing more over the inheritance than Molly’s murder.” “Murder?” she asked. Seizing on entirely the wrong point.
This is such a trainwreck of a conversation, but I find this part of it specifically to be hilarious
"No no no, you're getting distracted by the part about our cousin being murdered, I feel like you're not listening to me"
Hadn’t she said- No. Fuck. I was too tired.
I mean you have exhausted your mind with contract-building and exhausted your body by almost dying...maybe this should've waited
“…The police said it looked like she shut herself in, because she was scared of backlash from the locals, Aunt Laura seemed to back that up. She supposedly got cabin fever, fled, and got a little too far out into the cold. But you said murder. Which isn’t an idea you throw around lightly.”
That's an awfully true not true thing that Paige just said there
I wonder if whoever told her- or whoever told whoever told her, was especially skilled in saying a bunch of true things that aren't true as a whole
Wonder what line of work that could suggest
Laird’s work?
Well don't just get there faster than me that makes me look bad
Ilovethis 1
“But you thought that there was a murder, and you left the area? Even if you’re a suspect?” “As I understand it, one of them confirmed my alibi.” “Did they? Which is it, Blake? Were they looking for a murderer or not?” This was Paige. She’d always been sharp.
This is not the problem you need to be having right now, Blake. You've basically made yourself a suspect of murder this is what happens when you don't get the proper amount of sleep
I needed to look at her as the threat she was, and that meant treating her as I’d treated Conquest and Pauz. Figuring out what she wanted and utilizing that knowledge.
Oh yeah, this is the way to make friends and not alienate the people close to you. Treat them like literal demons!
“What I know,” I said, speaking very slowly and carefully, “Is that grandmother was involved in something pretty messed up. Some of that relates to the police chief back in Jacob’s Bell. Some of it ties to what happened to Molly. Molly died, I got a message saying as much, I walked right into the middle of it, and the whole reason I’m here is because I can’t do anything there. I need to wrangle some help from above if I’m going to deal with this, before anyone else in the family gets wrapped up in it all.”
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Ever delightful, Blake
“…Is that what it was?” “A small few people with too much power, trying to get more power. It relates to the house, to the whole inheritance thing, and a lot of the stuff Molly was talking about, when she sounded as paranoid as she did.”
Part of why I think I like this practitioner doublespeak so much is that it handily allows for the story to act as at least one direct metaphor for real life. It's like the line at the end of Worm-- “Do you want to try?” “Telling the story?” “Or raising the ideas.” “A lot happened. My mom died, I had a hell of a time with high school, I fell in with a bad crowd and my dad and I parted ways. extrapolated into an entire system of dialogue that serves to contextualize the fantasy as reality in at least this one way. I've mentioned how I think it correlates in other ways, but this is a really grounding system to begin with.
Would it surprise anyone here at all if I just got caught up reading Worm's epilogue for five minutes?
“Do nothing,” I said. “Okay? You’re furthest away from this, out of all of us possible heirs. You’re, aside from the little ones, the cousin with the best shot of coming out of this okay. Take your exams. Spend time with friends. Enjoy life. And if this does come-”
Paige isn't coming out of this okay, is she...
“I’ll see about leaving you a few notes. The stuff I’ve figured out, tips. Maybe make sure that Ellie and Kathy can add to it, if they move fast enough.”
That's sweet...but also Grandma left you books and books worth of tips that you haven't read yet
“Why not tell us what’s going on, if I’m going to have to wait until three of my cousins are dead before getting some big surprise about murderous cults or something?” “Because it’s the sort of complicated that messes up everything it touches.”
this is really frustrating because we know blake is right, and we also know that it sounds absolutely crazy
I'm only slightly ashamed of the fact that given this modicum of information I would immediately jump to magic and/or aliens as the cause.
“What’s to stop them from coming after us now? Before we’re in the know?” “Ros- Paige. I can’t get into it.” “Who’s that Ro-something?” Rose. “Someone with a voice that sounds like yours. I’m really tired, Paige. I’ve had a long day, I’ve got another one in front of me.”
Sweet Scion's Gilded Gonads he actually just said that thing
I can't decide if that's funny, touching, heartbreaking, concerning, none of these, or all of these
Why not tell the police? Oh, wait, you said the police chief was a problem.” “And there’s more going on,” I said. I was too tired to navigate this conversation. “Go take your exams. Ignore me, ignore all this.” “What if I don’t believe you? What if I say this is too implausible, and I tell the police everything?”
Blake you can't just Say These Things
I mean I guess it helps a little that she doesn't actually care about you (ouch that really hurt to type) but you seem to think you can be the sacrificial lamb and no one will bat an eye
Besides, we all know who the best Lambs are, and they ain't youdevastating
“I’m just really, really tired, Paige. I have to go to bed. Big day tomorrow, stuff to deal with. Thank you for telling me about the police. I’m sorry I can’t give you more concrete answers to your questions.” “…Sure?” “Good night, Paige. Good luck with your exams.”
HHHHhhhhh
“Is there anything I can do?” Was there? “Just the fact that you’d ask helps,” I told her. “Okay.” I hung up. I could have handled that better, probably.
Ilovethis
Also yes. You probably definitely could've
I felt very, very mortal.
Almost dying thrice in one day will do that for you
I think you'll just have to get used to it, though
I grabbed the same pad of paper I’d used to sketch out the lines I’d drawn on myself and began writing. Rose. Kathryn. Ellie. Roxanne. Ivy. Paige. Whichever of you is left at the time you read this. Blake here. I’m liable to be dead if you’re reading this. Pretty much everyone I’ve talked to has given me a life expectancy in the single-digits.
Woah, what? He's actually gonna write it now this is the best?! I mean, he's still really tired but sometimes that's when I write my best stuff
by that i mean sometimes that's the only time I have to write and so whatever I end up writing is my best
I seriously love this depressing as hell way of catching up with Blake, now that he's kind of accepted his own death as more of a possibility
You’re in for a rude awakening. You’re going to find out some stuff. What I’m going to do here is try to ease you into it. Warn you about some of the pitfalls. I’m going to try to do it in a way that doesn’t screw you over:
man, if only Blake had had this kind of thing. So it goes
Don’t stress over the name ‘Rose’ being up there. It’s a just-in-case. Consider her an illegitimate grandchild. But mainly don’t stress about it. There are enough other things to worry about.
basically ensures that anyone reading this will totally stress over the name Rose being up there
Also does this mean that Blake thinks Rose might replace him if he dies?
Laird Behaim is the enemy. He’s the one directing the Jacob’s Bell contingent. Sandra Duchamp will surprise you and spoil anything you set in motion.
this serves as a way to vent frustration, to talk to rose despite not having rose to talk to, to reflect a little on what's happened to him. I think it's actually pretty healthy
healthier than sleep? probably not, but hey it's only like midnight and he's only gotta wrangle a demon goblin tomorrow he'll be fine
As enemies go, neither of them even come close to comparing to the real danger. You’ll realize what that danger is when you see the books on the shelf to the right of the desk. Resist the temptation. I’ve had to interact with things in that domain, and nothing good comes of it. The lawyers count as part of this real danger.
And it's healthy for the audience to get his honest view on everything, his priorities
Those are the bullet points. Get somewhere safe, then read on. I’ll explain what’s happened thus far, to put it into context…
Hahahahahaha
this is close to how the percy jackson books start, and I just imagine that now Blake starts writing pact
Fell was waiting outside when I emerged, standing on the driver’s side of the car. “Thank you for coming,” I said. “I take it you’re acting a little more civil this morning,” he commented.
Transition right into the next morning, didn't expect to get there this chapter!
“Trying,” I said. “No promises I’ll stay that way. I wound up falling asleep at my dining room table. I’m tired, and you’re working for Conquest, who is trying to enslave me and fling a small share of humanity into infernal ruin… I might get grumpy.”
the real funny thing here is that I read Blake as being genuine in his advance apology
“Goblin should be easier than an abstract demon,” I said. “Goblin first.” “Mm,” he grunted. Not a confirmation, not a refutation either.
I mean, we know that experienced practitioners couldn't deal with the abstract demon, so if the hyena is harder than that it just means blake is so fucked
I almost responded, then I stopped short. When he said he wouldn’t comment, he’d effectively made a promise.
This is a convenient way to stop that kind of bugging
My clothes were so filthy I hadn’t been able to bring myself to wear them, and I had fallen asleep before I’d thought to launder them. For now, I was in clothes with pure utility purposes.
I'm imagining that Blake is just in the most ridiculous outfit right now for no other reason than to amuse myself.
“Can we swing by? I’d like to see what it’s like, then see the Knights, so I can think about the oblivion demon while I work on the goblin problem.” “They aren’t too far from one another,” he said. “That’s doable.” “Thank you,” I told him.
Look at these two! They're almost getting along! they haven't threatened to murder each other even once!
Also that's how I write stories
Normally I'll start writing, pivot to a different story and get an overview, and then keep writing the first one, because story elements come together while I'm writing and I can knock two birds with one stone there, get my subconscious on one problem while I'm working on another
“What gets a guy like you to serve a guy like Conquest?” I asked. “Why would I share that?” he asked. I started to say something that might have been construed as rude or provoking, insinuating that Conquest might have something to offer someone who had trouble with sexual conquests, and shut myself up instead. I couldn’t think of a quippy way to word it, in any event.
I'm not sure if this is funnier than Blake just blurting out "So...you just a sub, or what? Ropebunny? That your thing?" But it's close either way
“I don’t really know what would motivate you,” I said. “But silence sucks, and you haven’t cranked up the radio, so…” “You expect me to share details with you, diabolist? For nothing?” I almost protested against the label, but it was accurate. “An alternative is that I share my life story, filling the endless minutes or hours in the car with personal details, either boring you to tears or getting you to sympathize with me.”
I'm equally curious about both of these guys' life stories actually
“Right,” I said. “So…” “Don’t talk to me, Diabolist. Do not interact with me.” “Are you cool with what Conquest is doing?” “You’re talking to me,” he said.
Am I too tired to find this anything but funny?
because it's really really funny
I'm imagining how I would panel this out comic book style and it's getting funnier the more contexts I put it into
“So being ignorant is the way to go, huh?” I asked. “For billions of people on this Earth, yes,” Fell said. “It affords a kind of protection. Not immunity. But on the whole, the average person is better off for being unaware.”
I'd like to pull this quote that's definitely about magic in this fantasy world and betrays fell's philosophy on absolutely nothing else
“I’d delineate,” I said. “Break it down into awareness and knowledge. There are a lot of things where being aware is shitty. Being aware of how many kids die in Africa is one thing. Being knowledgeable about it implies you know enough to do something about it.” “Or,” Fell said, “Your knowledge empowers you to make others aware, and you make their existence a less happy one.”
Dammit Blake stop reading the same thing into the same situation right exactly as I do it makes me look like I read ahead before commenting and I don't
“Somehow,” I said, “I’m getting the vibe that you’re speaking from experience. Did knowledge not do you any favors?” He was speeding up on a long, straight stretch. “No,” he said. “Neither knowledge nor awareness did me favors. Both were snares, of a sort.”
Fell is not good at not engaging or interacting with Blake
“Or other means,” he said. “You’ve seen the connections that surround us. They appear as threads. Can you name one that couldn’t be used to bind you?” Familial ties, ties to a place, ties to a thing, to ideas, even. “Rose wears a chain,” I said. “Another kind of connection being used to bind?” “Obviously,” Fell said. “You’re here, aren’t you?”
they could even be used
as
Collateral
if you will
“You’re talking about Conquest,” I said. “My father served him, as did his father, and his father before him. As did my brothers and sister. On our twelfth birthday, we each received a gift. Knowledge. But it isn’t a gift we can return, and it’s a gift that burdens. The Lord of Toronto acts according to a certain pattern. He takes, and he doesn’t let go. I notice you didn’t fight to take your companion with you when you left.”
well now i fell bad for him
I have decided that I really like fell
not just because of his backstory, but because I can see a little bit of vulnerability in his conversation here with Blake, a lot more humanity than he's shown, even if it's with the same kind of attitude
“You have to obey him,” I said. “I suspected you’d sworn to serve, I used that against you, forced your hand, even. But I didn’t think…” “That my father would have been forced to lure his sons and daughter into the trap, as his father was before him?” I didn’t miss the slight acceleration as he spoke.
I haven't mentioned the car beats, but there are plenty of speed beats that ramp up the tension of this conversation, even as fell opens up a little bit here
maybe a little bit of a coping mechanism, reminding himself that despite vulnerability he still has some modicum of control in the form of the car and the speed
“You’re kept from acting against him. From hurting yourself or breaking the terms of the agreement?” “Yes.” “But not, I gather, from taking certain risks?” “It is the only rebellion afforded to us. I didn’t take the out that my family did. I have only a sister, who ranges far afield in Conquest’s service, and an uncle who watches over the neighboring areas. My brother died at the hands of goblins, trying to save a small town. My other brother went after one of Conquest’s enemies, who took mercy on him and killed him.”
I'm reading the book just a second before the book is reading the book. Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing but it sure is a thing
kind of weird to be like "oh hey by the way this is what I think this recursion means" right before the book is like "this is what this recursion means"
and since I've done it three times now it's time to talk about it I guess
I think it actually is a good thing, that you're able to pick up on things right before the book points it out, and then also points out something else about it. its the kind of trustworthiness I like to have as a reader.
“I’m sorry, Fell,” I told him. “Hm?” “Being a dick, before. Toying with you.”
sharkhi
“We’re not friends, Thorburn. I’m hoping you die quickly, sometime in the next two days. It would make a lot of things simpler.”
Oh shhhhh, you're coming around
Not giving you the satisfaction. I said. “I ride a motorcycle, and I’ve ridden it in rain and snow when I’ve had to. Four points of contact with the ground? A steel cage all around me? Air bags? Hardly safe, but I’m used to worse.” I felt the engine ease up as he took his foot off the accelerator. He’d wanted to make me uneasy. He might as well have admitted as such aloud.
I'm not articulate enough right now to say something about why I like this, but I really do like this and I don't really know exactly why
“He was bad enough before,” Fell said. “Since you came here, he’s worse.” “Conquest? Yeah.”
I guess this is why they've been such assholes to each other
“My family has long dealt with major threats. We serve in a role similar to witch hunters, evading attention, disarming and misdirecting the greatest Others. If my family hadn’t lost to Conquest and been subsumed, then I might be hunting down the remaining members of your family right now.”
I really hope one of the auxiliary pieces for pact was about fell and/or his family
This is a really interesting take on practitioners
“You know, my little sister’s two?” “Oh?” “She’s one of the followers. Does that mean you’d kill her?” I asked. “Personally? No. Easier to interrupt her before she sets foot on the path. Kill her parents, burn any resources your family holds, manipulate her destiny. If that failed, then I’d wait until she came of a certain age, six at a minimum, where she’s self-aware, or twelve, when she’s about to be indoctrinated, I would likely kill her then.” “Oh?” I mused. I considered. “Pretty shitty, still, but that’s… fairer than many alternatives.”
I feel that there's something not insignificant about this conversation concerning the murder of a two year old girl. Not gonna go down that rabbit hole because frankly the meme is getting a little annoying for me but we'll put a pin in it.
A woman stood in the middle of the road. She turned to face us. I caught a glimpse of the damage that had been done to her. One shoulder and most of her chest torn away. The meat around the wound glistened with blood. Fell drove right through her, and she dissipated. I craned my head around to see her reforming behind us. Walking awkwardly in our direction, before disappearing into the drift of snow.
Love how this beginning of a Supernatural episode here is just all in a practitioner's day's drive
I saw a group of tall men and women standing in the midst of the trees. Half again as tall as normal people, naked, their skin mottled, they were almost camouflaged. They simply stood there, arms at their sides. Each one had been wounded the same way. Their heads had been bitten off, leaving only the neck and a lopsided lower jaw with teeth pointed skyward, tongue lolling. One of the men had a very small erection. “What were those?” I asked. Fell shrugged.
Pffft
that's funny, despite the fact that we're drawing further and further into the hyenas territory
“I suppose his victims can’t go on while a piece of them rests in his stomach,” Fell said. “He’s been around a few centuries, moved over this way when people began to settle the new world. The spectres follow after him when he moves on.”
I thought this guy was a new problem, not some ancient monstrosity that wandered near toronto and suddenly became blake's deal
We passed a burning tree, half the branches torn away. It only dawned on me a moment after we’d passed that it was another Other. A bloodstained patch of snow. A tree with gore strewn around the branches like streamers, an animal that had no right to be alive at the heart of it. Another Other.
I suppose my hope that Blake can maybe bind a few of these already wounded Others for a little more power may have been misplaced. They don't seem like they have much to offer
“You’re happy enough if I die.” “It means Conquest isn’t able to use you. At least not to the same extent. With the hold on your companion, he’ll likely have possession of your ghost, but the impact isn’t as strong.” “Huh,” I said.
This is a really cool new wrinkle in the whole deal with conquest. I mean, fell will still certainly be an obstacle...but...you might be riding with the guy who most wants this whole mutiny thing
“You don’t want to stop moving in a place like this,” Fell said. “Too many things in too much pain, no longer aware of the rules and treaties. They invite disaster, breaking oaths in blind attempts to distract themselves from their agony, and the malign spirits cluster around them as a consequence. Everything spirals down to ruin, here.”
That's probably gonna be a hard no on using them for power here, and I really don't want to
I debated, then said, “Wait, please.” “They’re expecting you,” he said, gesturing. I got out. Not two seconds later, Fell peeled out, tires crunching on snow. He revved as he disappeared down the road.
Fell and blake is hillarious
consider it kismeshipped
and hey now I care about him so you know what that means! More emotional turmoil!
And he’d promised to deliver me to each location in turn, but… hadn’t promised to bring me home. Well, at least he hadn’t left me in the goblin’s woods.
Something to keep in mind, though
I wasn’t halfway to the front of the convenience store when a man sauntered out. A large cat leaped onto the snow-covered railing, then the top of the ice box. I could see the connection between them.
i bet they're pretty Familiar
He leveled a shotgun at me. “You have two seconds to keep me from shooting,” he said. “Stop Conquest?” I asked. No hesitation. Which amounted to half a second. He deliberated for a long second. The shotgun dropped back to his side. “Come in.”
YES!!! I think you've got your first recruit, and it's Geoff from his Mother's Basement
Oh that's the end of the chapter
awesome
I thought I was maybe gonna have the time to knock out two chapters tonight
I...uh...don't
but I'm hoping to see you a lot sooner than my current track record because this story gets better the more of it I read
Bye for now!
Avatar
JayManiac 06-Jun-19 04:45 PM
Somehow I woke up really early and have 2 hours before I have to do anything CharmanderHi
you know what that means! It's basement knights time!
4.10!
The Knights weren’t quite what I’d expected, as far as practitioners went. I wasn’t sure what I did expect, or why my expectations were high. Laird was… a cop. Sandra was a well dressed, prim woman. Maggie wouldn’t draw any particular attention.
I've been really excited to meet these guys for exactly this reason. What does a more casual group of practitioners look like? How do people get dragged into this world in a not-blake-thorburn fashion, and what do they do once they're here?
Four of them. Three guys and a woman. Very casual, slouching and entirely at home in their individual seats, a young man behind the counter, man and woman at a table beneath the front window, and Mr. Shotgun standing beside me at the door.
Is this..everyone? I mean, practitioner groups tend to be smaller than you'd expect, and this particular group has lost a few members to the abstract devil over yonder...but still. Maybe this is just the council of the much grander, powerful-and-numerous-enough-to-take-down-conquest contingent?
“Names have a kind of power, don’t they?” the youngest of them said. A boy, about fourteen, with a resemblance to Shotgun. No mustache or beard, though, a t-shirt instead of a sweater.
start em young, y'know? old enough for Fell to kill without breaking a sweat, but young
“You’re irritable, twitchy?” I asked. “A bit.” “I bound an imp yesterday. He was making animals and people feel that way. Act in ways they normally wouldn’t. Now… well, now he’s not affecting them anymore, though traces linger.”
I really needed this reminder of Pauz's influence- I wonder how long it'll stick around? I know it's only been a day, but it's been a major inconvenience so far. Maybe he'll track enough of it around to the various places and people he interacts with that he won't have as much of it on him eventually
“Well, that’s only a small part of why I’m here. I’m thinking you probably don’t have a lot of answers about that demon in the factory. The real reason I’m here is that I’m looking for some allies. Because I’m not sure anyone wants Conquest to finish sending me on errands and start using me for something more serious.” “Demon stuff,” Shotgun said. “Yeah,” I said. “What if I shot you?” he offered. “You could stop worrying about being used. You’d be dead.”
Well this whole "blunt and honest" approach is going real well so far
“And?” I asked. “You focus in? You do…” “We dabble. All of us dabble. We’re with the council, because it means we don’t get blindsided if something comes up or changes, easier access if we want to check it’s okay to grab a certain demesne or get a familiar. Maybe once in a while we can do a favor for a bit of knowledge or a trinket.”
Well that's gonna be a "no" in the whole "do they have the firepower to help blake take down conquest?" question
this is looking...not good. They might be less powerful allies than Maggie, from what we've heard. At least she wants the kind of power and interaction with Others Blake would need right now
I was running out of time, and I didn’t have any meaningful allies. I was actually losing progress in terms of allies, if I counted losing Rose.
Yeah, that's a kind of Bleakeness I hadn't even considered. Better start making friends with goblin-demons
but seriously, no one's bound this thing in a century, and fucking Blake is supposed to stand a chance? Moreso than the imp, I don't see how this whole thing is possible quite yet
“Yeah,” I said. “Then… I’m guessing you’re not exactly willing to put your lives on the line? He’s an inconvenience, as you said, not an enemy.” That got me a slow shake of the head, and a very casual, “You’re pretty much on the mark there.” I sighed, leaning against the counter.
And that's the rub. Maybe he'd get their vote if they wanted to democratically depose conquest. Otherwise: Blake is still screwed
I like the knights, despite how...useless they are
I feel like I'd be a knight, and then meet an inglorious end at the hands of something powerful enough to erase any evidence of me from existance
if you can still see this liveread and remember I exist, it's a good sign
“We’re new, so I don’t know much of the history. Sisters of the Torch, as I understand it, they were a sorority or club at the University, got their hands on something. Built themselves up. Each new year the group would select a few worthy members of their club or whatever to join the core group. Nine parts secret society to one part practitioner. They’re more likely to give you a special discount on real estate or help you ask for a favor in local government than do anything fancy, if you get me?”
I love the idea of a secret college society with access to real live magic- that's just viewed as small-fry by any practitioner with respect. It's just a really cool concept and now I want to meet them and watch them behave
“Elementals. Most basic kind of spirits you get, dealing with nature. Rain, sun, fire, harvest…”
I mean hey, it's a step up from June and Leonard, who are still your only sources of power besides the glamour
and besides, getting contacts is gonna be the most useful part of this whole extravaganza, I think
“She is what she is. She occasionally takes a student under her not-so-proverbial wing. We’ve talked it over, and the general consensus is she finds the stragglers and tests them. Winners get mentored. Get a natural glow about ’em, you know what I mean?”
I mean, it'd be nice to be friends with an arbiter of karma, I guess
“I could do with some of that good karma,” I said. “But I don’t think even the Sphinx’s ministrations are about to help me with the massive debt my family’s incurred.”
Yeah, all too possible
Shotgun nodded. “Astrologer? Powerful. Doing a succession thing. Every time they get old, they find an apprentice, teach them, and pass on the title and the knowledge. I never really got what she did. Future sight, sure. Connections? Yeah. Summoning things from the sky? Yep. But never directly, there’s some underlying system of rules and relationships she has to navigate.” “She’s not a fan of the… guy in charge.” “Nope. Her old mentor offered himself up, to be one of those tragic ghosts in the Lord of Toronto’s manor, buying her safety with his afterlife. She doesn’t pay any tithe, and she mostly has free reign, so long as she attends enough meetings and doesn’t act directly against him.”
Between this little bit of knowledge, the power plays in the city, and the fact that she finds you hot, I think we've found our obi wan kenobi
send rose over as a hologram "you're our only hope"- oh wait she's in a coma and you're still screwed
“Eye of the Storm isn’t human. And it is a servant of our local Lord. One you’ll need to worry about. Our Lord needs something done, he asks Fell. He needs something destroyed, he gives an order to the Eye.” “What is it?” I asked. “A fire alarm going off at midnight,” Shotgun said. “All the exits blocked by flame.”
But of course, as soon as we hear about someone who might want to help- even if not directly- we hear about this thing
“What I do know, and I’m welcoming any of the rest of you to jump in and correct me, is it’s a thing that tends to change as humanity does. We start to use wires and electricity, and the Eye became less fire and more storm, you know? It’s a living reminder that whatever we were given, whatever we took or learned, energy-wise, there’s still a danger there, if we don’t show proper respect.” “And it serves at the whim of the Lord of Toronto?” “Arms, legs, torso, head, but nobody’s going to look at it and think it’s human. Keeps to its own until it’s called. If you’re going up against the Lord of Toronto, don’t give him a chance to call.” I nodded, even as I was thinking about how Conquest had brought Rose to his domain. How could I prevent him from doing the same with this ‘eye’?
I'm guessing what Conquest really wants out of this is something other than the eye to call upon his enemies. Like a mote, or a hyena
But the concept of the eye itself is really fascinating, and has a few implications for my "everything started as human" theory
“Then…” I said, reaching for an answer. “You want less? Not access to a whole library, but maybe a guarantee of a book once in a blue moon?” Shotgun looked at the others. I saw one or two shrugs and some nods. “You’re speaking closer to our language now,” he said. “But the risk is still too high.”
Blake is offering an awful lot of resource that he doesn't have an awful lot of access to right about now
“Makes for an awful lot of wondering, you know? Oblivion. Knowing we maybe had friends or family, people we had as friends, people we loved, and they were devoured. Eaten so completely that we can’t even remember them.” I nodded. I put the coke down on the nearest shelf. “I’m sorry for your losses, whoever they might have been.” “Thank you.”
This is maybe the most terrifying thing in the book, as abstract as it is. The sort of JDATE terrifying.
“She’s still my girlfriend, I think,” the young man said. “At least, that’s what I think she was.” “Yeah,” his father said. “You’re going to have to fill me in,” I said. “She disappeared,” Shotgun said. “Few days after that afternoon. We’ve talked about it, tried to figure it out, actively tried to find her. But there was nothing. She wasn’t eaten, or we wouldn’t even know, but…” “I can’t really remember her face,” the son said. “Or her last name.” “I think,” Shotgun said, “The people around her were eaten. Mother, father, maybe a sibling or two, a friend. There wasn’t enough connecting her to this world, so she just…” “Went,” the son said.
And this? Is...just so much worse than what I was imagining. Adds a whole new layer of horrible to all of it
“I look back at the places we were investigating,” Shotgun said, “And they were big. A factory? An old farmstead? Far too big for our sad little group. Too big for a group twice our size.” The guy sitting under the window spoke, “It eats away at you. Wondering what we had, before it was taken away as thoroughly as something can be taken. We can’t do it again. Can’t go up against something big and lose.” “Can’t take the risk,” Shotgun said.
I'd like to compliment the various kinds of awful that I hate reading in this amazing book. It just brings a new platter of heartbreak and fear of oblivion or claws and teeth and fleas and cold terror every time
“I’m going in alone.” “Then you’re probably going to die. Too many nasty, angry things in those woods, I’d give you low odds even if the Hyena wasn’t there, if you just had to go in and out, dealing with the flora and fauna in there.” “And the Hyena?” I asked. “The Hyena caught and mutilated each and every one of them. Think about that. Think about how long it’s been around, the number of fights it’s been in.”
He has to deal with that thing tomorrow, but he has to deal with this today holy shit he really is doomed
“Try to bind the Hyena,” I said, “or die in the process.” “You know what happens when he kills you, right?” “I know,” I said. “I don’t think your chances would be that much worse going up against the Lord of Toronto on your own,” the son said.
How's that for a thought? Maybe he's so doomed he should just take a running charge at the lord of toronto himself
“They’d be a great deal worse,” the fat guy by the window said. “The Lord is an Incarnation, and the goblin is still a mid-tier goblin. Mid-tier or not, it’s still a bad idea to go up against the Hyena.”
the only part about this that's hopeful, is that if he does manage to bind and deliver all three of these things, he can hopefully set them up to kick conquest's ass. I mean, these challenges are so horrible that they can bring a load of meanness to conquest's front door
but even that hope isn't as hopeful, because a part of what makes Hyena and Pauz so shitty to deal with is their environments, the crap that's been building up behind them. And I doubt all of that is gonna be brought to bear against conquest even if blake succeeds. I've actually been wondering what happens to the hyena's entourage once he's bound/defeated. Do they become bindable things that Blake could use? Do they stay like that forever? Slowly spread across toronto unable to die or be bound?
“I’ve got someone who I can’t leave behind,” I said. “Conquest shackled her, and… yeah.” “How attached are you to her?” the son asked me. “Do you love her?” That was a good question. Did I love Rose? Was it borderline narcissism if I did? Familial love? “I don’t have a lot of experience with love,” I said. “There are people I think I love, who I owe for what they’ve done on my behalf, the support they’ve given me, and maybe she fits in that same category, kind of, but…”
Ouch. And no, it's not narcissism if you love Rose- for one thing she's not the same person in terms of all the qualities that a narcissist would admire in themself- and for another, self-love and narcissism aren't the same thing
If you had a crush on her, that'd be weird in twelve different ways
but genuine love for someone as a person- especially love for yourself- is generally a good thing
“If you have to think about it, maybe it’s best to just walk away,” the son said. “Can’t,” I said. “You swore an oath?” Shotgun asked. It hadn’t even crossed my mind.
this is such a masterful and impactful group of sentences
of course
he's blake
he doesn't have to think about it, and he'd never walk away
“How much chain?” “How much chain do I want to bring, or how much chain do I need for this situation?” I asked. “Two different things.” “There you go again, with your distinctions.”
The devil's in the distinctions, shotgun. The devil's in the distinctions
💜 1
“Then, given the chance, you’re not going to touch the things?” “I can’t promise that,” I said. “Oh?” “I read some propaganda, just yesterday. Justifying what diabolists do. It wasn’t… completely wrong.”
Sweet scion, Blake, word choice. the propaganda is just plain working at this point
“Do they? Look at what’s happening here. Three minor threats, too much trouble to deal with. They get ignored until they can’t be ignored. Then what happens? Yeah, maybe the local powers do gather together. And all of them suffer like your Knights did? Lots of damage? Powerful figures brought low or infected with taint?”
I mean, yeah. I'd call what blake just did with Pauz a good thing, generally
and if binding the hyena frees all the spirits and ghosts and unfortunate Others he's wounded, I'd call that a good thing too
still...
you can't help but wonder if diabolism is what created demons in the first place
well, not diabolism as it currently is
but some aspect of it
I mean, if you've seen my thoughts on the dragon prince's magic, you probably have a good idea of exactly where I'm headed with this
“What if that’s true?” Shotgun asked me. “Maybe we should keep our distance.” “That seems to be the safe bet everyone else is making,” I told him. “I wouldn’t blame you much.” “Much?” “You’d still be retreating at a time I think the locals really need to be mustering their forces. Conquest is fucking dangerous. I’d blame you for ignoring that.”
I love blake's...heroism? Can I call it that? He's a genuinely good person by my measure, and that's a big part of why it sucks to see him suffer
I've ragged on Blake's inactivity as a protagonist in the early parts of the book, and I stand by that for the most part, but this is a kind of activism that I really like to see from him- I think that Blake's role as a protagonist is far better filled at this point in the story
“What do you know about shamanism?” Shotgun asked me. “I know… maybe three symbols, off the top of my head. Dealing with the smallest spirits.” “I’m going to show you two more. One for quiet, for the chain.”
sharkhi
Dear Lords of Gimel, Blake needed this kind of win
he needs any little scrap of power or tool he can get at this point
“That symbol is one for wind.” “Wind?” He shrugged. “Mess with other elemental forces, and you risk disrupting the mechanism. Weapon is maybe a little lighter, pushes a little harder.” I nodded.
I have Blake put down as an airbender, so this is a fist pump moment for me in particular
“That thing in the factory fucked us up so bad we can never even fathom what it did to us,” he said, his voice low. I could see him glancing over at his son, at the other end of the room, as if verifying the guy was out of earshot. “I think we had actual lives before.” “Yeah,” I said. “If you want to stop it? Or something like it? I’m not getting in your way.” “Right on.”
I feel so bad for Nick. I could imagine two or three people that, if they were wiped from existence, whatever life I had would crumble
I know there's no way for blake to fix what happened to them, but I really hope there is
“I’d drop you further in, but…” the fat man, Teddy, trailed off. He had an explanation, he just didn’t want to give it. He was scared. So was I, frankly. “Wish me luck,” I said. “Good luck.”
You literally have the worst luck in the world as a metaphysical rule
Ilovethis 1
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Fursuit Lightsaber 06-Jun-19 05:52 PM
sharkhi
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JayManiac 06-Jun-19 05:52 PM
Ghosts were already emerging from the trees. Some ethereal, some so real I had to look twice to see where they weren’t quite real. Feet a little hard to make out, or faces a touch too contorted. All bore ghastly wounds where the goblin had bitten them. Some veered my way. I backed away at the same time the car pulled a ‘u’ turn, and the ghosts chose to follow after the car rather than me. That wouldn’t remain the case.
I think of the power of June and how much that's already helped blake, and can't help but imagine if he was able to bind a few more of these ghosts, have a little more of a bargaining chip or a fighting chance against it all
I’d inscribed my boots with quieting runes, and the crunching of snow and branches were muted. More blood spent. I could have used glamour, but I valued the versatility the small tin offered me over the cost that the blood payment involved. Being a little bit more me wouldn’t keep me alive in a pinch. Being able to change my voice or features could.
I think it might be a bit too early in the morning for my spiel on the economization of the human soul in today's society and how I'm more and more sure of the parallels the book is making to it, but this is definitely getting a pin in it for my giant essay on the subject when I've finished pact
It’s an illusion. Pretend. Nice words, but it was hard to convince my body. I hauled myself forward. My eyes fell on a tree with low branches. I wasn’t silent as I ascended, hauling myself up with arm strength more than my legs. It didn’t help that the ghost was still screaming. Something reacted to the noise.
And we've gone from oblivion to...chilling endless suffering
I looked, and I saw a ghost perched in the branches. A little boy with a hooded coat. No blood, no bleeding. “Who knows?” I whispered back. “The wolf-thing. The worst of them. He knows. Run. Have to run if I’m going to get home. Keep running, keep hiding, and I’ll be able to go home.” With that, he leaped down. Both ghost and lumbering Other turned, but both were too slow. He disappeared, like the wind. Little fucker. I was stuck where I was.
Okay, we've seen this little boy twice now, once when we were with fell and once now
unless I'm mistaken which i might be
think there's a three beat with him?
Anyhow, that's the chapter, really loved it as always!
and hey this only took an hour and a half! I'll see y'all next time!
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JayManiac 07-Jun-19 04:35 AM
You guys are making it all even worse
sharkhi 1
The knights are the second most screwed people we've met in the book
the first being Blake and Rose, obviously
Gonna edit that to be practitioners, because Dowght
but also I guess they're just a unique kind of screwed
The idea that I want a full book about every character we meet is as true for pact as for parahumans
💜 1
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Fursuit Lightsaber 07-Jun-19 04:40 AM
Yeah, their horror is the kind you have to sit upon for a while
And consider how your life would change if you could no longer remember person X or Y
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JayManiac 07-Jun-19 04:41 AM
Like, now I want to read/write a book about someone who's had someone or lots of someones stolen by oblivion, JDATE's Shadow People, or something like them
The idea that your dead end life dabbling in the lowest of magics might've been something else only days ago is so powerful
I've already read the chapter again, partially just to stew in it a little longer, (and partially to convince myself that we're doing something important with "like the wind" kid) and that line: “That thing in the factory fucked us up so bad we can never even fathom what it did to us,” he said, his voice low. I could see him glancing over at his son, at the other end of the room, as if verifying the guy was out of earshot. “I think we had actual lives before.” hit even harder the second time.
sharkhi 1
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JayManiac 07-Jun-19 07:05 AM
Is it possible? two chapters in one day? Is J showing signs of story addiction again? Is this a really really engaging story?
agree 1
CharmanderHi 1
doof 1
sharkhi 2
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A bird 🐦 07-Jun-19 07:05 AM
You've been stuck thinking about the oblivion demon this whole time, haven't you?
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JayManiac 07-Jun-19 07:06 AM
And about hoodie kid!
...but absolutely yes
4.11!!!!
Congratulations, Blake Thorburn. You’ve successfully reverted two or three million years. You’re an ape in a tree, hiding from the scary things.
Say it with me: when we last left of...
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A bird 🐦 07-Jun-19 07:07 AM
Blake was screwed!
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JayManiac 07-Jun-19 07:07 AM
Again, that wave of pain. An illusory sort of pain, something that might have knocked me out of the tree if I hadn’t been wrapped around a branch.
Blake was screwed!!
But more and more chapters I'm just like: well but he really is this time
same 2
The big thing that loomed beneath me, it seemed, wasn’t any more a fan of the ghost than I was. This wasn’t a bad thing. Wasn’t a good thing either. It was just a thing.
and it's because he's so many different kinds of screwed that it's hard to compare them and thus it just always feels worse than last time
dear Lords of Gimel, I hope this isn't harder on me as a reader than last time because I actually have to sleep after reading this
(that being the pauz hauz)
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A bird 🐦 07-Jun-19 07:09 AM
Q: In what way is Blake screwed? A: Yes.
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JayManiac 07-Jun-19 07:10 AM
I wasn’t sure how to label the thing. Yeti? Troll? Ogre? It was big, strong, and somewhere midway between human and animal. The books had said that the more brutish Others hadn’t survived the years without being enslaved or killed, but it could be argued that this one wasn’t exactly alive. Or free.
last time it was a bunch of little things, now it's one big thing and another less big but far more dangerous and ferocious thing!
The Hyena was apparently coming my way. That was, if the ghost wasn’t simply repeating a stock phrase. “Day! Oh god, Day! Oh god!”
Cue ghost repeating stock phrase. Jegus, ghosts are creepy. They're like that NPC that just has a set of phrases and they're stuck like that until you interact with them. Like that Talos worshipper I've interacted with, burned to death, and shot with arrows on various playthroughs.
Also, look on the bright side Blake! Now you don't have to track him down, he's...uh...coming right for you. Yay?
Mr. ‘Legs’ here was a car accident victim. One nearby. He’d hurt his legs, his girlfriend or wife or sister or something had been in the passenger seat, dying. Could I reason with him?
If binding these ghosts becomes possible post-hyena-binding (assuming blake actually gets that far and doesn't die), I really hope Blake shows up at conquest's door on the third day with a Hyena-damned army of these fuckers
"Heard you were a dick to furniture ghosts canadafucker"
If Maggie can be goblin queen, then Blake could be ghost general let's make it happen
But I couldn’t afford to make too much noise and give the ogre-troll thing a chance to home in on me. I didn’t trust the shotgun to work, and I did believe that a missed or ineffective shot would get me killed. Besides, I suspected I’d need what I had for the Hyena.
Are you just...are you just gonna fuckin shoot the Hyena? Are you telling me in a hundred Andras-damned years you think no one's been like: "...guys...what if we shoot it?"
I whistled, a small, tentative sound. The big thing turned to face me, drawing one hand back. The whistle echoed, faint sounds a short distance away, bouncing off the trees. The thing turned, first one way, then the other.
I guess we're lucky this troll never trained with Cradle's mercs
is that a spoiler?
Also I've defaulted to calling it a Troll despite the fact that we know it's almost certainly not, considering Sandra Duchamp's impression of Troll populations
been sad days since the newer Troll generations began being born as pure constructs of the internet
but the world of Others must adapt
Was I supposed to rationalize with this very confused spirit? Or take a different tack? No time to waste. “You killed Day,” I said.
Holy shit. That's cold, and you're not even dealing with a hypothermia victim this time
“You fucked up,” I said, injecting a note of anger into my voice. “Day’s dead.” “Please, Day! My arm, it’s not supposed to hurt like this!” “Why are you talking? Who’s listening besides yourself? Day is dead.” The ghost went momentarily quiet.
Like, this is a little crueler than Blake's normally been with ghosts, which tracks with my diabolism/practitionerism = economization of the self and loss of important human things but society forces you to by saying "haha you'll literally die if u don't do this"
keeping three eyes out for that in the future of Blake <> ghosts
“You were in an accident,” I said. “What are you going to do?” Move it along. Push him to follow the script.
That said, I get what he's doing, even if he jumped to an unusually cruel way to start prodding at the issue
“You can’t reach your phone. What’s the next step?” “My arm, it hurts.” Not a bad thing, if he was unraveling. But it was taking too long, and I only had thirty seconds to a minute at best.
This is a different kind of tension, where we understand the stakes, we understand the mechanism, we understand how touchy this situation is-
but it's not a fight, it's not even really a typical conversation, it's just trying to get this ghost to shut up and it's a super creative and unique concept for the opening conflict of the chapter
Not necessarily a good thing. More were coming. I might very well have cut off my head to spite my face. Or whatever the appropriate metaphor was for attempting to solve one problem and creating a bigger one.
Oh Blake, don't worry
you always do that, you're great at it!
I was nearly out of time. Others were now drawing closer, getting caught up in one of the same tangles of branches that had slowed me down. Except they didn’t care about making noise. Not ghosts. Men and women in white, features bland and blanched by pain, their clothes stained red around gouges where sharp blades had penetrated the cloth and flesh beneath. Intelligent enough to be distracted by the sound. Perhaps intelligent enough to look for me and find me.
Are some of these undead humans? Not ghosts wounded by the Hyena, but actual humans, awakened or not? I mean, the unawakened afford some protection, but it could be perceived as a wolf attack. Of course, lots of things in this story have looked human and not been, so that's not all these things could be. We only really know one thing about them, and that's what Fell told us: they don't follow oaths, they're in horrible pain, and they have nothing to lose
My vision swam. It was bad enough that I nearly let go of the branch. I could hear a growling echoing around the area. The Hyena. No.
Well, it looks like you found him! Mission accomplished!
Three or four stab wounds made themselves felt around my own knees. Illusory, not real, no real harm done, but I still felt it, still screamed, a strangled sound. I closed my eyes, to shut out everything else, to keep myself from losing my lunch as my vision wavered. Adrenaline flooded my body. Again, not real adrenaline. Only an illusion, the desperate sort of energy one got when they had no other choice but to face terror head-on. No doubt in my mind: destroying one’s own body in a desperate attempt at freedom and escape was terrifying.
Theeemes? themes? Also wow this is really putting Blake through the ringer
I mean, not as viscerally as the PauzHauz, but it's still hitting the right beats
I got a bad vibe from them. Of all the Others here that were in pain, they were in a eerily quiet, bottled-up sort of pain. They were solemn. They were different, cold, and I liked them less than I liked anything else I could make out.
I don't have any jguesses at the minute, but I sure am terrified and that's really what matters
I couldn’t say whether it was one more straw, to break the camel’s back and unravel him or if he’d simply gone back to where the accident happened, but he was no longer beneath me.
I was kind of surprised at the amount of time we spend with Blake dealing with this one ghost. It was a good opening beat, setting the scene while maintaining tension
Insulation. Hold in the heat, hold in the sounds, the smells. Abstract. But the Hyena seemed to be a very concrete being. One that dealt directly with the world, gouging it, biting it, leaving it ruined and in pain. I had to work against its basic nature, and that meant being a little less direct. In a simpler sense, there was no fucking way I was going to fight it on its turf, using weapons of its choice.
Pretty much the most nebulous fight fire with water Blake has come up with so far, but I hope it at least has some merit to the idea
Luckily, as long as he thinks it works...maybe?
I circled around them, giving them a wide berth. They paid me no mind, only sitting there, shuddering, occasionally exclaiming in pain. Reaching the stream, I saw another ghost by the water’s edge. The hooded boy.
Here he is again! Also I'm not properly imagining some of this, but it's all really chilling
like, if this were a movie, a shot of this family that occasionally "exclaims in pain" and is just shuddering in their disjointed, ghost-like way could be like the focus of any one scene
To have it as a background element here, even in the middle of the day, is just so unsettling and horror-esque
He spoke, but it sounded more like he was talking to himself. “Feet are cold, but I have to keep running. Have to. If I keep running and keep hiding someone will come and find me and I can go home.” That said, he took off. No snow crunched under his feet. There was only the sound of wet socks squishing.
Did he just run from the hyena and die of...i don't know
not hypothermia
Wait, but does the hyena even chase living humans? I think we said no
Why doesn't this kid have any wounds? Is it just because his traumatic death had something to do with escape and running so he's constantly doing the action that lets him evade Hyena?
But he seems to know about at least one of the others
unless the wolf thing he was talking about is just an actual wolf he war running from when he died
Or did it have a way of engineering these deaths? Spook a car into going off the road? Drive a homeless family into the water? Doing whatever had been done to this boy?
Almost certainly, considering that it's a goblin and that's what we've been told they do. Just, make everything a lot worse
Another ghost squatted on the far end of the stream, face impossible to make out, pants down, hands holding nearby branches for balance. It was shitting an endless stream of liquid shit and blood at the edge of the stream. Claw marks criss-crossed its back, having gouged flesh, shattering ribs and spine. They apparently hadn’t been having a good day before the Hyena appeared to savage their ghost.
this is really really disturbing and not even in the classic "what's the worst pain we can make you imagine today"
Alexis had once given me a hand to help me up from the lowest point in my life. Or the lowest point before I inherited the house, in any event. Even if this was a ghost, a psychic echo, I felt like it deserved the same. I knew it wasn’t real. It was merely a replay, a bad recording. There wasn’t anything to it beyond the scenes it lived out in perpetuity. But I still felt like I should be doing something.
And that's why I love you, Blake. Please don't lose that.
I was focused enough on the navigation and my thoughts of the shitting ghost that I was caught entirely off guard by what waited at the top of the hill. The little boy stood there. His eyes technically on me, but looking through me. From my angle, I could see his face beneath the hood. Large eyes, with exaggerated dark circles under them, a thin mouth, hair plastered to his forehead by sweat. Hands in his pockets.
What's the deal with this kid!? I'm so curious!
Also, he's not wounded, so maybe he can still be bound, even if all the other Others can't
Hoodie kid, meet June and Leonard, your new best pals
“The slaves sang songs,” he said. Voice high. Prepubescent. “What?” “…a secret way to spread the word.”
uh...how old is this kid? Centuries?
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JayManiac 07-Jun-19 07:50 AM
Singing? Halfway between a whisper and a song. “Something, something, trouble the water…” he murmured. I heard hints of a chorus. They could have been an echo, but there were different tones, different cadences. Some were more song, others more whisper. “Rest assured,” I said, “You’re doing a fantastic job at being creepy. As ghosts go, you’re first rate.”
Used to be scared shitless of ghosts as a kid, up until early high school. My anxiety disorders manifested as many things do in my life: through fantasy and defaulting to the supernatural to explain or exaggerate the world around me. I wouldn't've survived reading pact a number of years ago, and sometimes it's just good to look at the strides we've made towards being more okay
That's a little bit of a tangent, just something I was reminded of by the subsequent appearances of ghosts, children, explicit creepiness
anyhow, back to explicitly creepy ghost children
A half-dozen flickering replays all at once. Back and forth over the river. While the scenes played out, he appeared again in front of me, still very alert, watching the surroundings. “Not your average ghost,” I said.
What the actual fuck hoodie kid? You're so cool and also really foreboding!
I had a very bad feeling. A sense of pressure. Foreboding.
Dammit Blake stop stealing all my words
Was this the trick? The trap that saw me tumbling over the waterfall to become a ghost? “Are… you the Hyena?” I asked.
Wait just a fuckin second
“The wolf,” he whispered, in response, eyes wide and staring.
Okay that's gonna be a no, probably
It stood in the thickest patch of trees. The way it was obscured, I could only make out bits and pieces. Fur, matted and stained with mud and dark bodily fluids. It breathed hard enough that I could see its chest expanding with each intake of breath. Fog appeared with each exhalation, and it took a moment before the fog faded enough to reveal a deep red eye that I could make out through the gloom and intervening branches.
Unholy fucking shit. Wildbow doesn't always lean into descriptions but when he does. I mean we've been building up to this thing for chapters now, and...it's just perfectly awful
All in all, the thing was big enough that its shoulders rubbed branches I couldn’t have touched if I reached overhead and jumped. Silent. I hadn’t heard it approach, hadn’t heard branches break or snow crunch. Its breathing didn’t make a sound.
It strikes the perfect balance of exactly what we expected and nothing like what we expected, and that's beautiful. Something I see a lot in Pact, actually
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A bird 🐦 07-Jun-19 07:57 AM
Wildbow is good at it
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JayManiac 07-Jun-19 07:58 AM
This thing was mangy, malnourished, and it was still strong enough to beat me in any contest of strength, no question. I owed that little boy ghost an apology, for the accusation. No mistaking what I was looking at.
Yeah that sounded stupid when you said it and its stupidness hasn't deteriorated over time
“Hello,” I said. “You’re the thing they call the Hyena, I take it?”
Ah Blake, always trying the talking method. Maybe you should learn its name! Probably something like Fucknugget the terrible
Hatchet wouldn’t do a thing. Shotgun… assuming it was vulnerable and not weak to the iron, and the bullets would hurt it as much as they would hurt any other non-Other thing, I couldn’t imagine the shotgun doing anything substantial. The chain was too fucking short to surround the bastard. Maybe this was a suitable battleground. But I sure as fuck wasn’t ready to fight the thing.
Why wasn't Blake hired by the Incarnation of Clarification that would've made this so much easier
Seeing it more clearly, where I could make out any feature, I could see that it didn’t resemble a hyena. It didn’t resemble a wolf, either. Everything fit together wrong. Proportions were off, if even, muscles overlapped in odd ways. This was not a creature crafted by years of evolution. It had been made wrong, more like a humanoid thing that had once walked on two legs and then been twisted and wrenched into a four-legged shape, everything torn apart and rearranged and regrown until it was this.
Every description here approaches the look and feel of this scene differently, and I love how much time we're spending on it
“Do-” I started. I stopped because he lunged.
OH FUCKNUGGETS
When I looked up, the thing was no longer there. I wasn’t sure I wanted to call it the Hyena anymore. It felt off-target. A bad name for what I was dealing with. But what fit? The Goblin-beast? A bit wordy inside my head. The beast? That had connotations. The monster? That would have to do.
You're about to die maybe don't stress the names right about now
although as long as we are,
I'd argue that The Beast has some pretty fucking fitting connotations for exactly what the fucking fucknugget you're dealing with right now
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JayManiac 07-Jun-19 08:13 AM
The little boy had apparently found a way to evade the monster he called ‘the wolf’. Crossing the water. Not explicitly an anti-goblin measure, but… well, labels were dangerous.
Hey yeah looks like granny thorburn was right about at least one thing. one very specific thing
and very little else
I mean, it's probably something you pick up pretty quickly as a diabolist
and setting up the water as the one advantage blake has maybe scrounged up is really important to place right about exactly here in the chapter and I love it
I headed into the trees, and the cries of the ghosts carried sensations. Illness, an inability to breathe, pains here and there, disorientation, blindness, weakness. Few lasted for more than a second.
That's so cool! and like horrible and bad and really inconvenient but also really cool. I can't really imagine adapting this to a visual medium I just imagine feeling it
I was following the boy, after a fashion. Taking his advice on paths and on that escape route. Problem was, well, he’d died. His advice wasn’t perfect, or he’d be alive.
Hahahahahahahaha
The murmuring of ghosts fell behind me as I moved on. I saw an Other to my right, something more wooden than anything, doubled over in pain, but it moved too slowly to pursue me.
Maybe if it had water, it would've been able to escape the hyena
I guess it was too Dryad
Ilovethis 1
“Little boy,” I said. Not even a glimmer. “Wet boots,” I said. If there was a connection, I couldn’t make it out. How to connect to him? “The little survivor, trying to make it until he can go home,” I murmured.
Little boys rarely identify as little boys
I could tell, now, there was a conflux, a well. A star at the center of this small world of trees and hills and frozen streams. Something powerful and scary enough that every other thing in these woods related to it in some fashion. The monster. Through the connections that surrounded me, I could see it. No sooner did I try, than I felt it looking back. Far away. Navigating around the stream.
Why didn't he try this before!? Oh. Okay. That's a good reason why. Sometimes I forget that connections are two-way
unless you're fell
Besides, I needed to make progress. Backtracking over and over would be safe, but it wouldn’t get that monster bound and over to Conquest’s custody. I headed in the direction of the kid ghost. A kind of conviction settled within me, as pieces clicked into place. This was how he operated, how he hunted. The territory was his, almost like a demesne. All spirits fled from him, because there was no denying what he was and what he did to Others and mortals both. Thus, the rules of the world were bent. He made no sound, because there were no spirits to be found.
Woah, you know everything I said was cool in this whole amazing chapter?
Fuck all that, this is the thing deserving of the label cool holy fucknuggets
He littered the area with wounded spirits. His spirits. Maybe he held parts of them in his stomach. Maybe he had a kind of ownership of them because he’d traumatized them. But he maintained a kind of power over them all the same. When a connection did form, when something did reach him, he was sensitive to it. Easy enough to be sensitive, when the only spirits that maintained any connection to him were the ones that had to. Any maimed ghost I had contact with, in turn, contacted him.
He's the hive, the borg. He's the Hyvena!
Hyvena is also the name of my next fantasy protagonist, thank you very much
“What’s your name?” I called out. Stupid question, dangerous, given the fact that any connection to him would help the monster find us. A ghost could only give answers from its particular script. “Evan,” the hooded ghost said.
Like Blake's been saying, this isn't your typical ghost...maybe it's the fact that I was also once a young kid bouncing around streams, as opposed to an older kid bouncing around streams and rocks and stuff
When he looked at me, eerily enough, he looked at me. Not through me.
I get that every ghost is different, and that labels are dangerous, but this Evan kid really does things his own way
“I’m seeing things,” he said, his voice small. “The wolf was there from the beginning, but there are other things. There’s a fog. And the hungrier and tireder I get, the thicker the fog gets. I see things in the fog.”
Did he do some primitive form of Awakening before dying? Is that what makes him special?
Like, I imagine there wasn't always this super-clear super-structured way of interacting with the practitioner world
Or maybe he's not just a ghost, more of a vestige?
“You’re awfully lucid for a…” I stopped before finishing the sentence. “Are- are you calling me something bad?” I was so caught off guard by the direct response I couldn’t put two and two together at first. He wasn’t drawing a conclusion. He was responding to the word ‘lucid’. “Lucid is good. It means you’re… awake, aware. You’re making a lot of sense.”
Yeah, like what the fuck? Learning what Lucid means isn't part of his script, unless it's a super specific and weirdly long script
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Seregraug 07-Jun-19 08:29 AM
👀
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JayManiac 07-Jun-19 08:29 AM
“I got lost. My backyard opens out onto the park. I saw something… someone? I went to look, and I got turned around. Scary noises, and growling. I wanted to leave, but there was always something. I tried following the paths, but then I’d see the wolf standing there.
Is he from toronto? Recent? Not centuries? What was the whole slave thing?
TELL ME YOUR SECRETS STRANGE CHILD!?!
- everyone in every wildbow book ever (Lookout, Dinah, Sylvester, Evan respectively)
“I… I don’t think so. This bush is how I escaped the first few times. I’d follow the hedge, and if I saw or heard him, I’d climb over and hide on the other side. I- I use the water to hide my scent, washing my boots, like I learned about in school, but yesterday, he was there, and he saw me. He attacked, and I ran over, and he didn’t follow. There are two places I can use to escape, like that.”
Have y'all ever seen that one episode of young justice- aka the greatest superhero show of all time until worm gets an animated adaptation- called Secret? I'm getting those vibes, but Evan's able to say a lot more than Secret was and that's somehow more and less creepy at the same time
“I’ll be okay,” he said. There was more of the ‘ghost’ to his voice, as he said it. “I just need to wait. Help will come.” “Hasn’t it come already?” I asked. “I’m here.” “You’re not really real,” he said. He started to reach out, then dropped his hand.
Wow yeah, that's a mindbender
“What year is it?” I tried. “Twenty-thirteen, I think.” “Twenty-thirteen,” I responded. “Right.” Just last fall, then. No small wonder he was so lucid. He’d practically died yesterday.
Oh, well that explains some of it at least
I had a bunch of hope that maybe this cool kid that I really like was gonna be something other than a slowly fading ghost, that maybe all these labels really are bullshit and he's actually gonna live forever as a cool rogue specter thing
Now that he was a ghost, he’d retained all of the prey instincts and tactics and desperation that had kept him going, up until he’d stopped. Such was the imprint he’d left. It didn’t explain why he’d been so typical a ghost before, though. In the tree, by the river, looking through me. There was more to this particular riddle.
AND I AIN'T READY TO GIVE UP ON IT YET!
Evan spoke, “He wants to eat me. He won’t let me sleep, growling and sending things. He won’t let me stop. Then he grins. He smiles. Because I’m not happy and he enjoys it.” “Yeah,” I said. “That’s… what he is.”
Look, I'm not one for concise and pure and unnuanced moral judgements
but I think I'm beyond justified in saying: Goblins are Assholes
like, I think that might be their metaphysical composition: being assholes
It's an indisputable fact that goblins = assholes
“It’s never going to end,” Evan said. “Help’s never going to come.”
hey maybe blake can bind you to his shotgun and then you'll be a gun and that almost counts maybe
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A bird 🐦 07-Jun-19 08:40 AM
I'm pretty sure that somewhere there's a goblin called Asshole, too
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JayManiac 07-Jun-19 08:40 AM
I think Asshole is the grand patriarch of all goblinhood
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A bird 🐦 07-Jun-19 08:41 AM
and his kids Stinky Asshole, Dirty Asshole, Putrid Asshole
Until eventually you meet Arsepint
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JayManiac 07-Jun-19 08:43 AM
I am Putrid, of the Asshole line. Pleased to meet your acquaintance, Scraggly, of the Dickhead Dynasty
The hedge served two purposes. It hid the shotgun, for one thing, which let me pull the trigger, with less than ten feet between me and the monster. It also meant that when the shotgun did fire, there were shreds of holly mixed in with the shot.
YO THIS FEELS LIKE A WAY TO ACTUALLY WIN
I could have raised the shotgun, to get a better shot, but I kept it where it was, firing again through the hedge. Further away, less direct. But there was the wind rune, and that counted for something. A little more oomph. He still flinched, reacting. He growled, breaking the perpetual silence, and backed away to a safer distance. One open eye glowered at me. The other squinted.
Win might be stretching it, but the way Blake used that tool to not die is something I can get behind
just like this holly bush because holy Hells is this terrifying
Everything I’d bound thus far, I’d negotiated with. How the fuck was I about to bind this thing? It was a big, nasty, cunning animal, beast in every respect that a ‘beast’ was a problem for me, and it wasn’t stupid.
Yeah, what it wants is to eat, to enjoy suffering, and to rip you apart. I don't see how those are traits Blake can use to bind
He was sent after this thing in the first place because maybe it had demonic elements to it, but none of those elements seem to make it bindable
“What? It’s dangerous.” “It’s about to get more dangerous. I’m ninety percent sure he just called out to all the other bumps and spooks and ghosts in this forest,” I said. I watched Evan slip over hedge and fence, struggling a bit, helpless to help. “No more stealth.”
Blake with his ghost sidekick friend is something I never knew my life desperately needed but it really did and now I have it and it's glorious
“He’s hiding. Far, but not that far. Watching and listening.” “How do you know?” I asked. “It’s… easier to tell. I guess, and I’m right. I went to sleep this afternoon, too tired to keep moving, too hungry… I woke up feeling… not better, but it’s easier to tell.”
the way he intuits his own death- i'm still not convinced evan's a regular ghost, even a recent one
“Him running is the best thing,” Evan said. “Not when you’re hunting him,” I said. “Come on.”
Such a phenomenal chapter. I'm honestly floored. I think I said that 4.PauzAftermath was my favorite? This is my favorite. No question about it.
I really wanna read the next chapter guys
I really really wanna
but I said I would sleep and I said what I meant
and a practitioner's faithful...86 percent?
Point is: goodnight, see you hopefully very soon because I'm so ready
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A bird 🐦 07-Jun-19 09:01 AM
Hecking big same
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Seregraug 07-Jun-19 09:02 AM
Liveblogging Pact was painful for me because it made me slow down. 👀
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JayManiac 07-Jun-19 09:05 AM
OKAY SERE YOU SPECIFICALLY
I looked at your read for the Knights of Basement chapter, and HOW THE HELL does it fit in two pages I don't understand how people do this!?
You did like...multiple chapters at once and everything!
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Seregraug 07-Jun-19 09:07 AM
I deliberately grabbed only selective quotes.
Because I'd seen other live blogs and knew how long they can take.
So I was aiming for about the same information density as Keira puts into her Ward livereads.
I think I ended up being a bit more detailed in the end though.
But yeah, I got through Pact in 1-2 months?
Interesting experience, but I don't think I'd do a liveread again.
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JayManiac 07-Jun-19 09:10 AM
well it's...uh...been 1-2 months, I'm maybe a quarter done, and I'm livereading everything from now on (except not right now because I'm only gonna do it one at a time)
I also aimed for Keira density for my first delve into the world of livereads, but then quickly overflowed from there
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Seregraug 07-Jun-19 09:11 AM
I just didn't have the patience to make long comments on everything honestly.
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JayManiac 07-Jun-19 09:12 AM
is it bad to say I admire that?
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Seregraug 07-Jun-19 09:13 AM
I guess, but it also made me wonder if I was really adding all that much.
I tried to do some more essay-ish stuff at certain points to give it a bit more of an analytical look. (edited)
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JayManiac 07-Jun-19 09:15 AM
Once I'm through, I'll be sure to check them out; I'm really interested in mid-read pact-essays
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JayManiac 07-Jun-19 04:45 PM
Live
Laugh
LTorment the souls of innocent unfortunate humans for eternity
It's time for 4.12!
When we last left off: Blake was surprisingly less fucked than he usually is
In fact, he'd come up with a way to wound the Hyena, and told his ghost bestie that they're hunting
I guess it's time for Blake to get more fucked
By and large, asking an American how far away something was tended to get an answer in terms of miles. The gas station is a quarter mile that way. Ask a Canadian? Time. The highway is a ten minute drive thataway. Or so the idea went, with exemptions for more civilized areas of the States and less civilized parts of Canada.
Huh. That's an interesting theory that I don't really buy but I could see how one might
I always answer in time, I don't know what a mile is
When I tried to parse how big the park was, the number of Others present, I thought in terms of time. Time to get away. The amount of time that had passed between each encounter with a ghost or some other Other. I’d passed maybe one spirit every two to five minutes. Judging by the number of spirits I could sense by way of connection, now, extrapolating? This park was as big as fuck.
He explains the time-based size right after this, but all the buildup to "this park was big as fuck" was just golden
I ran, shotgun in hand, branches of holly held to my back by both the coils of chain and my jacket, pricking at my shoulder, neck, and ear.
I bet Blake actually looks at least a little ridiculous, but I'm gonna keep picturing him as looking really badass
The first ones to reach me weren’t ghosts, but Faerie. Mangled, savage Faerie, who had made themselves beautiful, used Glamour to change their shape and conform to ideals of beauty, only to find themselves in the Goblin’s clutches, maimed and somehow trapped in his realm. Hair grown long, dirty, clothes in tatters, where years of abuse and survival in the woods hadn’t removed them entirely. Eyes stared at me from behind long greasy hair, the faces and forms I could make out were attractive.
Man, Faerie have been so imposing and dramatic and awesome and terrifying that seeing them like this is super-disturbing
“The tree people,” Evan said, his eyes on the Faerie.
First confirmation that Evan's still with our boisharkhi
“Evan?” “Stop trying. Please. I just want to sleep.” There it was. The cadence that suggested I was talking to the echo, not the consciousness that had somehow remained.
But maybe not for long
The glamour was torn away, where I’d covered up the bites from the vermin. A light scrape on the cheek was matched by a smattering of gouges and scratches, just as raw and painful as they’d been when I’d covered them up. One glamour taken away. Not just that glamour. The branches scraped against my coat, my pants, and the stripes of glamour I’d painted all over myself were snatched away. Very easily. Dangerously so.
Aw hell, that's not good. Weren't you using that to mask all the signals from all the Others that are totally gonna come and kill you now?
His hand was broken, but not bleeding. Where index and middle finger had been shattered rather than broken, reduced to spears of splintered fingerbone, he jabbed the hand at my face, aiming to thrust them into my eyes.
I love how we're opening here again with a conflict with some of the weaker (though still stronger than blake) spirits before the climactic hyena battle that might not even come this chapter
The fabric of the glove gave way, tearing away. Turning to rags. The flesh that was revealed was dirty, stained, riddled with scrapes and wounds. Only a few were from the animals. Some was interest, and a lot of it was… I felt stabbing pains in my fingers. Saw his fingers changing, in kind. Lesson learned. Trying to use glamour was a bad idea, if I was going toe to toe with Faerie. It was like opposing like, and they were too well versed in glamour and trickery to lose this tug-of-war. He was transferring the wounds to me, along a medium he was very well versed in.
Blake's being scapegoated! We've been waiting for his glamour to fail basically this entire time and of course it would be ripped away by faeries
I kissed the back of my hand, getting a very up-close view of the way his hand was regenerating, piecing itself together with the glamour he was taking, and all of the bits of my hand that he was scraping up along the way. Then I spat.
Crudeness!!
She didn’t attack me, though. She attacked my assailant, blood feeding the connection between them, leading to the natural conclusion. Jealousy, anger, frustration, a desire to have some of the relief he was finding.
I have turned them on themselves, their chaos is my opportunity
Without the Faerie in my face, I was able to take in my surroundings. A little ghost boy with a hooded jacket. Two fighting Faerie. Another Faerie lunging for me, getting pulled into the fight instead. Trees. And a whole lot of Others.
That's what I was excited of
“Just- just- through the squeeze.” I had an eerie sensation of someone with a stutter, trying and failing to communicate. Was he lucid-ish, right now, but forced to communicate through riddles?
Secret
I charged. Red rover, red rover. Send the stupid-ass diabolist over.
Hahahahahahaha
I pulled my hand out of my pocket, my index finger bent in a place it wasn’t supposed to bend, a single shot clutched between ring and pinky fingers.
AHHhhhahhhaahhhhhhhh
Were they obedient, or had they come to attack the thing that had hurt them so badly? Both?
Seeing as the answer that makes you the most screwed is both, I'm gonna go with both
I’d made eye contact, and I couldn’t break it. I could see the connection, hard, unyielding. I staggered to the left, blind, and I had to turn my head to keep my eyes fixed on hers. I had little doubt that if I’d been moving, or driving, the connection would have held fast enough that I might have snapped my neck turning my head as I passed her.
What the hell is she!? Anti-Blindside? Sweet Scion, that's horrifying, especially with the description. HHh
She wasn’t a ghost. Something else. One of the unique sorts that urban legends were based around, like the hook-handed murderer who scratched at car handles or the murderess who appeared in mirrors in dark rooms. She was simply Other. A siren call for the eye alone.
MAN DOOR HAND HOOK CAR DOOR
Yeah if I were a practitioner and I said bloody mary and a connection appeared I would break every mirror in a ten mile radius
I swept my good hand forward, through snow, bringing the shotgun with it. An augmentation to the wind, a push… The connection was strong enough to push snow out of the way. But not all of it. For a brief moment, the link was broken. I turned my head, looking away.
Oh thank the six and a halfth choir
Evan was among them, standing through my leg. He flickered, looking concerned, then jumped. Jumping right into my stomach. Through my stomach.
Yo. Will admit: kinda forgot he was a ghost there for a second
“Through the squeeze,” Evan said. “You’re a little less lucid,” I said. “How come?” “Through the squeeze,” he said. He passed through me on his way to the tunnel.
HOW COME THO!?
“Squeeze for a, what, an eight year old?” I muttered. “What’s this to me?” There was no response. I was talking to Evan the projection, the echo, the replay.
is he breaking this poor ghost boy!?
Whatever was behind me was strong enough to move the roots and stones, to push past them. “Fuck,” I said again. Was an understatement like that bad enough to count as a lie? Had I already wondered that? What did it say that I even had to ask that last question?
Hahahahahahahahaha Fuck
I heard another snarl, felt another lunge shudder through Evan’s ‘squeeze’. Snow fell down on top of me, making my job harder. Some even landed in the crook between my face and arms, atop the holly branches I was squishing down with my body. For a second, between fear, snow, holly and the confined space around my body, I couldn’t breathe.
This is really sucking me into the scene in an uncomfortable but cool way
“Thank you,” I muttered, “For the commentary. I’d say it was doing lots for my morale…” I struggled to make headway, failed. I huffed out a breath, because the struggles were making me hold my breath to the point I might pass out. “…But I’m not allowed to be sarcastic anymore.”
But in the middle of all the tension it's really funny and I really like it because we're funny when we're terrified as a reflex
I didn’t have many options. June? No use. Too slow, maybe counterintuitive, with the ice thing. Loading and firing the shotgun? I could clear the snow out of the tunnel, maybe, but I could also kill myself with ricochet, and I’d have an audience if and when I made it to the other side.
Maybe draw a shaman rune and it'll go away...except no, because the spirits here are hyenad anyways
Cargo pants pocket, reaching in while trying to keep from bumping my broken finger, failing. A little jar.
Oh god glam it not again blake
Last leg. I used my elbows rather than my hands to get leverage on the roots and stones, pistoning myself forward. To freedom. An open area. Snow, trees, and a surprising lack of Others.
sharkhi sharkhi spoop
that last one is Evan who is the best and also my friend forever
I hope Blake gets the chance to bind him to something before he leaves
He flickered. Not the usual flicker, where he jumped to another part of the script, then jumped back. Flickering as in a flame that was dying or going out. “No,” I said. “No way. Stop.”
NO GODS DAMN IT DON'T DO THIS TO ME
He sounded faint, in both senses of the word. Or were those two sides of the same sense?
I love semantics. So does paige. I also love paige. And evan sweet jesus don't die kiddo
and by die
I mean...uh...die again
A nap, to conserve energy? I thought of Rose. I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the fact that I’d just crawled through piles of snow, or the fact that I was drenched head to toe in sweat in the dead of winter.
Oh Rose, if only you were here
You could tell blake when he's being a dumbass
I was different. I was stronger. I was able to talk to ghosts like Evan. Why? What was the dark, sick joke that Pauz would find funny? He was an imp that subverted the natural order. He’d affected me. Instead of me feeding power to Rose…
Ah fuck. There's Elliot's prediction gone far too right
“By the way,” I said. “Introductions may be in order. June, meet Evan,” I said.
spoop
I tramped in the snow, stomping. Following a set path. Here and there, I glanced at Evan, who was curled up and trying to stay warm. Replaying a memory. I suspected it was from that same night he’d failed to stay warm, or he’d been too dehydrated, or something else had happened. Sorry, little man, I thought. You didn’t deserve this. Let’s fuck up that wolf.
HELL YEAH
by gRABTHAR'S HAMMER YOU SHALL BE AVENGED
“Safety, right? Think about safety. The treehouse? The hedge. The stream. I’m a kind of safety for you. Come here.” “I-” “Evan. Surviving ghost. I swear to you, I will help you.” The words had power.
sharkhi
but also
😬
psyduck
the words had power...and rose had less
Evan listened. He came to my side. I reached out for him, and my hand passed through. I would have wanted to hold him, to crouch by his side, and protect him, or simply rest my hands on his shoulders. What did it say, that I was willing to have contact with him?
That this is ur new best friend and u and Rose are gonna raise him to be the best pseudo ghost in the whole entire world.
The Other’s toothy grin widened, showing teeth. It would have seemed cartoonish if… well, if he wasn’t fucking terrifying.
fine
It did. The Hyena dodged, leaped off to one side, then corrected course, closing in on me. No. On Evan. On the ghost of the child that had eluded him. The ghost who had eluded him.
NOOOOO
“Evan! Come!” I screamed the words, as if volume could impart some measure of power, commanding the ghost. Evan came. Not fast enough. Not far enough to get away.
NOOOOOOOO
I jammed the bloody holly into the end of the shotgun, aimed, and fired, haphazard. A distraction, repelling the Hyena for one precious moment. Evan ran past me, flickered, and disappeared.
OH THANK THE CHOIR OF FUCK
The Hyena shook its head, looked at me, and lunged. Into the chain-clothesline I’d rigged. The branches holding it taut broke like they were nothing.
OHh awesome that did nothing at fucking all
It was like time stood still, as I lost my balance, and landed on my ass in the snow. The Hyena loomed over me, forelimbs outstretched, claws ready to tear into me. Back legs on the ground. I panted for breath, saw the Hyena there, its legs struggling, futile, in an attempt to touch ground. It did a short tip-toe dance on the ground, rear limbs only. The tree swayed, where I’d tied the chain up higher.
YOOOOOOOOO BLAKE IS A GENIUS
A choke-collar of metal charged with glamour, with blood, and power. He snarled, lunging again. The tree shook, and snow drifted down on us. “Fuck you too,” I said.
FUCKAYOU, GOBLINWOLFYENAMOTHERFUCKER
🖕 🖕
Still sitting in the snow, I pulled my legs around into a cross-legged position. “Now, I think, we can have a chat.”
Hahahahahahaha
A diabolist through and through
😬
“Yeah, fuck you,” I said. “Look, it’s not even sunset. How many do you think I could call here before the sun’s down? How are they going to take it back? Do they just carve pieces out of you, eye for an eye style? Or would they actually try to recover what you have in your stomach? Cut you open like the woodcutter did for little red riding hood? Sew you back up with stones inside you, and toss you into a river?” No reply. “I’ll be right back,” I said. “Which one do you think I’ll find first?”
Ooo! Oo! Make it the tree Other!
I love this plan, Blake is such a badass
I had no idea how he was gonna do this but he pulled through
I left him behind, watching out for Evan. Hoping he wasn’t gone forever. He’d been a help. I felt like I owed him.
😢 spoop
Cast off more bits and the remaining berries in his direction, until I was sure he wasn’t about to approach the tree again. “Fucker,” I said. “Fuck you, you fucker.” I was learning all sorts of useful lessons. Like not leaving a haphazardly-bound Other unattended.
Hahahahahahahahahaha
“The alternative,” I said. “Is that you agree to be bound. Which is probably loads better than you deserve.” He didn’t move or make a sound. “If I don’t get an agreement of some sort, I’m going to bring the others. I’ll protect myself and watch. I’d tell you how that kid you just tried to get? He was actually pretty awesome. He in no way deserved this… but you don’t care, do you? It’s not what you are.”
Evan is the awesomest awesome little ghost kid in the whole wide world and this goblin deserves to australian mud wrestle conquest himself
He spoke. A language I couldn’t understand. Something guttural, with more sense in the silences than in the utterances. It was, I suspected, a language so basic that most could understand it. I submit.
🎊
A sword hung from a point partway up the tree, the chain looped around blade and handle. It swung from the movement of the tree, blade ringing each time it banged against trunk and branch.
Did Blake just get a fucking hyena sword? That's the coolest thing I've ever witnessed
This is such a good system because it makes you feel like Blake earns every scrap of power and it never feels gimmicky it just feels right
Ilovethis 1
Here and there, I saw ghosts flickering out of existence. Their wounds widening, tearing them into pieces, leaving fragments to drift out of existence. The remaining Others were already gone. Finally healing, maybe. Or something.
sharkhi sharkhi
I mean, I guess that's a no for ghost army
I was nearly to the wood’s edge when I saw him. “Evan,” I said.
BUT NOT NO FOR GHOST SIDEKICK LETS GO BLAKE
“The wolf leaves,” he said. He flickered. He had that tone that ghosts did when they were repeating scenes from the past. Part of a riddle I hadn’t answered, though I had a pretty good idea now. “The wolf leaves,” I said. “Yeah. I’m taking him away now.” “The wolf leaves,” Evan said. “But the wolf will come back. I have to keep running, until help comes.” He looked over one shoulder, a flicker of fear on his face, and then bolted. Running, faster than I could follow.
I hope this isn't where we leave him forever I've become so attached
But it does sound like a final tragic goodbye
spoop 😢
“Nick of the Knights,” I said. “Because Fell will kill me if I call him like this. Nick of the Knights. Nick of the Knights. Shotgun guy.” I felt the connection appear. “Great,” I said. I sat back and waited.
But I can't be too sad because Blake just won and now Nick's gonna pick him up and he's gonna see Blake standing there with the fucking hyena sword and it's gonna be awesome
“Was a pretty unilateral deal,” I replied. “I think I scared him into submission.” “All with hours to spare,” Fell smirked. “I thought you’d have another last-minute finish.”
Man, you can already tell these two are buds. I mean, more so than last time
kismeship it
There were also three altars, behind and to either side of Conquest. The book sat on one. The other two were empty. “You have one more day,” Conquest said. “Then we get to business.” “I understand,” I said. I drew the sword from the container, then laid it on one altar, chain and all.
conquest you dramatic lil shit
Conquest gestured, and Fell frowned a little. He stepped forward and handed me the phone. One search. Another. For a map. I stared at it for a while. “Thank you,” I said. “I’ll see you tomorrow night.” When all of this comes crashing down. I hope.
I hope he just found Diana and he's gonna astrologer-imp-goblin kick conquest's ass
I couldn’t even feel proud of what I was doing, knowing that it wasn’t all my success. I had to figure out a way to repair the connection, before I took too much. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t do good. I… I was glad, for what I’d managed to do, clearing out the woods. Not proud, but glad.
Uh what the fuck is he doing?
The pattern of my boots crunching through snow stopped as I came to a halt. I saw the ghost. Evan. Running from something that was no longer chasing him. “Evan,” I said. I thought of the internet search. “Evan Matthieu. Stop.”
What!?
YES HELL YES
spoop sharkhi bulba
“Come on,” I said. “I know where we need to go.” He nodded. I would have held his hand, if I could have.
I'm gonna cry guys this is too good
But like I’d said, I had something to do. “Do you remember my name?” I asked. “Blake?”
Oh my Lords, the tears are a comin
“Yeah,” I said. We’re closer. Somewhere between his home and the treehouse. It was an hour before we got far enough.
Where's he going!? Also I guess Blake looked up Evan Missingkid's profile on fell's phone, then a map to where he was missing from?
It didn’t take that long to find, now that we were close. He started to break up when we reached places he never had, and places where he was too far away, like he had when I’d fought the Hyena. We wound up by a series of rocks. I had to crawl to get far enough in.
If he finds Evan's body I'm gonna be so sad and so creeped out but mostly just fuckin sad
I was careful, brushing away the snow. I touched something that wasn’t earth. Not snow, not dirt, not wood. Gently, I dusted off his face with the back of my good hand. Cold to the touch.
AAAHHH😭
When I looked at Evan, he was crying. “You found me,” he said. “Yeah. I’m sorry it had to be like this.”
No...Evan
He shook his head. “I- I-“ He stopped, crying openly. He hiccuped. I waited, patient. When he could finally speak again, he did so through more hiccups. “I wanted someone to find me. So I could go home. But I can’t go home, can I?”
This is tearing out my heart and using it as an implement
“It’s your choice, Evan,” I said. “If you want to move on, go wherever you’re supposed to go, I can try to help. I don’t think it’ll take much.” He shook his head. “Whatever’s supposed to help you on to the afterlife, I think the Hyena scared it off. It’s why you’re so… whole.”
I'm awful at goodbyes...please
“There’s another option,” I said. “I… I think you’re pretty amazing, lasting as long as you did. And, I think there’s something to you, that maybe resonates with me. Being scared, being alone. I had a long series of bad days, too. We’re similar, kind of.” “Yeah?” “You don’t have to answer right away, but… well, it’s maybe not the best idea, it would mean you’d have to help me in some pretty ugly stuff. But would you want to be my familiar?”
yes? Yes!? YES!?? This hits me so great!? Blake is finding someone he can be close to, someone he sees as a kindred spirit no that's not a pun and it's so amazing
I kind of forgot Blake's supposed to be getting a Familiar, Implement, and Demesne but it's perfect, it's perfect
“Like the witch has her black cat, kind of. You could be alive again. And I think you’d be you, because you’d take a little bit from me to stay whole. I’d… I’d like to think I’d take from you too. Because helping you, like someone once helped me? It might nourish my soul, my being, if that makes any sense.”
This is such a wholesome magical relationship and I love it so much
“Show me escape routes,” I said. “Help me move faster. We’d figure it out. But I’ve dealt with a lot of ghosts and goblins, and… it sort of feels right? To be honest, this thing I have to deal with next? I could really use help. But please, don’t feel pressured to say yes. I would… hate myself forever if you did.”
They're gonna be the best god damn tag team in the whole wide world
“Toronto PD! Slowly raise your hands over your head!” I looked at the corpse, then at Evan. Police? Of fucking course.
NO! SON OF A BITCH
AAAAAAAAAAAAHHAHAHAHHH
I have to stop reading now
but that was such a good chapter
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JayManiac 09-Jun-19 11:19 PM
Alright, I'm on the page, and by page I mean Pages. Gathered Pages, let's do this!
Black Lamb’s Blood Introduction
Now, I wasn't totally thrilled when I opened the table of contents to find that this chapter will likely contain no evan, but actually I've been hoping to get a pages on this book since it was introduced so it gets away with it this time
What got me into the darkest practices was a desire to do good.
And this is such a killer fucking first line that I'm just totally in. It sets the tone for the whole chapter (guessing) as not as much instructional guide and more...welll...propaganda, by immediately establishing the first person perspective and hitting us with this contradiction
Ilovethis 1
then as a purveyor of dark texts and a colleague to men and women who perpetrate crimes against the world, each time they deal with that which is Wrong.
And then there's the capital Wrong, and I see a capital Right, and I get the language we're dealing with because of what Briar Girl and Pauz and Isadora have established
This text will not find its way to many on the side of Right. I itch, already, to get into minutiae, to argue the meaning of Right, just as I know many of my contemporaries and peers are already telling themselves that they do not Wrong. They tell themselves they are the exception.
Man, this really makes me want to read Practical Guide to Evil from the little I know about it. I'm fascinated by this metaphysical moral reality that doesn't actually undermine the greyness of morality
I am not an expert practitioner. My bindings, such as they are, have all been minor ones. Careful ones, a very small number when one considers my age and my long career.
And I'm really interested in this practitioner, because I don't agree with her exactly, but I'm super psyched to argue the issue, and she doesn't seem quite like anyone we've met
realized that I just assumed woman for some reason. I'm not gonna edit it out- because I think it's a significant mistake that maybe says something about my expectations/read of the text, but will default to they from now on
I have always been honest to a fault. Child of a preacher, an evangelist and templar. Nothing else would be permitted, even before my siblings and I were invited to see what lies behind the curtain. I’ve known since I admitted I was a diabolist, that anything I wrote would have to be something that would offend certain parties, march to a different rhythm.
And see, we're already starting to like the narrator here, or at least I am, despite the fact that we might not trust them in a more abstract sense. The ideal of an outsider marching to a different rhythm is not a new one, but it still works
(edited)
Writers are told to write to fill the empty space on a bookshelf, the book that has yet to be written, but practitioners, narcissistic practitioners in particular, are prone to a kind of masturbation. Self congratulating drivel, with crumbs offered to the peers as incentive to buy and read their texts.
And here they are delivering on it, making crystal fucking clear their thoughts on the practitioning world. I will say that it doesn't seem like every practitioner is like this, in particular the ones who wrote Famulus and Implement didn't seem particularly self-congratulatory or narcissistic from what we read.
Other texts are written with a quiet desperation. The writers aim to unravel the mysteries and plumb the depths of knowledge. The reasoning is similar to that of the compulsive gambler.
You know who this reminds me of? Nietzsche. Just a little bit, and certainly in voice more than philosophy. The specific use of the metaphors and general disdain of the statement.
One more roll of the dice, one more answer, they tell themselves, and they’ll have a way out from beneath the debt that has piled up around them.
but also let's not forget what's happening in the book, the things that Blake is doing because he feels like he has to, the slippery slope that is diabolism (and supervillainessism apparently), and probably what got the Thorburn Family into this mess. Ironically, this warning in this book was given to Blake by the Lawyers who want him to make this very mistake, be so entrenched in his own folly and karma and radioactive shit to be desperate enough to call upon their masters for relief.
In every paragraph we read there's so much to think about: the new character we're following, how what they're saying relates to the current point in the story, why the Lawyers want Blake to read this thing so badly
I am the black sheep of my family, but I am still new to this world, relatively speaking, relatively innocent. The black lamb, perhaps. The blood? That of a martyr. The conceit of a preacher’s get, to romanticize martyrdom.
I love this so much, and I love what the character is doing to endear themself to us while putting on a face (true or false) of honesty and frankness.
I mock my peers where I think they deserve to be mocked, call them repulsive when they act repulsive. I curried favor, played to their love of themselves, the wide-eyed student eager to pay them homage. They will, I think, be less than pleased when they see what I actually wrote.
Changed my mind about the Nietzsche voice, I think I know exactly what switch this style has thrown in my brain: Joan Didion. It didn't click until this line, which is eerily similar to one Joan Didion writes in her most famous(?) essay: Slouching Towards Bethlehem.
hold on, lemme find the quote
“My only advantage as a reporter is that I am so physically small, so temperamentally unobtrustive, and so neurotically inarticulate that people tend to forget that my presence runs counter to their best interests. And it always does. That is one last thing to remember: writers are always selling somebody out.”
Of course it isn't anywhere near word-for-word, but it carries a similar- though far from identical- attitude
So much so that I think that's one reason I defaulted to female at the start
See? I knew that'd be important to not gloss over
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JayManiac 09-Jun-19 11:58 PM
I write this because I feel the field is largely ignored. All of the rest of us, it seems, even the greatest of us, are focused on the present. What happens in the future? What happens when the binding is done? What happens to us? To the ones touched by the Wrongs? Is there, I ask, a way out? A methodology that might allow us to deal with evils without a sum loss for our world as a whole? I would suggest there is, though I do not yet know what it might be.
I'm thinking a lot about this myself nowabouts, specifically with regard to: Staying alive: I'd love to find a job where I'm not screwing anyone over, I'm not contributing to the neoliberal encroachment upon every facet of our lives, I'm not purely economizing anyone by skills and graphs and quantified values- including myself, and I get to eat dinner. i'm not sure if that exists for me, and i might be forced to compromise some or all of those values, which worries me to no end. Climate change. This video by Hank Green sums up the correlation I'm making: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBMC2_2BDxg and Civil Rights. Dave Chappelle was talking about how brute forcing civil rights and many political issues works in the short run, but makes a subset of people feel restless, angry, and unheard by their country. That scaring everyone into following your way of doing things without letting them have any say gets the job done faster, but not permenantly. I'll find that quote too while I'm at it: You got all the bad guys scared. And that’s good, but the minute they’re not scared anymore, it will get worse than it was before.
I'm gonna go back to my liveread now- I really hope someone reads this at some point
I write this knowing that my audience will be small, if it exists at all.
Hey, ditto. Maybe I should get myself endorsed by devil lawyers too
My work will not be read, not as it is intended to be read. The solutions I posit, and the questions I want others to answer, will each be ignored. The unrepentant will refuse to challenge their own world view, moderate diabolists, my target audience in this, will feel uncomfortable with the emphasis on the future and dismiss me. Lesser diabolists will not be in a position to read my work.
But Blake is in a position to read their work! This is really interesting to me, because on one hand it's a little manipulative, subtly suggesting that anyone who disagrees with the ideas in the book is a bad, unrepentant, or short sighted person. But on the other hand, I agree that we need to be thinking about the future and that society- I mean uh, diabolist society, yeah, is eager to dismiss that future because of all the problems that are life-threatening or lifestyle-threatening that are happening right now.
that's not an easy thing to tell someone: "Fuck you, what you're going through doesn't matter, why don't you think about the far future, something human brains were never built to do, and ignore everything telling you to focus on the immediate threat"
Beyond diabolists, I expect others will see it as self pity, which it is. Failing that, they’re liable to see it as a kind of manipulation. I wouldn’t blame them. I have far too little to say in concrete terms, and talk around subjects, raising questions. In their shoes, I would say the same about this text.
Aaaa!! This is so good!!
it's even specifically calling me out for saying that some of the tactics are manipulative, and that's working to endear the work further, which is still manipulative but just because I consciously know that doesn't mean that I won't walk out of here agreeing with this person wholeheartedly
sharkhi 1
Ilovethis 1
Our community knew my father as a local preacher. He was more beneath the surface, privy to things beyond the curtain. Practitioners called him an evangelist, a summoner, a man powerful enough to sway the world with words. He called angels forth, cherubim, Madonnas carved of ivory to give others shelter.
And as always, this might be the last time I pull it out in this chapter because I have a lot to say on the style and ideas being tossed around here but I really appreciate the look into all the different kinds of practitioners running around, it's pretty awesome and Lords of Radham I want a Pact 2 so badly.
I'm a quarter of the way through and I already know we're not gonna get a tenth of the exploration I want to see of this world
My father and his fellow templars walked a middle road. They had irregular contact with the Wrong things, but the only things they dealt out were fire, bullet, and death. Were this another text, I would spell out the fighting, the measures taken, in hopes that others could use that knowledge and better survive. My focus lies elsewhere.
Okay, not the last time I'm pulling it because this diabo-angelist organization ostensibly working for good is such a cool idea
We expected an imp. We found something evolved enough to be birthing its own imps, to have a form and its own symbolism.
Plus we're getting a bunch of info that's gonna be relevant in the fight against Conquest and likely Blake's diabolism journey in the future
A devil of the sixth choir. The choir of man’s evils. A weaker choir, and the one most personal to all of us.
I'd call that the most powerful god damn choir of all. Wonder what Pauz's choir is? The choir of the unnatural? Something to that effect?
A devil of incest, she had made her own monsters even before she began creating imps, by way of inbreeding and birth defects. There was only horror there, enough to sear its way into my eyes. I will sum up that night by saying that each of us who walked in there with guns at the ready walked away alive, but we did not walk away intact.
fine psyduck fine
It was only when I’d researched the events that are covered in each chapter that follows, that I let myself look into this one. I looked at the numbers, and I want to point to statistics, the increase in birth defects in that town and county. To the rise in the divorce rate, or the rates of abuse. I want to, but I can’t.
holy shit, a diabolist doing due diligence on the problems they cause through their interaction with demons? I can see why this is the best case diabolist the Lawyers want Blake to see
The morning before I left for that fight with the young devil, I was seventeen years old, doing the sort of thing seventeen year old boys are particularly inclined to do when locked in the bathroom. An activity flavored with that uncomfortable mix of guilt and rebellion that is unique when your father preaches every night of the week.
Ah, yep, needed to know that. Also guess I was wrong about gender, which is nothing new but a fascinating development all the same.
That was the last time I found pleasure in my own body. Scars and aftermath. I imagine this particular type is familiar to all diabolists. To lose our humanity piece by parcel, or to give it away. This is not a reality diabolists often discuss. The sacrifices that don’t involve the murder of a lamb or a virgin strapped to an altar.
But in a way I really did need to know that, because for one it's a moment of profound vulnerability that further endears me to the author, for two it gives an insight to how he things, and for three it brings a whole new angle to sacrifice
The idea of angels with wings was not situated in record or text, my sister argued. Take away the invented things, the cultural aspects and art, stick to the written word alone, and the world was left with a deity who focused all efforts recorded in texts on a relatively small section of the Middle East. My brother argued for the benefit of symbolism, for the power of ideas. In the heat of battle, ideas and iconography could lend strength to those who needed it. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that it hadn’t. It didn’t. Not for me, and not for our father.
Ilovethis
this argument is so fascinating to read and I want to have it forever
I liken my realizations to the evolution of a child in their early adolescence, learning that their parents are indeed not perfect. The subsequent realization is one many don’t make until they are in their twenties. That their parent is still their parent. Such was my relationship with God. Such was the nature of my faith.
I always find it fascinating when Wildbow's books address religion, because Twig and Worm spend a lot of time just..not. And here, with Pact, the topic takes on a whole new layer of complicated, because God certainly exists, there are too many people who believe and worship him for some form of him not to exist in the Pact world (just like God as a powerful idea exists and influences our world regardless of whether he is metaphysically the creator of humanity or not) yet this argument can still be had because humans are just as ignorant of where they come from and what the universe is, there are just a lot more options that seem pretty damn viable
That was the start of my journey. I would ask, to those who are still reading, to come with me. Start with your eyes open to the most basic scars we wear. We move on to the subject of Balance, to debts, prices, and the question of how one might better manage dealings with creatures who take from everything.
This is a friggin masterpiece of a book, and it's a book within a book about a world that doesn't exist, written by a character who isn't real and reflecting but not revealing the writer of that character's beliefs and thoughts, taking the time to explore the metaphors the book has set up to parallel the real world and WHAT THE NINE HELLS THIS IS SO FUCKING AWESOME
Ilovethis Ilovethis Ilovethis Ilovethis Ilovethis Ilovethis
When I did finally allow myself to look for and converse with diabolists, I found myself making rapid progress. I hated myself for the prior years, telling myself I had wasted time, but I value them in retrospect.
Lords, I really needed to hear that. I've been struggling with the fact that I'd been making stories and ignoring my adhd and wondering why I couldn't write any of it down for the nine years between learning to write and going on meds, and I've felt like at least four of those years were a profound waste and that now I have a responsibility to spend every waking moment working on something to make up for lost time and opportunity
I remain a careful man, these days, but it is human nature to make mistakes in youth. I remember classmates racking up credit card bills in the tens of thousands, before reality caught up with them.
I like that the book isn't afraid to draw some of the specific metaphorical parallels out explicitly; I don't see it as not trusting the reader or anything because it's just so in character.
Even with the terms of our deal, I was uncomfortable. For a long time, staying with Lucrezia and our mutual master, I slept with one eye open, convinced I would be sacrificed. Instead, I got room and board, and frequent menial work, including illustrating for Jeffrey’s texts, which he wrote as short volumes, bound in nice embossed leather and sold at premiums. He played to the shallow narcissism of other diabolists, fanning their fancies and indirectly flattering them. Each volume was written with specific customers in mind, holding the relatively little substance he’d managed to dig up or barter from others.
Meeting the master! I've rarely liked autobiographies, but now I realize that it's probably because too few of them are about demons. I have no problem with the autobiographical style (okay, I have some hangups but not when it's done this well) it's simply nonfiction written by people who are famous for something far removed from writing that I tire of.
Jeffrey’s efforts were not guided at men. This was, I later learned, one step in my new master’s lifelong quest to quash and vanquish the gods of mankind.
Holy shit that's metal
Even in times of quiet, the gods are busy, fighting and holding on to their assets. There is a delicate balance. Jeffrey and Agares both sought to disturb it. To start a war that included gods, incarnations and spirits, and make the deaths that resulted true deaths, ones that left the world bereft of those forces and the structure they gave to our reality.
Holy SHIT that's metal
Has he read American Gods? probably not. Jeffery should read American Gods
Had Lucrezia and I succeeded, I might have returned home to be a templar, bottled up my passions and faced the horrors with the same grim expression my father wore. My master and the Duke won. Lucrezia died in the fight I urged her to take part in.
Damn. Literally.
My first big question, then, is whether we can manage the karmic balance. Is it possible to walk away free and clear? Most will say yes. There is the slow growth. Regaining an even or positive Balance by fits and starts, small oaths and large ones, through Right, maintaining and keeping to a code. The Universe will periodically seek to re-establish balance, and the practitioner, succeed or fail, will find a portion of the debt spent to bring this about. Bigger oaths and restoring balance to reality can counteract the karmic weight that burdens the practitioner.
I've read a fuckton of philosophy this year, and I'm just gonna say that this is better written than a good 90% of it. Sweet Scion, the most brilliant minds across the ages had less than the most brilliant mouths/pen-hands/what-have-you
It is possible to escape this burden, yet time and again, diabolists fall into the trap and fail to escape it. It is human nature, to treat the world as a series of nails, when all one has is a hammer. Even when the use of the hammer comes with a grave price. It is human nature to take the easy road. To resolve the dynamic, there are two simple options. Let me return to this in a moment.
just gonna put this here. yup.
My concern is not with the self, or with the individual, but diabolism as a whole. We are hated because we do Wrong. Not evil, but we do a disservice to reality as a whole. Yet, at the same time, we serve a useful function. What better tool to use to bind the greater threats than one who is already doomed?
I don't know, I think there are many diabolists hated because they do things that look an awful lot like evil to an awful lot of people. This is certainly the argument Blake uses to justify his actions, and they have seemed to do good, relieving the suffering of the Hyena's victims and whatnot, but I cannot help but wonder if this is but one more easy answer you slip towards, Black Lamb Man. What if you've swallowed the spider to eat the imp, so to speak?
To bind Others and leave them bound is the best thing we can do. Because of their nature, we inevitably do so at a cost to ourselves.
This is a good point: now that there are devils and demons, what do we do with them? Can they truly be destroyed, used up? Or will they always exist as a darkness someone could eventually use?
This is one answer, one solution, but it begs more questions. How might we bring this about? Could diabolists as a whole be convinced to take this path? The answer is no.
Hahahhahahahahaha nice
I confess, I write here in the hope of inspiring questions among a group that is prone to forging forward without accepting any answer but the one that serves them. I do not labor under the illusion that enough will read my work to have heated discussions over what the answers might be.
Oh, but I might, and I live in another dimension where you're not real! Rest assured, the topics you're discussing are quite relevant and not a waste of time.
But I must ask. I hope to raise questions among the individual, and I dream of a circumstance where we might look deeper at ourselves as a group.
I wonder if the Lawyers have read Black Lambs Blood? I mean, duh, but they don't seem to be a sort that has these sorts of discussions and thinks about the ethos of diabolism as a whole. Has Granny Thorburn read this? What does she think? How did she use her diabolism: for the things this author would perceive as Wrong Good? It isn't impossible; one might argue that her collection of the "nukes" was one such endeavour, to bind powerful demons and purge their presence from the world at her own Karma's cost.
Earlier, I suggested there are two simple options. We’ve already discussed the obvious, that the archetypical diabolist must cease to be and become something more selfless. It isn’t possible, because the typical diabolist won’t break from the pattern of taking the easy road, even when it is demonstrably self-destructive. If there is a solution, and this is purely food for thought, the easy road must become the road that serves us best.
I've heard this idea kickin around in the ideaspace of Elon Musk and the like-minded, especially with his idea for Tesla: we need to make electric cars the new norm, the new cool, and the new standard for every car dealership if we want to cushion our damage to the planet in time.
In pursuit of answers, I lead you on to chapter three, where I talk about the sociology of Diabolists, and the negative patterns we perpetuate amongst ourselves, and how one might attempt to reframe society instead, in an attempt to provide an easier road.
I'm hype for chapter three but I see chapter five right below this line and I'm sad. But also: I realize that it'd be nice to reframe society, and maybe it's easier with the smaller practitioner society, but that's a pretty lofty goal, even if the only other option you've presented is impossible. It remains to be seen how well this works, I suppose
But i agree that a social order which rewards the Monsantos of the world is not the one that should stick around.
I'm gonna leave this here for now, since I'm commenting way more often and this has convenient mid-chapter chapter breaks but I'll be back whenever I can
bulba 1
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JayManiac 10-Jun-19 06:43 AM
I'm so excited to get back to this chapter guys, it's so good. I don't know how much more I have left but at least one more chapter of the chapter. Chapters. Anyhow! When we last left off, Blake wasn't screwed because we weren't talking about him but in some abstract sense that transcends time and space I believe Blake is always screwed
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Fursuit Lightsaber 10-Jun-19 06:44 AM
Ilovethis
sharkhi 1
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JayManiac 10-Jun-19 06:45 AM
Chapter Five: Swords
I haven't been paying super close attention to the chapter titles and I'm sure they mean a lot of somethings but I can't put it together exactly. Maybe the last two chapters we didn't read were called "Wands" and "Cups"
I was a wretch, I admit,
suspicious
My hair was shaggy, my facial hair growing in, my thoughts clouded by drink and depression, and I knew a great deal I shouldn’t. I knew rituals to summon things that would have made me stand tall, handsome, in good health, and above all else, happy.
Yeah, I know the feeling. I never don't know rituals like taking a shower, shaving, combing my hair, eating three meals a day...oh you were talking about demons (he wasn't talking about demons)
sharkhi 1
. By seeking out the organized, largely quiet diabolists, this purging demanded retribution and self defense. Remember, when all one has is a hammer… Diabolists who might have gone out in unspectacular manners after successfully binding a handful of imps and maybe an intermediate being were now perpetrating Wrongs.
I wonder how much of this author's outlook on this point in diabolism history is his own state of being at the time? I mean, he seems to have done his research, and I don't doubt that a lot of this is true, but also one can become convinced of a certain outlook on something and only see evidence that confirms that outlook. See I know he's not infallible...he's just super convincing
Many of those sitting at the middle section of the totem pole had been destroyed, and only those on the bottom, such as myself, and those on the top, individuals much like Jeffrey, remained in one piece.
This seems in line with a lot of the political discourse connections I drew earlier, with scaring the bad guys and whatnot, but in the opposite direction this time
I’ve raised the topic of the individual, about those who are one step removed, about the groups, and society as an abstract. The scope ever widens. The world.
Ah yes, but much like microeconomics and macroeconomics I didn't get to read the part where we understand everything in the middle and now I don't understand anything
Will Earth cease to be tomorrow, if the greatest demons were to be called forth? No. Not definitively. The Balance would be disturbed, and the universe would naturally exert an opposing pressure.
Well that's good, considering we've been told blake could totally call up some pretty great demons and turn jacob's bell...
into jacob's hell
im sorry I came up with it after typing "jacob" and couldn't stop myself in time and now it's there
ohno 1
Ilovethis 1
Perhaps all diabolists, myself included, would be scoured from the earth. I would not expect this to end the problem. Some knowledge can’t be destroyed absolutely, and I suspect many Wrong things collect tomes and texts to disseminate among the public, in case of such an event. I know some lesser beings have asked for copies of my writing, and diabolic organizations will collect or order research.
Yeah I don't think anyone thought "burn all the books" would work to just...get rid of demons forever. That's just a way to put them out of sight until someone puts them right back in mind
Draw out a grid, and three of the four possible answers are disastrous. Either society and diabolist are both working against our mutual goals, which they are, and we speed towards an ugly end, the diabolist alone works towards Wrong while society attempts to accommodate, or society forces the diabolist’s hand while the diabolist attempts to conform and serve the greater good.
Shit really really sucks, doesn't it? But also, society isn't a monolith, there are way more than these four ways, unless you're taking just the average output of diabolists as good or evil, which is...exactly what you're doing because you did all that research damnit
The question remains: how do we achieve something that requires this kind of concordance, this kind of cooperation? I would say the ‘how’ is simple, if unpleasant. Sacrifice. In particular, forms of sacrifice that don’t require the cooperation of all parties.
But sacrifice is easily misunderstood too, as you just pointed out earlier in the book! We hear that and say "oh put me on the front lines I'm glad to give my life for the lives of a thousand" but ask us to give up hot showers for the rest of our lives in order to save 1 sixth of a person and suddenly it's not so glamorous.
One option is that we could turn on our own. Oh, I’m sure that statement got attention. A few of our kind are so vile that they sour our ability to deal with the world at large. Is it possible that we could form a call to arms? To set diabolist against diabolist, five moderates against one of the worst of us? If they band together, then destroy them as a group.
I mean, it might improve reputation if diabolists start being thwarted by diabolists. It's like they're so busy cheering that the big bad diabolist was defeated that they don't realize they're cheering for five diabolists until they've knocked back three beers and can't muster the will to give a shit. Solid plan.
hell blake just improved the reputation of diabolists by clearing out the Hyena's forest with an audience of Basement Knights
I wonder what might happen if one were to sell the templars, witch hunters, and various Lords of major cities the necessary tools for protection against demons and other Wrong things? Not the darkest knowledge, but the ways to turn an attacking demon aside, if one knows their general type. What would they be buying? Their own security. Suspicion would be rife, chaos endemic. Yes, Wrongs would be committed, but I can’t help but wonder if it is possible to create a rift deep enough to separate diabolists for centuries to come.
I mean this seems like a pretty good thing, if the templars and witch hunters and Lords can be trusted to use the knowledge to turn demons aside and all that shit
but personally, we know literally only one Lord of a major city and as soon as he gets his grubby little hands on some indirect diabolist know-how he starts having ideas
In writing these words, I doom myself, because others will act to keep any of this from coming to pass. But I hope I have illustrated the severity of the subject and shaken those dabbling diabolists. I intend to posit another answer.
And I'm so god damn ready
I’ve suggested murdering our own. Cain’s crime. I’ve suggested betrayal. Judas’.
Okay, but I don't know that that reductionist comparison really captures all the context of the situation. Cain killed his brother because "fuck you and your sheep", whereas your suggestion was "kill the people who are taking it too far and being general assholes"
With Judas, it depends if you've watched Jesus Christ Superstar or not
I would offer a third suggestion. It’s relatively easy to accomplish, and many non-diabolist practitioners would likely be willing to help bring it to pass. Of the two major issues that plague diabolists, one is handled. It also falls in step with my earlier suggestions, that it pave an easier road for the diabolist to follow, one where the diabolist is driven to cooperate.
Hey, woah. Yeah, this sounds pretty good. Almost way to fucking good to be true good. Okay let's hear it
I believe in this enough to sacrifice myself.
Um. Okay, that's...dedication.
Enslavement.
Aw hell
Let’s talk history. We don’t know where the oldest demons came from. Some suggest they are an antithesis to those same forces that created the world, and they are laying the groundwork for the world’s demise, while the creator forces are still at the far-flung edges of reality, expanding our universe.
Yo, I stand by my whole "Others didn't exist before humanity and all Others come from humanity and the original Others were powered up humans" theory but this one sounds awesome too
Others say they are all devils, at their root. Collections of malign power that take root in people, swelling and transferring from host to host, until they have sufficiently defined themselves.
Oh hey it's...not my theory, exactly, but some kind of version of it maybe?
At some point in history, all the forces of the world gathered, recognizing that there could only be chaos if they continued fighting amongst themselves. Gods, incarnations, and other powers realized that with the power they could each bring to bear, certain actions couldn’t be permitted. Trust was impossible to maintain. Laws were set in place. Those same laws are the ones that a practitioner agrees to abide by, in order to broker access to what lies beyond the curtain.
The one Pact to rule them all, one Pact to bind them. One Pact to...
My suggestion is simple: We amend the laws.
How in the name of the Incarnation of Fuck is that "easy to accomplish", dude?
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JayManiac 10-Jun-19 07:21 AM
We make adhering to greater goods the easier path to take. Power would not be obtainable through the old awakening ritual, and the new ritual would limit and control diabolists.
Okay, sure that'd be great, but you've been harping on how fucking impossible cooperation is for pages now (or for Pages now) and now your big plan is "let's get LITERALLY ALL THE MOST POWERFUL MOTHERFUCKERS to cooperate?" I mean, maybe, but doesn't that include all the strong diabolists?
To be a diabolist, one would need to shackle themselves. If calling diabolists narcissists at heart didn’t damn me, suggesting infighting or betrayal should see that one diabolist wants to murder me. Writing this is another thing altogether.
Yeah, I'll bet you've rightly pissed off a good deal of them. Speaking of: why are the lawyers okay with blake reading this!?!
Each would find the idea of enslavement repugnant. I expect many are already plotting the worst possible fates for me. I have changed details about myself, changed major personal details, taking extreme steps to protect myself in these regards while avoiding falsehood and forswearing myself. I’ve masked my location with the practice. I know how little all of this will ultimately help. I’m not young, and I’ve spent much of my life around diabolists, studying them. I know what I’m in for. But I’ve lived some time, now, and I believe in what I’m doing.
Lords, this is the worst idea possible half of them probably have pet barbatorems
My book will go largely unread, I think, but I have to believe I do Good, in writing it.
but it's also kind of really fucking noble and makes me like her a lot
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Fursuit Lightsaber 10-Jun-19 07:25 AM
Her again? 👀
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JayManiac 10-Jun-19 07:25 AM
that was caught surprisingly quickly
sharkhi 1
👀 1
I defaulted to her at the beginning on instinct, and then changed it when I got to this line: The morning before I left for that fight with the young devil, I was seventeen years old, doing the sort of thing seventeen year old boys are particularly inclined to do when locked in the bathroom. which doesn't actually call them male, just implies it in a very pactlike way. When they say they've changed major personal details without actually saying any falsehoods, I think this might be one of them
sharkhi 1
Ilovethis 2
I'm going back to they again, 'her' was just me being cheeky, and I might actually be wrong and the gender might be confirmed somewhere else in the chapter but I'm unconvinced for now.
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Fursuit Lightsaber 10-Jun-19 07:30 AM
The author being female is my interpretation. The word "man" is thrown in there at one point, but I'd lean more to that being referring to themselves as human
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JayManiac 10-Jun-19 07:31 AM
Ayyyy I'm glad I picked up on it then. I think it's my interpretation too at the end of the day, and it's such a fascinating question to begin with
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Seregraug 10-Jun-19 07:32 AM
I cannot remember if I noticed or not.
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JayManiac 10-Jun-19 07:33 AM
if only you'd documented your experiences with this book in an easily accessible archive. Ah well.
Ilovethis 2
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Seregraug 10-Jun-19 07:34 AM
Looks like I got confused with the genders, but never actually connected that something was up.
👍 1
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JayManiac 10-Jun-19 07:34 AM
Even if this were widely read, I do not think change would happen in one year. Or twenty. This is but a seed, something to be brought up and forgotten until it becomes a subconscious thought. Many who read it, many who I have arranged to get the book, are immortal.
I like them, and their intentions read to me as noble, even if it's in a more abstract way than I like Blake's brand of nobility. Also, it makes more sense that The Lawyers might want this in Blake's hands; it may have been some deal with the author that new diabolists are to receive this book, or that Thorburns are to receive this book at some point, or something of the like
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Seregraug 10-Jun-19 07:35 AM
I didn't have much to say on it I think.
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Ishamoridin 10-Jun-19 07:35 AM
That or even if Blake ends up following the path the author lays out, there's plenty of chances for him to fall off and end up in their clutches
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JayManiac 10-Jun-19 07:35 AM
Quite possibly
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Fursuit Lightsaber 10-Jun-19 07:36 AM
“It is plain text, nothing more,” he assured me. “You may or may not like what that text says, but I don’t think you’ll suffer.” “It’s propaganda,” I said. “Perhaps a little bit. Your grandmother knew the author and was quite fond of her. Had she been alive as the book was released, your grandmother would have paid for a copy to be delivered to her, and it would have a place on her bookshelf. She would have no cause to warn you about anything inside. It’s even one of the tamer books.”
Young Lawyer refers to Author as she
sharkhi 1
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JayManiac 10-Jun-19 07:36 AM
the narrator even says multiple times that desperation breeds Wrong even in the best of people and Blake is desperate
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Fursuit Lightsaber 10-Jun-19 07:36 AM
4.1
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Ishamoridin 10-Jun-19 07:36 AM
He's already awakened after all, can't re-do it with the special one
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Seregraug 10-Jun-19 07:36 AM
(Pact Spoils) Could the author have been barbered?
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Ishamoridin 10-Jun-19 07:38 AM
This conversation grows private (edited)
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Fursuit Lightsaber 10-Jun-19 07:38 AM
Alternatively Jay, you can read this as part of a slippery slope. Remember, before reading any of the book, Blake is strictly always anti-demon. No interest in having anything to do with it. Then when meeting with Nick, he calls it effective propaganda. He's starting to see a use for Diabolists, and perhaps a way that he might start to undertake Diabolism
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JayManiac 10-Jun-19 07:39 AM
I think we're definitely seeing traces of that, but that we're doing it in a very different way from Worm
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Ishamoridin 10-Jun-19 07:39 AM
There's every chance that the author of Black Lamb's Blood is just completely wrong, too, and any attempt to follow their advice will inevitably lead to vanilla diabolism
agree 1
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JayManiac 10-Jun-19 07:39 AM
I give my life in hopes that this seed of an idea finds fertile ground. I hope my few friends will support me in this. Should that not be possible, then I hope they forgive me this indulgence. I’ve had so few. God help me.
AHHHHH this was such a good chapter and I wound up really loving this narrator! Everything came together, the religion, the masturbatory nature of book writing, everything that made me like her in the beginning! And those last two lines just punch you straight in the sad
bulba 2
Ilovethis 2
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Fursuit Lightsaber 10-Jun-19 07:39 AM
Yeah, that last God help me.
Oof
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JayManiac 10-Jun-19 07:40 AM
Anyways that's
not it for tonight
sharkhi 2
Ilovethis 2
transbulba 2
bulba 2
💜 2
gaybulba 2
agree 2
Bidoof 2
CharmanderHi 2
spoop 2
we're doing another chapter!
I can't stop, I just tried to and I couldn't!
5.1: When we last left Blake: He Was Screwed!! by the cops this time. And probably Delta Airlines (we're gonna frame you for murder) (edited)
Sweet Scion that's a lot of emojis it looks so pretty
💜 1
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Seregraug 10-Jun-19 07:42 AM
I thought it was United. 🤔
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JayManiac 10-Jun-19 07:42 AM
I can't remember but I love that bit
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Ishamoridin 10-Jun-19 07:43 AM
only made this channel so i could upload the video to tumblr. hope this doesnt get copyrighted. anyways heres the best john mulaney sketch in the history of ...
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Seregraug 10-Jun-19 07:43 AM
Oh, I was referring to the time United beat up one of their passengers.
And there was a gag line from a fake Twitter account for Southwest that went: "We beat the competition, not you." (edited)
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JayManiac 10-Jun-19 07:44 AM
Policemen surrounded me, flashlights sweeping over snow and tree until they fell on me. Haggard me, still bearing some small wounds from my previous outings. They had to have been following me in the dark. A dozen officers, some wearing different clothes, implying different rank or duties. Crime scene guys, maybe? A local police chief, on top of regular officers?
Wow, that's a big crew of cops. One would be bad, but this? Is it just karma, or is someone-potentially lots of someones- messing with Blake all Sandra Duchamp Style (hey maybe it's actually Sandra Duchamp)
😶 1
Could I run? Yeah. Could I run and actually get away? I couldn’t imagine doing it without hurting someone along the way. There were too many cases where I might get shot.
Can you run. From twelve fucking cops. I don't think a whole hairdo of glamour's gonna get you out of that one, no
hey, but you know who could?
Sandra Duchamp. You should call Sandra Duchamp.
she's probably real good at it seeing as you've made her do it twice
And even if I did succeed, I couldn’t say for sure if whoever had tipped them off had given them my name, specifically. No use running if they could find me sleeping at home in a matter of hours.
Oh yeah I didn't consider that it could totally be Paige or Fell playing an april fools prank
“I am presently arresting you on suspicion of the first degree murder of one Evan Matthieu.”
That's oddly specific. they know evan's name? What the hell is going on here?
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Ishamoridin 10-Jun-19 07:49 AM
Sandra's done what twice now?
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JayManiac 10-Jun-19 07:49 AM
gotten someone out of being arrested by cops
because blake tried to have them arrested by cops
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Ishamoridin 10-Jun-19 07:50 AM
Oooh, ok. Thought you meant she'd gotten Blake out of trouble 😛
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JayManiac 10-Jun-19 07:50 AM
I understand this has to be Laird fucking with me. Third time is a charm, and Laird may have won this round. “Do you wish to call a lawyer?” “Yes,” I said.
Oh joy. That probably means Blake is in for some Lawyerly errands sometime in the future. because he needs more shit to do
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Ishamoridin 10-Jun-19 07:50 AM
Think that was probably a good bit of Laird as well though
Just ordinary being-the-boss clout
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JayManiac 10-Jun-19 07:51 AM
he credited Sandra, but yes being the chief of police probably helped in a lot of ways that being a random runaway with lots of weapons in front of a dead boy's body would not
😄 1
Without a thank-you, he switched to a rougher form of frisking me. I bit my lip and stared up at the snow-covered branches above me, resisting the urge to flinch at or react to the rough contact. He relieved me of the pretty-much-empty jar of glamour, twine, a black magic marker, the locket that had been wound around my hand-
Fuck fuck fuck. That's not good
not only is blake being personal spaced, he's also maybe losing the most useful tool he has
They opened the car door, and I flinched at the contact of hand on head, as the officer pushed me down, simultaneously protecting my head from hitting the top of the car. I thought I could maybe see Evan standing at the top of the hill, watching me go.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO spoop
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Wildbow 10-Jun-19 07:54 AM
That ghost is too smiley for a 'nooo'
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JayManiac 10-Jun-19 07:54 AM
I realized that after putting it there but we don't have a frowning ghost so now it just looks out of place
One officer sat to my right, the other situated across from me. I was cornered, quite literally, back and shoulders to walls, effectively surrounded. The mirror made it feel like there were more people to my left. I looked to confirm, and realized there were people in that room. Didn’t help the ‘surrounded’ feeling.
that sure is a tone that was just set. Speaking of out of place, I don't suppose they notice that he doesn't have a reflection
“I gotta ask, what the fuck happened to you?” he asked. I just dealt with an imp and a giant goblin beast thing.
That'd be simply one hell of an answer, blake. I kinda want you to say it
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Seregraug 10-Jun-19 07:56 AM
👻 ?
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JayManiac 10-Jun-19 07:57 AM
I don't suppose we have a facepalm emoji
🤦
we do
I should familiarize myself with these probably
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Seregraug 10-Jun-19 07:57 AM
Bidoof
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JayManiac 10-Jun-19 07:58 AM
I wanted to make a crack, to say something like, ‘I got arrested and brought here’, but I didn’t want to be one of the idiots on TV who got reamed out by their lawyer for trying to be smart or help themselves.
Dangit Blake why choose now to start not being an idiot (disclaimer, Blake is smarter than me I just like ragging on him)
“Or whatever,” he said. “Listen while we talk. Twiddle your thumbs. Think up a good story, if you need one. Do all three at the same time. But you don’t want to go to sleep when you’ve been accused of murdering and maybe doing worse to a damn kid.”
I- and blake, it looks like- just realized how horrible this seems from someone who hasn't been chattin it up with Evan's ghost for the past few hours, offering to be familiars, havin a grand old time. Not that explaining would help
“I like working with my hands. Frees my mind to do other stuff,” the interrogator said. “I swear a lot, get frustrated, but I usually come away feeling accomplished, like I did a good job, and feeling refreshed. As if it’s meditation, but without the yoga bullshit, you know?” “Why are you hating on the yoga, Dunc? Maybe our guy here likes that stuff.”
This tone really sets me on edge, the contrast between Hey! and "I do some reno work myself, when I have time"
it's so passive aggressive and sleazy
and I know they think they're doing it to a child murderer, but still
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Fursuit Lightsaber 10-Jun-19 08:02 AM
Yeah Bow, you really captured that horrible oppressive environment there. Super brutal
agree 1
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JayManiac 10-Jun-19 08:02 AM
“Are you a fag, buddy?” the interrogator asked. “Do you prefer sausage to the taste of fish?”
WOW and there it just keeps being. That way that it is right there.
They were nettling me. Obviously. If I were gay, I’d be hurt or annoyed at the use of ‘fag’. If I wasn’t, they’d be provoking me to defend my sexuality. Thing was, I was in the middle. I wanted to protest the use of ‘fag’ for the sake of my gay friends, for Joel, but not so much that I’d speak before my lawyer arrived. I was straight, but I wasn’t exactly practicing straight. I liked girls, I liked the way girls looked, but I didn’t actively pursue sex, didn’t invest a lot of my own identity in my sexuality.
Hahahaha Okay wow no this is awful but the way Blake responds to it relieves a bit of tension
he just takes it so seriously and uses the term "practicing straight" after he tells himself exactly what they're doing
I'm totally using that term now by the way
A hand settled on my knee. I jerked, pulled out of my thoughts, moving my leg to break contact, my hands bracing themselves against the mirror to one side, the desk to the other. The room was still for a few pounding heartbeats.
aaaaa
fine
and we're back
good to be back
really missed it here
Dunc moved his hand back to his lap. “Nope. I was just going to say, if you are gay, it’s cool. No judgement here.” “Say anything you want,” I said. “But say it without touching me, please.”
this is making me really uncomfortable without the relief that would be a brutal conflict
it's wonderful and I really really hate reading it
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Dunc said. He smiled that ever-so-friendly smile of his. “Here, let me move closer, so I can hear you better.” He scooted his chair forward, until we were sitting with one of his feet planted between mine. Invading my personal space, making it impossible to move my legs the way I wanted to without bumping into his.
psyduck 😬
Each time Dunc asked a question, it was left out there for a moment before the other guy formed a response. It made for a kind of stilted dialogue, one that someone might have itched to fill in. I had little doubt that if I started talking, I’d be rewarded with a very natural conversation.
it's so fucking underhanded and awful
“Cut up the poor little dead kid, tie it all up with twine?” Dunc asked, leaning forward, further into my personal space. His gaze didn’t waver as his eyes locked with mine. Cold, accusatory. “I think that sort of fucked up speculation suggests an awful lot more about you than it does about me,” I said.
No Blake this is still their game don't take the bait
I mean, maybe do? and assume you can magic away your problems later? that'll work fine.
“Relax,” he said. “Jesus, I’d thought you’d ease up a bit after the first few times.” “PTSD?” his buddy asked. Keep your mouth fucking shut, Blake Thorburn, I told myself.
Fitting, because I have so little to say
it's just so uncomfortable to read that I don't even want to analyze it
Every smartass, sarcastic, petty part of me strained at the bit to throw in a remark in response to that.
God, the very few times I've been in the wrong sort of contact with law enforcement all my logic went right the hell out the window and I just snarked myself a deeper and deeper hole until I was bailed out from an outside source.
I wouldn't survive as long as Blake has here, from any of these angles of attack and that hints at a whole lot of strength
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Seregraug 10-Jun-19 08:16 AM
I'm always reminded of the line from Monster where Lunge tells Tenma that the hardest people to interrogate are those who say nothing and don't react at all.
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JayManiac 10-Jun-19 08:17 AM
“I get what you’re saying,” his partner said. “Good guys, but you spend too many years on a job, you’ll start to take shortcuts, move things along…” “Human nature,” Dunc said. “You don’t look like the sort that puts an awful lot of stock in the inherent good of human beings.” Truth be told, I believed what he was saying. That people would be inclined to take shortcuts, that this sort of thing happened.
If only there were themes about something like that that we just took a whole chapter exploring
I thought of the Knights. Of Maggie. Of Paige. Of Joel, Alexis, Tiffany, and my other friends. Hell, of Evan that tenacious little boy who’d held out as long as he had. They outweighed the bad. They’d helped me out. I did believe in the inherent goodness of humanity.
sharkhi sharkhi 💜
that's just such a great note in such a shitty situation
I only heard bits. Lawyer. Coffee. Behaim. As that last word was spoken, he looked over his shoulder at me.
GODS AND DEVILS DAMN IT
Can't Laird just leave him to his toronto brand of fucked at this point? give this guy a break!?
But, still, there was a connection, one that moved in the same direction one of my connections did. Right in the direction of Jacob’s Bell.
Oh fuck. I don't suppose cop-being runs in the family?
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A bird 🐦 10-Jun-19 08:21 AM
Something something cycles perpetuating
devastating 2
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JayManiac 10-Jun-19 08:21 AM
I saw the focus drop away from Dunc and me both, from the other side of that mirror. I saw the sole remaining connection flicker and die. Something digital. There were the two of us in the room, and nobody was looking. Dunc picked up his latte and rested it on one knee, scooting back a little, respecting my space. I could see the foam. He’d drawn a rune into it, so it floated on top of his drink.
I can't decide if I'm glad that this guy won't actually believe that Blake's a child murderer, or just pissed off because he's one more thing stacked against Blake right now and won't give a shit...probably
“You know I didn’t do this,” I said, “don’t you?” He nodded. He smiled some, “I kind of wish they hadn’t let that slip. This next part would be far more effective if you were in the dark.”
ah, cool. I'm gonna be pissed at him then. Now he's just the dude who was treating a known innocent like a fucking child murderer
“You’re a diabolist,” he said. “You’re a threat to the family, you went after Uncle Laird, you’re a threat to everything. I don’t even have to get you sent to jail. All I have to do, apparently, is keep you in custody for the next twenty-four hours. Anything else is extra.”
So Laird knows about Conquest's deal. Not that surprising, considering the number of people who've figured it out. Wonder if he had a chat with briar girl
“The extras I talked about? Putting you away for a long time? It’s sensible. It means things like what happened in Etobicoe don’t happen again.” “I bound that thing,” I said. “And you gave it away.”
Got a fuckin point there. Conquest could hurt a lot of people if this goes wrong
“Cheating the system you serve,” I said. “Serving the system with a little cheating,” he said. “Nudges, but nudges are all we need.”
Don't mind me, I'm just serving the Right with a little bit of diabolism over here. Move along.
He smiled, but he didn’t answer my question. “A friendless, homeless diabolist is easier to keep track of. If we dismantle you, then your actions reach only so far. They’re easier to contain. This is doubly true if you’re forsworn, or you’ve upset the local Lord through an inability to carry out the tasks you were set. If you die, our family can deal with the next member of your family. If you don’t… if you’re reduced to a husk of a man in a cell, well, the family gets its peace and quiet until we do need you to die.”
This is really really heartbreaking to read and I want evan back now please can we get rid of duncan? (twig) I'd even take twig duncan please
“I’ve got your file here,” she said. She took the chair that had been previously occupied by Duncan’s partner. “Given the severity of the charges arranged against you, may I very earnestly recommend a lawyer you’re actually paying?” “You can, but unless you’re giving me the cash to do it with,” I said, “I don’t really have the option… the only lawyers I could pay would be one I really don’t want to be in debt to.” I saw Duncan smile a bit. “Even with a murder charge?” “Even with,” I said.
I'll be real, I expected the literal actual lawyers to show up right now
and by literal and actual
I mean the demons
demon lawyers
“I’m not going to be able to do a very good job for you,” she said. “This would actually be my first murder trial.” “I appreciate anything you can do, Mrs. Harris,” I said. “But quite frankly, I think I’m pretty damn screwed.”
I mean it is our motto around these parts
She fished in her bag, then pulled out a notebook. “Blake Thorburn. They’re accusing you of murdering a little boy. What can you tell me?” I finally had a moment to think, and the thoughts weren’t coming together. “I… was told to go to that location, earlier. I did, except the police were told something else. They arrived at the same time.” “You think you were set up?” “I most definitely think so,” I said.
yay for all the things that are technically true!
“I think it was a family, two families in particular, but I don’t think it was mine,” I said.
Lords, how much of Blake's resistance of the duhaims is just trying to get them in trouble with the law? I'd almost say it's a theme, but...no I'm just gonna say it's a theme
“Whatever the justification or explanation, whether it’s true or not, I think it’s sensible to remove your Officer Behaim from this particular case.” The older man frowned. “Yes. Of course.”
I mean it hasn't worked two times, so I'm puttin my chips on the ol threebeat subversion please
He glanced down at the sheet. “This evening, when you found the body, that was your first time seeing Evan Matthieu?” Fuck. That one fucking moment’s hesitation probably felt ten times longer than it actually was. “That was the very first time I saw him in the flesh,” I said.
They don't know that blake literally can't lie, but this is just something humans like to do regardless. We- and by we I really mean I- love to tell ourselves that we're pretty much telling the truth
“To be entirely blunt,” Max told me, “My partner wrote down the word ‘schizophrenic’ with a very large question mark. He’s noted the signs he believe point to this… disheveled appearance, question mark. Hoarding objects and tools, question mark. Self inflicted damage, question mark. Duncan Behaim has an uncanny knack for being right in his assessment of people. Do you see things, Mr. Thorburn?”
*shakes fist angrily
DUNCAAAAAAAN
“Do you see ghosts, goblins, grumpkins or anything in that vein?” “I’m open minded to possibilities,” I said. “Try to be specific. Yes or no?” “He insisted on yes or no answers, didn’t he?” I asked.
This is so goddamn smart that I'm not even mad except for the part where I'm really fucking mad
Ilovethis 1
^those statements comprise a good amount of my humor and this is why I'd be a horrible practitioner
“Do you see goblins every day? Going about their business?” I sighed, leaning back. “I exercise my right to not self-incriminate.” “Do you see demons?” “I exercise my right to not self-incriminate.” “Do these goblins or demons ever tell you what to do?” Yes, Pauz had. “I exercise my right to not self-incriminate.”
This looks really really bad. But I bet it can get worse!
“Hands.” I gave him my hands. “I’m not going to touch you,” he said, “Since you don’t like that. But that’s only so long as you cooperate.” “I’ll cooperate,” I said.
That's kind of the nicest thing anyone's done here and the relief it made me feel is a good indicator of how generally super fucked up everything is here
I saw two adults, and a little boy. The adults stared at me with red, puffy eyes. The little boy broke away from the pair of them. He passed effortlessly through the people and objects in the way, before falling in step with me, walking just to my right. I glanced back at Duncan, and I saw him glance down at the little boy and raise eyebrows.
NOW IT'S TIME FOR THE SMILEY GHOST HELL YEAspoop
I knew my boi would come back
I’d done everything right, near as I could figure, and I’d still been screwed. The natural answer was that I’d need to do something wrong to get out of this. Fuck that.
sharkhi spoop
With all sincerity, fuck that idea backwards and forwards. I was not going down that road.
This is such a fitting ending to these two chapters I love this book so much
I know that if you aren't supposed to read any two adjacent chapters in a row it's the interlude of four followed by the first chapter of five but they just line up so well and it's satisfying and amazing and I'm so excited to get back to this book sometime soon
I'm beginning to see why it's Bird's favorite
and listen- I love superheroes a whole lot- but fantasy's where I thrive, through and through; this might wind up being my favorite too. (got a long way to go before unseating ward though)
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JayManiac 11-Jun-19 06:57 PM
So I'm not doing a chapter right now, sorry for the false alarm when it comes to channel notifs, but as I was backsearching interlude four for gendered terms I made a very important discovery:
ohno 1
Psycho Gecko, the lizard, the myth, the legend, read pact
Will I go back through every chapter I've read so far to look for Geckoisms? Probably not, that sounds like a lot of work and I'd rather spend the time reading new chapters when I have it, but I literally went to a random chapter (third chapter of collateral, just because my computer remembers that I went there) to look for a comment, and lo and behold
Like I said, I'm not gonna go back and search out every single one, but rest assured it'll be part of my liveread in the future; Gecko's just so clever and my first reread of worm was enhanced greatly by his input. I followed a good bit of his web-serial: "World Domination in Retrospect" and it's pretty good!
Anyways, Gecko's a comedy inspiration, I know this particular comment wasn't the best of his best but the ones surrounding the leviathan fight were pure gold
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spinagon 11-Jun-19 07:06 PM
Idea: write a script to pull out every single Gecko comment in chronological order and compile them into PDF document
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JayManiac 11-Jun-19 07:07 PM
I love this idea
I don't know the first step in how to actually do that, but I love the idea
(I know what I want to tell the computer to do, but I don't know how to run it or any of the language involved my only coding experience was becoming quite good at programming minecraft mods when I was fourteen and I've since totally forgotten how to do that)
But seriously: if there was ever going to be a Worm Abridged (and by that I mean an SAOA-quality, text-based Worm Abridged), then it will find its seeds within the PsychoGecko comments
Also just jumped ahead one chapter and
Oh man, this is going to be a special section of the liveread from now on: Geckowatch
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JayManiac 12-Jun-19 02:38 AM
That's a bit of a shame on all counts, for someone so talented. I hope he finds/has found a way to make people happy being imaginative and funny somewhere
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JayManiac 13-Jun-19 06:03 AM
Alright, finally graduated and turned in last assignment of high school, should have a bit more time to read Pact in the future
Speaking of: 5.2 time!
When we last left off, Blake was legally screwed
“Boots off,” the officer said. “Huh?”
I'm with ya, Blake. I just listened to a WGW that goes on about how tone-setting and everything-recapping chapter starts usually are, and I don't doubt that there's something going on here, but we're just kinda tossed in there and even Blake is confused
I looked down at Evan, then up at the officer. “No way out,” Evan whispered, in his replay-of-a-memory voice.
Well at least you have Evan
does blake have any clue how to actually do the familiar ritual? What the hell is the familiar ritual anyways?
“Have to escape,” Evan said, as if to himself. A skip, because he couldn’t tap into a part of himself that referred to a ‘you’. He’d been too isolated. He’d learned ‘you’ since, or he could tap into his memories when he was close enough to his body, but not like this.
I still think there's something weird going on with how Evan acts, maybe something to do with the Hyena's effect or even Blake's effect maybe? Could even be Pauz's radiation, if the natural order of ghosts is to slowly fade into the environment around them
Evan might be picking things up from his environment instead, letting him learn in a way other ghosts can't as long as blake's around
Instead, I scratched at one of the scabs on my arm until blood welled out. I sat down on the cot and bent down, making it look like I was adjusting my sock. I drew the thin line of blood on the ground, between myself and the cop. Breaking the connection between me and him.
Quick thinking, Blake! You may be considered a convicted felon but that was a hell of a Fell-in you just did there
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JayManiac 13-Jun-19 06:18 AM
“Trouble? Did-” Evan flickered, “-do something wrong?” “Yes and no,” I murmured. “They think I killed you. I’m being set up on that front. Other stuff… well, it’s mostly to do with my family. My grandmother was a person of ill repute, and I’ve inherited that reputation. Kind of.” “Oh.”
Blake, m'dude. I've never heard the word "repute" before, and I don't know that Evan "I can't remember the word 'you' because it's not tied in with the themes of my death" Matthieu is gonna get all of that.
that said, him not being able to remember the word "you" is a really cool beat
“You don’t want my help?” “I really want help,” I said. “But I don’t want to force you to help. I don’t want you to help because you think there’s no choice, or because… I dunno.”
Evan just wants to help, Blake. Although I also see the other side of the situation and it's good that Blake wants to make sure Evan is as lucid as he can be when agreeing to a lifelong (deathlong? I guess Blake's-life-long) commitment. Not that it's likely to be a commitment of more than a few days at this rate
He seemed to come into himself. He spoke quietly. “My body. Tear-cut- things after I die…” “What?” I asked. “Right now.” Flicker. “Right here.”
hhhhhfine
I just...I know it's not making him weaker but the fact that he can feel or sense it in any way is disturbing all on its own
“Mom and dad. I-” flicker, “-don’t-” flicker, “-want my mom and dad.” “No?” “Please. I- help come. Thank.” “You helped against the Hyena. You, in absolutely no way, owe me anything, understand?”
This is really complicated, because I feel like the flickering and the lack of certain concepts makes Evan's statements variously interpretable. I'm not sure that blake has the right read on the situation
When Evan spoke, it was with more focus and direction than he’d had a moment ago. He’d been summoning up strength. “You found me. I can’t go home.”
spoop
But also was Evan running away from home when this happened? is that why he doesn't want to go back?
“You’re not to blame for what the Hyena did.” “I got lost. I saw something… someone? I went to look, and I got turned around,” Evan whispered. I wanted to take him by the shoulders and shake him, to give my words more weight. “You’re not at fault,” I said. “You have no reason to feel guilty, okay?”
I guess not. But I can see how Evan could blame himself for getting killed, and thus killing his parents' kid and not wanting to face them
if that's what's happening
which I'm still not sure of
“When I was younger,” I said, “Not as young as you are… but younger… I ran away. Bad things happened to me too, after that. I blamed myself.”
Oh. Yeah. I didn't even think of that, this is really beautiful
“I can’t remember if I said, but… well, there’s two things I want to say to you, but I feel like each of them is the thing I say first. I’m not doing this well. Um. One of the rules, if you want to use magic like I do? It’s that you aren’t allowed to lie. Bad things happen. You understand?” Evan nodded. “The other thing? I don’t think I ever said this out loud. Even to myself. I’m kind of unsure… not sure if I should say it, even, because I might be breaking the rules, and making bad things happen.” “Don’t- have to.” “Evan… Neither of us should feel guilty. The bad things that happened to us are not our fault, understand? And if you tell yourself that it is your fault, then you’re kind of saying that what happened to me was definitely my fault. Because you were lured out, but I made the choice to run away.”
THIS IS SO AMAZING WHAT THE FUCK
Blake's being forced to admit that what happened to him wasn't his fault and he has to really believe it for someone else's sake and it's really touching
“Evan, you could move on. I declare your debt to me paid.” “I don’t… I can’t. I want- I want to…” he trailed off. “Evan?” He only shook his head, adamant. He had nowhere else to be. He couldn’t be with his body, and he felt too guilty to be around his parents. He didn’t want to move on. “Okay,” I said. “Okay. I’m not sure I get it-” “I don’t want to die,” he said. An echo of a memory. “I don’t want to die like this.”
I think this is as clear an answer as Blake's gonna get, at least as long as he's stuck in his cell. Evan is the survivor, and he wants to live. All his ghost wants to do is make it long enough that he's found by someone who can help and BLAKE YOU CAN HELP DO IT BEFORE EVAN DOUBLEDIES
He’d survived on raw tenacity. He’d struggled so he wouldn’t die, isolated and undiscovered, a riddle unsolved. Now, it seemed, he carried that desire and tenacity forward. It applied, perhaps, to the great unknown that waited beyond.
yES he wants to LIVE THANK YOU
spoop spoop spoop
“Thank you. Here’s the deal… I’m on something of a quest. The Hyena was the second out of three monsters I’m supposed to stop. I have until midnight to bind the third one and bring it somewhere. My enemies figured this out, and they’ve framed me for your murder.” He nodded again. “I can use magic. Not much, but I can use magic. My enemies can use better magic. They’ve stuck me in here, and they want to keep me here until my time is up.” “-Need to get away,” Evan said. “Ideally without the cops after me,” I said. “So I can go back to my friends when all is said and done.” “-Want to go home,” Evan said. A statement echoing a memory.
I really love the idea of ghosts for a lot of reasons. I've run into a few characters in fiction that have speech-based limitations (echo from PJO and greek mythology can only say what someone's just said to her, so she has to choose which ones to echo and what tone to apply in order to communicate, Secret from young justice can only say "secret", etc.) and it's always really fun because of moments like this
“What- can’t go home,” Evan said. Was he telling me? No. I was just having trouble reading his tone. He was asking me a question. What if I couldn’t go home? “If I can’t go home, if the bridges are burned and there’s no way to get away, then… I guess I have to settle for getting away.” He nodded. “I don’t want to do that, though. I don’t want to be a fugitive.”
That's maybe what worries me the most about this situation, that someone's already cut him off from his friends, that he can't go back to his apartment, that he loses everyone he knew
“If I use a trick, my enemies are going to use better tricks. They manipulate time, and I don’t really know how that works when they don’t have big rituals going on.” “Okay,” Evan said. “Can you start by scouting the area?” I asked.
So..this is the "evan helps" plan? What about being familiars? Do you not know the ritual off the top of your head, or do you just want to get back to Evan's body so you can ask him properly?
“Escape routes, places to stay away from, places the cops don’t look, and just where different things are, so I can find my way around.” “Okay.” That said, Evan was gone. I needed help. Evan wasn’t enough.
You said that last chapter, but it's not exactly like you have many options. Work with what you got, you know? Make Evan your familiar and blow this popsicle stand, c'mon!
“Knights of the basement,” I said. “Knights… Knights… knights…” I was going to try and stop the monster that had ruined their lives. I had one monster under my belt – they already knew that. They’d given me a ride to see Evan after dark, so I could ask if he wanted to be my familiar. I hadn’t asked, because I didn’t want to ask for favors only to not need them, but the plan had been to borrow their books, their know-how, or both, if and when it came time to bind him.
Gotcha. That clears it up. I like the Knights and all, but...uh...I don't know that breaking into the police station counts as "low risk favor"
With luck, they’d reach the station, realize what happened, and piece together a strategy. With less luck, they’d get here, decide I wasn’t worth it, and turn around.
Sounds about right
also can't help but notice that you're doing that thing Fell told you hurts a practitioner, or at the very least isn't comfortable
I wonder if practitioners could talk in morse code?
Blake, blake, blake, blaaaaake blaaaaake, blaaaake, blake blake blake
(I only know how to say one thing in morse code)
For a moment, I felt alarm surge through me. The same momentary panic that came with a sudden sensation of falling, lying in bed. Was I being manipulated? Enchanted?
This is probably how it feels, yeah. For all he's been calling practitioners like this, Blake should join Matt's band, the Hypnogogic Jerks
That I needed to recharge, before tomorrow rolled around, if I was going to put up a fight. If I was going to sleep before dealing with the demon, if I even got the chance, then I might as well use the otherwise wasted time here. My last thought, before sleep took me, was about Rose. If I was out of gas, how was she faring?
Well maybe that's a good sign, the connection has reverted back to normal and you're being drained
Blake Thorburn. One of the ones outside was saying my name. The connection was the strongest, suggesting it was Nick. The guy who’d had the shotgun, the leader of the Knights. “Shotgun guy,” I said. “Nick.” I felt the connection solidify. He reacted on some level.
NICE! Step number one? two? well, it's complete
“Sorry, Evan,” I murmured. “Didn’t mean to leave you waiting.” “…Tired,” he said, after a momentary struggle. “Need to sleep. I can’t sleep. Tired… won’t let me sleep.” “What’d I miss?” He shook his head. “Tear me up after I die…”
😐
dude we gotta get going and save evan i'm starting to think there's a time limit on him here
“Tear me up… I’m tired.” “I know,” I said. Your body is less intact, and your body is… some kind of vessel that’s keeping you anchored here. The lone Knight was entering the building, approaching the front desk. “Evan. Would it help if I gave you something to do?” He nodded.
OOoooOOo these are good stakes and good tension for a prison break
it's almost like our arc is called breaki-wait that's the wrong book ignore me
I’d slept through the remainder of the night. I was now working with limited time. Sixteen hours at most, before my deadline hit. Sixteen hours. Fuck.
And there's this other looming source of tension besides the whole "evan is dissolving" one
“Good morning. Up early, are you?” “I have company, huh?” “Your lawyer. And a witness has come forward.” “Fantastic,” I said. “I didn’t think you were allowed to talk to me.” “Apparently my supervisor is no longer concerned about that,” he said. He smiled a little.
oh you son of a behaim. Fucking connections. Makes it impossible for Blake to do any lasting damage in the muggle way
I had no way to track the passage of time. Evan didn’t turn up, and I worried he’d returned to my cell to find me absent. He and Duncan Behaim were a little too close to one another.
ahhh there's four separate chips in play- five if you count the muggle cops- and Blake barely knows anything and it's super cool and stressful
This was hell. Being made to stay still, being confined, trapped… it was everything I loathed. I’d run away from home to escape a kind of pressure very similar to what I felt right now.
fine
A sick feeling welled in my gut, as I imagined being sent to prison, facing this each and every day, knowing I had ten or fifteen years before I would get out. I knew this was about mind games, tricks, manipulations, to make me look more guilty, or to put me in a position where I’d maybe make a mistake. Just as they’d done when they’d pressured me in terms of my personal space, the very layout of this room. I knew it, but I was having trouble distancing myself from it.
i guess I haven't been buying that Blake would ever just...go to prison, but it's certainly a possibility with everyone fucking with him
It didn’t help that every single second that passed was one second that I theoretically needed for tonight. For taking on the lesser demon, the abstract thing.
I think it's a devil, but close. Demons are chaotic evil, it's a whole thing
“Yesterday, you were asked to visit the woods. By who?” “The lady said her family asked you to go,” Evan said. What? She’d lied?
Maybe..she's not awakened? Maybe it's Nick's wife, and Blake met all the practitioners of the knights?
it'd be a cool twist, that the knights have that kind of power
not that blake can exactly corroborate that story
I made a bit of a show of sighing. “A family at a convenience store a little bit away wanted my help. I maybe got one partial name, nothing useful to you.” I saw Duncan’s expression change. A deeper frown.
HAHAHAHAHA YOU SMUG SON OF A BEHAIM
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JayManiac 13-Jun-19 07:17 AM
“I needed some advice from them, for a project I hoped to tackle today… a project I still hope to tackle today, given the chance. I’m… I’m not sure exactly what happened to them. I do know that they lost someone in their family. The man I talked to, his son lost a girlfriend, maybe? It was vague.” I was thinking a hell of a lot more clearly than I had the night prior.
I wonder why this is? Is it just the ol good-night's-sleep-in-a-prison-cell or something else? Is it still him drawing precious rose-power?
I had an advantage here, and Duncan didn’t like it, going by the look on his face. Trick was figuring out how to get the most out of it.
I like duncan, I really do. But I also like to watch him suffer. Which one am I talking about? Who knows? devastating
“Mr. Thorburn,” Duncan said, ignoring her. “Do you believe that particular group of people you talked to last night are affiliated in any way with the supernatural?” “Do you?” I asked. “Don’t be combative,” my lawyer said. “Yes or no?” Duncan asked. “I think they’re-” “Yes or no,” he interrupted. “Now who’s being combative?” I asked.
It'd be really easy for Duncan to just brute force his way back into control if he hadn't so thoroughly pissed off blake
Fuck you, I thought. I couldn’t let him control the flow of this discussion. I continued, heated, “The family said something about being involved in board games or something like that. Maybe it was a Dungeons and Dragons or Weaver Dice thing, maybe it was an Ouija Board thing. I don’t really know. But you could probably stretch the definition. Yes, if you have to ask.”
Yes Blake, take it back, fuck yes
also don't think I missed that little reference there
I think it'd be hilarious if the writers of the maggie holt books just made it so characters in that world play games that occur in the "real world"
I realize I'm thinking too much about it
and I'm gonna stop
but I think it's kinda fun to think a little too much about it
“My suspicion is that there was a supernatural or pseudo-supernatural element in young Evan Matthieu’s death-” “So you do believe in crazy stuff like that?” I cut in. “Quiet,” Officer Max said, a little hostile.
That's the thing, though. he still has all the power, no matter what you try to do. If you try something, and he tries the same exact thing, they're gonna take his side. you might have some advantage, but he has it when it comes to this interrogation
“I believe that errant teenagers can and do get involved with such nonsense, leading to the harm of unwitting bystanders,” Duncan said. “We searched your apartment and found ritualistic drawings on clothes and at the border of the apartment.” Balls. But I was a little more mentally agile than I had been last night. Enough that it worried me. There was only one good source for the power I had at hand, and it boded ill for the donor. “Much of what you saw on the floor was done by artist friends of mine, and not by me. The building landlord can put you in touch with the guys who did the tape thing.“
Lords, we can't even be happy about Blake being more powerful now holy Hells. He gets super clever with this, but Duncan still knows he's pseudo-lying and won't just saturday-morning-cartoon-villain let it happen
“My. Friends. Are. Artists,” I said. Hostile, firm. “We dick around. We experiment. I blue-tack mirror shards to the walls and nobody bats an eye. It’s how I am. It’s how my friends are.” “I don’t know that they’re so friendly anymore,” Duncan said. “They seemed genuinely taken aback that you’d been arrested for the murder of a child.”
he may, however, get pissed enough to start using low blows. Although i think if Joel heard that Blake was arrested for child-murder he'd at least be open to the idea that Blake was framed instead, seeing as Blake seemed to have shown that there actually is a conspiracy against him and he's not actually insane
“The store’s owner helped you out,” Officer Max said. “What did he give you?” “A chain,” I said, “and rides here and there, including a ride to the park where you found me.” “And tips,” Evan said. “He also gave me a bit of advice,” I said. There were nods from Officer Max and my lawyer. Duncan frowned. He shifted position, and when he settled again, he had a little salt packet in hand. One of the paper ones that you found in restaurants.
FUCK HE'D BETTER NOT DO SHIT TO BLAKE'S NEW GHOST SON
I didn’t wait for him to make a maneuver. The only Other in the room was Evan. I glanced at him, and gestured with one hand. He disappeared through a wall.
sharkhi
“I’m doing favors for the sake of a very… eccentric person.” “Who?” Duncan cut in, again. “An eccentric, powerful person who most likely wouldn’t appreciate the attention he’d get if I shared his identity.”
I don't know if I'd exactly call Conquest eccentric. Wanting to rule the world- take it, specifically- is less of an eccentricity and more of just...a dick move
I talked over him, “-the house I inherited. The very same house that has your uncle, Officer Behaim, making my life miserable. Police Chief Laird Behaim of Jacob’s Bell. I thought you weren’t permitted to be here?” Pressing him on the subject, I saw the connections shuddering within their confines. Him to me, him to this room. Firmly set. Gilded. He’d manipulated something, fixed it all in place.
Dammit! This is unreasonably frustrating
as in i shouldn't feel this frustrated vicariously experiencing this conversation but duncan's such a dick
“Can you name the person who gave you the tip to walk in the woods and find me there?” I asked “Because as I told my lawyer, this reeks of conspiracy…” It was thin, a contrived, glancing blow at best, but I wasn’t about to waste time, and I needed to hit his weak point. “… conspiracy like one shady-as-fuck police chief getting his nephew to incriminate someone. How is this okay!?” Mrs. Lewis had told me that theatrics were important. How you said something could have an impact on the power of a statement. So I raised my voice, and I slammed my hand down. With the impact, the bindings around the connections shattered. Ones binding me to the center of the room, me to Duncan Behaim, me to my cell… And one on the underside of my chair? Either way, the third time’s a charm.
YEEEEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!H!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
🎸
That was fucking awesome I'm with the spirits you deserve that one
“Officer Vargis,” ‘Max’ said, his response delayed slightly. He was just as out of it as the others. “-Officer Vargis, he used the term reasonable doubt. If this goes to the justice of the peace this afternoon, are they going to uphold it, or are they going to hear the basic evidence and throw it out? Are you holding me out of spite? Because-” “Enough,” the older man said. I bristled, ready to press the attack. “The charges may well be dropped. However, I trust Officer Behaim’s-” “You’re bringing up the guy who may well be conspiring with his uncle,” I cut in. “Again.”
Blake is relentless here. I'm guessing they're probably suffering a bit of backlash from whatever duncan did to them; I'm also jguessing that duncan put a "vehemently hate and disregard anything that sits here" rune on the bottom of Blake's chair, which is why that broke when he 'won'
“No,” the older officer said. He shook his head, as if trying to clear out cobwebs. “There’s no need for that.” “No need?” I asked. “For now, we can drop the charges. However, as you remain a person of interest, a possible witness or potential suspect, with the possibility of another arrest if new evidence comes forward, we’ll be in contact with you on a regular basis.” My heart soared, even as I kept my expression stern and still.
FUCK FUCKING YES I DON'T EVEN CARE THAT BLAKE HAS TO FACE THE OBLIVION DEVIL AND ALMOST DIE LATER THIS IS AWESOME
Officer Behaim stood in the hallway, head hanging, arms limp at his sides. His fingers had black blotches on them. Everyone in the area was lingering at the edges of the room, staring. More alarming were the spirits that stood around him. A child, a matron, an older woman, each holding one part of a length of thread. A giant with gray skin and a veiled face. A tin man with a clockwork body, his head rotating around three hundred and sixty degrees, moving a set distance each second, like his overly pointed nose was a hand of a clock.
oH FUCK
Are we doing a boss battle now that Blake beat all the challenges is that what's happening?
I'm so ready if we are except for the part where Blake totally isn't ready
“Behaim,” the older man said, his voice steady, gentle. Behaim moved, and I realized what the container was. A spray can. I saw the wall beside him, the doors, bulletin board and wall painted with black lines. A diagram.
Shit. Time magic probably won't be very boss battle-y. All he has to do is keep Blake here for sixteen hours and that seems well within his power
I saw a cop with a coffee in hand and bolted. I seized the coffee from the officer’s hand and flung it, coffee and all, at the diagram. Duncan Behaim and each of the spirits around him moved in sync, reaching out, placing their hands on sections of the diagram. He said something in a language I couldn’t understand, then he said my name. The coffee cup didn’t get halfway to the diagram.
Shit, and that was an actual good idea too. I like that wildbow's protagonists are never stupid unless they're stupid. characters in general actually. Their plans don't always work, but blake's been clever and it keeps that consistancy, especially now that he's more mentally agile now
Blake Thorburn. I sat upright, nearly smashing my head into the cot above mine. “Fuuuuuuuuuuck,” I swore, long and loud.
“No, no, no,” I said, standing. My complaints joined those of the other prisoners in the holding cells. “No, fuck, shit, fuck, balls.” Everything was moving in the same direction, except for one individual. Duncan Behaim.
Except Blake doesn't get to be tom cruise. Duncan does. I mean it's good that Blake remembers too, I don't know why that would be, except that he's awakened
I also don't really know if this is your standard edge of groundhog tomorrow time loop, because that seems way too powerful, even to do over the hour or two that Duncan manages
And I doubt he'll have the strength to do it again, and I bet he'll have to pay a big price for it, but still...damn
“Knights,” I said. “Nick. Nick…” The connection broke as quickly as I formed it. Blocked. I wasn’t sure if it was Nick or Behaim that broke the connection. The Knights, however, turned to leave. I sensed them go. Getting into a car and driving away.
FUCK. This is still frustrating. And doubly so, because Blake already won and now Duncan's just stripped away the advantage that let him do that
Guys, this is gonna be a Pact First for me, because....
I don't know if I like it
I think this might be my armsmaster call of a moment
but here's the thing: I really like that blake's gonna have to use his accumulated knowledge from the previous loop to win anyways and that's a great kind of conflict that I'm excited for. I get why this was done and it's awesome
But snatching away the resolution feels a little cheap. And I know there are reasons it shouldn't feel cheap, I know that we always knew Duncan might be able to do something like this, etc. but I'm just reporting the feeling I had when reading. Maybe if I read it again I'll feel stupid for thinking it was a problem the first time around, but for now it just kinda rubbed me the wrong way
A connection flared between Duncan Behaim and Evan. He was after the ghost. I looked at Evan, sitting in the corner.
anyhow, let's get back to this, because it is clever and I do enjoy that part of it
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JayManiac 13-Jun-19 07:57 AM
I figured there probably would be
“Okay… but… you were good at figuring out where the wolf was, weren’t you?” He nodded. “I need you to go looking for other things. There might be spirits somewhere in the building. I don’t think they’re bad spirits. Some might be animals, but they’d be the wrong sort of animal in the wrong sort of place. Others might be attached to objects, like watches. There’s a giant with a covered face, three women in the same dress, holding a thread, a mechanical man with a spinning head, and a faded old man with an amazing beard, okay?” He nodded. “It’s too many animals and objects for one person to have with them at one time. If I happen to leave this cell and get to them first… it’ll help. Go look around the building, but keep your distance from any policeman with black hair, okay? I’ll call your name if I need you.”
Like I said, blake's able to better use his tools with the knowledge from the loop, just like duncan. i suppose duncan assumed that since Blake didn't actually have any power the advantage would all be his, but we're quickly subverting that; blake even plans to get out of his cell before they come get him
I paced in my cell, feeling time yawn on. I had nothing to occupy myself with except vague worries. The knowledge that Duncan Behaim was borrowing power from his family, from his circle. Using that power, he had reset my day, and he’d turned away my chance at victory. “That asshole,” I muttered.
this is the universal sign language for fuck the behaims 🖕 🕰
Sticking me in a fucking groundhog loop, I thought. Countering my plans in advance. Motherfucker. Threes. He was working on Laird’s behalf, using Laird’s assets, among others, to best me. Already, I was pretty fucked. Then I’d broken the simple connection manipulation by way of three rejections. But this loop… I was willing to bet my eye teeth that he was holding his trump cards for a third round. He’d pull out all the heavy weapons to make the third loop a success, and get Laird his third win at the same time, while removing me from the picture… it seemed like a good strategy to have in play.
Drat. Also what the fuck are eye teeth? Is that just a typo? Have we seen eye teeth somewhere in the story and eye'm just forgetting?
There was no fucking way I was doing another loop. Option one was removing the spirits from play. Take away the power sources he needed. Evan was on task. Option two… well, I needed help.
Not the lawyers blake not the lawyers. But it's good that you're thinking in terms of threes and in terms of removing the loop from the equation before he can fuck with you again. I'd also focus on learning as much as you can this time around just in case he manages to loop you again
Problem number two was more vague. I wasn’t sure I’d get a response when I called. Even with the price I was paying. Toilet. I searched it as I had the cot, running my hand over every surface.
Who could he be calling? Maggie? Joel? Paige? Rose, somehow?
“You want some privacy so you can fondle the toilet?” the drunker of the two girls asked. Apparently she had been watching me. “The opposite,” I said. “That…” she paused for far too long before making a decision, “…That doesn’t make sense.” “I’m worried it doesn’t,” I replied, meaning it. If this doesn’t work…
You want to fondle the toilet so you can have some privacy? You're going to be fondled by the toilet? This really doesn't make sense
I unbuttoned my pants, then thrust my pelvis forward, using the edge of the button to pry at the raised lip, drawing it further out. I ran it back and forth, eliciting a metal on metal screech. “God! What the fuck are you doing?” she asked. She must have turned around, seeing me wiggling my hips left and right with my pelvis pressed against the side of the toilet, because she squeaked, “I don’t want to know!”
What the fuck is blake doing? besides terrorizing the local populus that is
My hand swept over my forehead, catching the moisture there. I was hoping I had some glamour still there. I was hoping a lot of things. I ran the sweat along the edge of metal, visualizing. Sharp. Then I placed my forearm against the ridge and slashed the back of my arm.
Well that's step one, I suppose. Didn't occur to me that yea, you're gonna need blood if you want to even start calling anyone
Sitting cross-legged on the ground, my back to the girls, I moved my fingertips to where the blood fell on the concrete floor. I drew a line. Except this time I drew it from myself outward. “Rose Thorburn,” I murmured. “I give of myself to you.”
Oh
Oh
rose is coming back, baby!!
“Rose Thorburn,” I said. “I give of myself to you.” Pauz had apparently screwed up the connection. I was drawing from the vestige I was supposed to be powering…
Petition to replace soviet russia memes with "in the Pauz Hauz" memes. Example: "in the Pauz Hauz horses ride you/car drives you/dog walk you"
This was me giving back, in the crudest form possible.
Hell yes blake. But also maybe she also needs love and appreciation and being-listened-to
Not all of it was me disconnecting from reality, giving up my very being to work against an effect. The connection had altered. “Blake.” I couldn’t focus enough to look. “Blake,” Rose said.
Rose I'm gonna cry I actually missed you so much what the fuck is this chapter it's not allowed to do this to me
“Glad to have you back,” I said.
NOW LOVE AND APPRECIATE EACH OTHER THIS SHIT CAN'T HAPPEN AGAIN I'LL BE MAD AT YOU BOTH
“Oh- oh wow. You’re bleeding… in a jail cell? What happened, Blake? Did the Sphinx-” “Rose,” I said. “You missed…”
like half of the longest arc so far
“If I… if I happen to be incapacitated… There’s two bound, gotta get the abstract demon. Kid named… named Evan.” “Stop the bleeding!” Rose’s scream somehow got attention. Or it was coincidence. The girl behind me turned, and she screamed. She screamed a lot. “Ghost named Evan,” I said. “Good kid. He’ll help.”
Blake you are not starting this on good terms sweet scion stop bleeding so you can give some directions that sound more coherent than the drunk girl a cell over
“He wants to trap Blake Thorburn? I… give of myself until Blake Thorburn almost isn’t there,” I said. “Evan. Evan Matthieu. Come.” No response. No connection. “Call him,” I said.
Huh. So he can't do the call-y thing anymore now that he's not drawing power from rose.
I call it a worthy loss
Someone came to the cell and threw the door open. An officer. “Medic!” I dragged the toe of my sock against the blood that pooled on the floor, drawing a line. Breaking the connection. When I staggered out, he didn’t notice me.
haha, breaki- dammit wrong book again
“Call Evan.” “Evan… Evan? Ev-” The ghost appeared. “You’ve lost your mind,” Rose said. I lurched. “Rose, meet Evan. Evan, Rose.” “Hi,” Evan said, “The monsters got you.” “I got me,” I mumbled. “Show me the way. And hurry. Only get one chance, like this.”
Guys I have to sleep but I'm so hype
Ilovethis 2
complaint? what complaint? no one had any complaints this is just the best
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JayManiac 13-Jun-19 06:24 PM
Huh. That's kinda cool! Eye guess you learn something new every day!
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Ishamoridin 13-Jun-19 06:35 PM
It's especially obvious in x-rays of children who still have milk teeth. A little terrifying, actually
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JayManiac 13-Jun-19 06:55 PM
sweet scion why the fucking hell would you show me that
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JayManiac 16-Jun-19 06:35 AM
I have returned from the wilderness to read 5.3
but first, a word about that arc title: conviction. Just off the cuff, I think of conviction as #1: being in jail, and #2: a strong internal drive to do something, and I think that this arc is already playing really well to both
anyhow, when we last left off: Blake, Evan spoop and Rose ❤ were all collectively screwed!
Who was Blake Thorburn? Who was I, in the grand scheme of it all? What did I amount to? When I bled the essence of Blake Thorburn onto the concrete floor of a jail cell, what was I giving up?
Maybe, as with many Blake Thorburn things, you should've figured that out before using it for a desperate spontaneous power play!
Presence. I couldn’t communicate effectively with Evan. The loss of presence was part of the aim, though. To put myself in a situation where maybe I could slip the metaphorical noose.
Oh shit, this isn't one of those random arc-starting thoughts he's actually gonna go into it.
Strength. I couldn’t stand straight. Kind of a problem when I needed to be running. I didn’t have balance. When I pushed on a door to let myself into the next section of the building, I found it hard to do. Hard to say how much was blood loss, how much was a loss of personal power, and how much was my disconnection from reality.
I'm definitely gonna be keeping these in mind as we move forwards through the arc as Blake's self-evaluated aspects. And as for whether it's blood loss, personal power, disconnection from reality? I have to believe that on some real metaphysical level it doesn't matter one bit, and only does here because Blake makes that distinction. Parts of this remind me of breaker states, which you could probably evaluate in terms of essence
reminds me of something I was gonna bring up and talk about next time i was reading a chapter instead of, yknow, reading past the first four paragraphs before being dragged off on a tangent
I was thinking about how the universe functions as the writer of a story, with its inhabitants as both its characters and its audience. The universe, as a writer, has things that it thinks are bad, and things that it thinks are good. When the people (as characters) do good things, they are rewarded in the eyes of the story and vice versa. But when people (as the audience this time) notice the universe shoe-horning its message into their lives in a predictable way, it stops.
The universe avoids perceived contrivance in its story, just like a good writer would, and it has a pretty strict agenda it's pushing
which is why it's doubly interesting that we're not reading the universe's story, our story just takes place in it
I want as many of bird's thoughts on this as I'm allowed to have at this point in the story
anyhow, back to Blakesics
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Ishamoridin 16-Jun-19 06:50 AM
Yeah, the Watsonisation of the role of author in order to examine that role is probably the neatest aspect of Pact
Can't imagine how mindbending it made it to write though
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JayManiac 16-Jun-19 06:52 AM
But that's the thing, this is why Pact has unquestionably my favorite setting out of any wildbow story and easily one of my top three favorite settings of all time (along with Paradox Space and The Unknown (otgw))
there are things that make it difficult to write in (karma, dialogue containing no untruths), but that just speaks to how cool it is, and how earned it all feels
agree 1
My thoughts, too, were fuzzier, disconnected from events. Which was why, really, I was dwelling on what was happening to me more than on my surroundings.
So Blake names four aspects here, and I'm gonna be keeping track of all of them as the story moves forward; I'm also wondering if they're easily applied to another four we've been introduced to...
wait I can't remember if the awakening ritual had four things or four things plus car keys
If it's four things plus keys, it's possible that Identity is something Blake doesn't think of here
“-Have to go that way,” Evan said. He said it to Rose. “Okay,” Rose said, before glancing at me.
I know they're probably not gonna get along, but I really really want them to because I love them both so much
and let's take another tangent, because it's been a whole two paragraphs since the last one
I think part of our attachment to both Rose and Evan has been from the fact that they have each independently been Blake's only allies, his only refuge, something he has to trust and rely on because there's nobody else, and I don't think Evan's introduction would've worked as well if Rose was around for it. Taking her out of the story, as much as I missed her, was a really good choice. Still glad she's back
I looked down for the source of the feathers, and I saw my tattoos. Three of the birds were beheaded or partially beheaded, the cuts intersecting their faces and necks, the other parts of their bodies already gone. The blood that still bled out from the wound was thicker around the stumps, and the matted blood where I’d pressed my arms against the mattress to staunch the flow was caked around their bodies more than anywhere else. Huh.
Sweet Scion, that's an awful sign what the fuck
And I love Blake's reaction to it, everything feels muted, like he's just I dunno bled his identity out on the floor
It's just like "oh, interesting"
Again, I used my toe to draw a line. Residual blood from standing in the pool of it made it easier to do. Officers and a man with a first aid kit came running up the stairs, running right past the disoriented guy with sliced up arms.
I know I hate in when duncan does it, but the fact that Blake can just imp himself is just so fun to me
“Get moving.” I wasn’t sure if it was Evan or Rose saying that. I listened all the same.
this is really troubling. I guess they could have similar sounding voices? More likely Blake's just losing touch a little bit
“I could do with going to evidence,” I said. “They have June’s hatchet and supplies. I think.” “I still don’t know what’s going on,” Rose said.
Hahahahahahahhahahaha I forgot Rose just like, showed up, got the worst explanation of all that shit, and still doesn't have any context
agree 2
“…backed by all the power the Behaim circle can provide at range,” I said. I caught some feathers out of the air, jamming them in a pocket. I had no idea if they were useful or abstract, but I liked having something on hand. I felt naked without my tools and trinkets. Exposed, oddly enough.
I've been assuming he's just straight up leaking Blakeness all over the floor so grabbing it while you're in the neighborhood is a good call
“What did you bind Evan to?” “I didn’t,” I said.
Yeah nah they're just buds
I just wish blake's answer was "me" at this point
oh hey, actually Rose can access the books now so they can do the famulus ritual as soon as they get a second
“Evan came with- with his body,” I said. “Cops brought it.” “That still doesn’t make sense, Blake. He’s apparently aware.”
Well fuck, don't tell him that
Friggin Rose, knockin all of Blake's "I think of ghosts as people and therefore they become more people-like"
I don't actually think that's all that's happening with Evan, and i don't actually think Rose is gonna convince Blake of very much here
“-nevermind. Okay. Evan. He… he’s still there. The echo, yes, but there’s the consciousness, and he’s still got the consciousness. It never moved on. He doesn’t want to move on.” “He’s a soul?” I winced. “Don’t know.” “Actually using and leveraging a soul is a little different than using a ghost, Blake.”
Oh fuck, why didn't I realize that? It's so obvious. Some combination of the Hyena's domain and Evan's sheer stubborn willpower just kept him around
gotta admit, I was hoping Blake's new familiar would be a little more powerful that a ghost, and I'm really happy with this
“You’ve been heading downstairs for way too long,” Rose said. “What floor were you on?” “Third,” I said. “I thought it was the sixth or something,” she said. “Shit.”
This is awesome
I mean no it's not
but let's be real yes it is
I wonder if this is a subspecialty of chronomancers or just something Duncan can do
“This isn’t the time to start acting more like a ghost. Why can’t you?” Rose asked. “F-frostbite?” Evan asked. He held up one hand, showing us fingers that were frayed at the tip. More ghostly than they might otherwise be. “Salt,” I said. “This is all very deliberate.”
Friggin asshole
“Was going with my instincts,” I said. “You really shouldn’t trust your instincts if they’re telling you to carve yourself up.” “I needed backup,” I said “This kills two birds with one -ow- stone, so to speak. Bringing you back, and reducing my profile. This is serious. We’re in trouble if we can’t deal with Duncan here. Right now, I think he’s busy setting up more traps. Sealing us inside the building.”
Blake you're about to kill two birds, and add a flower in there for good measure
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Wildbow 16-Jun-19 07:14 AM
?
Not sure I follow that last line of yours there
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JayManiac 16-Jun-19 07:16 AM
I'm framing Blake as a bird, using the r/parahumans banner to cheat my way into thinking of Evan as a bird, and then Rose identified with a literal Rose that one time, and I'm saying that Blake's about to get all three of them as killed as they can each be
Rigging traps at the exits, binding me in place. He hadn’t hurt me, though. Laird hadn’t either. That was a good thing to keep in mind.
Yeah, I wonder if that's just regular karma or if they promised not to hurt blake at some point- which would make sense, the whole "don't kill the thorburn heir" might've played a part in why Maggie was sent to kill Molly instead of Laird just doing it. Seems the younger Duchamps never made such a promise, or at least penelope didn't
“Very funny,” I said. Much of the light in the stairwell came from a single large window, just above one landing. He shrugged. “We’re still on the third floor,” I said. He shrugged again.
Rose come back right now and tell blake not to jump through the dang third floor window that might actually kill him. instead, as long as you're trapped maybe Rose can snag famulus, you can all have a nice sit down, read a book, capitalize on every scrap of power present in this situation
No other brilliant ideas were presenting themselves. Staring at the bright window, turned gold by the sunlight, it disoriented.
This is just a really fun set of lines. You can't see it in the quote mode but 'brilliant' is italicized.
“Fair enough,” I said. “We’ll do it your way.”
The jump through the window way? The jump through the third story window way!?.
Rose returned, her silhouette dark, the light shining from behind her. “Duncan’s drawing runes by the front entrance. We need to use the other exit if we’re going to run for it.”
Well now that actually sounds like a decent idea at the same time as Rose isn't gonna let you do it
This was the Behaim style, apparently. Big chronomancy, using the family and the circle, bits of shamanism, enchantment and other tools here and there. Binding, augmenting, distracting…
Lords, the behaims are such good villains, and Blake's right, this is just building on everything Laird established in his introduction
“I can’t think of another way out,” I said. “I can’t force you, but… well, look at it this way. It’ll take something out of you, but it’s going to exact a price from him too. Quite possibly a greater price. He said he’d keep me here. Let’s make him lie.”
So I talked about how much I like Karma today already, let's talk about how much I like "you don't get to lie". I mean I know I've talked about how it enhances the dialogue, but I also just really like the story element that breaking oaths doesn't just straightup strike you with a bolt of lightning, it makes you less trustworthy in the eyes of the spirits. It's a really natural extension of the lack of "vending machine magic" as I've called it. When there's always an arbiter of each and every magical effect, of course lying is going to sow distrust between you and the very powers you rely on for everything you do
“A crack… and it didn’t take that much out of me. One more try…” The window shattered. I saw glass fly. Then Rose’s voice from further up the stairs. “I am stronger.”
Blake hasn't told her about the Pauz effect that actually knocked her out for two days, then
I wasn’t interested in a direct confrontation. I took a moment, touching my sliced right arm, raised my shirt, and drew a symbol on my chest. I hoped I had it right. I got a running start, one hand on the wall for balance, and I jumped.
I friggin knew blake was an airbender. Fly, glide to the ground my hatchling!
The other rune Duncan had drawn on the windowframe, hidden, was the other. The same kind of rune, apparently, that connected one part of the stairwell to the other. The sun flashed in my eyes, and I was back in the stairwell, ten feet above the ground. Ten feet above stairs, rather.
or...that
“Uncle told me about your mirror-dwelling companion,” He said. He touched the frame in front of him, moving it so it was askew. “I’m not an idiot. You’re going to need to try a little harder than that.” The frame exploded, all the same. A hand thrust out with the glass, faint, feminine, with nails poised to strike like claws. It grasped blindly for Duncan’s face.
HOLY SHIT THAT'S AWESOME
I didn't figure a vestige would be able to get this powerful, this physically present. I guess it matches up with how out of it Blake's been all chapter
Before it could, he twisted it, and drove it hard against the side of the frame, where ragged glass still jutted out. Rose screamed. Duncan let go, and the hand became smoke.
But identity here comes with vulnerability, in a way Rose has rarely had to experience
“I have nothing against you, Evan,” he said. “What happened to you was a tragedy. I’m genuinely sorry it happened. But I will banish you if you get in the way, here. Send you to your final rest by force.”
That's...surprisingly undickish of duncan. I'm like actually shocked reading it, but of course I shouldn't be. I've been thinking of duncan as heartless but really he's just demonized Blake- diabolisized, whatever- and isn't a total sociopath
not that it's gonna stop him from being a dick
“I wanted someone to find me,” Evan said. “I wanted- help.” “I know,” Duncan said. “Evan-” I said. He was summing up his strength, to break pattern. “He came.” “I know,” Duncan said.
Evan is such a heartwrenching sight here that I really hope it just tugs at duncan's unsympathetic soul and know it won't. This is just such a great moment I'm gonna start crying again
“Thank you,” Duncan said. He resumed his approach, kicking glass off each stair before setting his foot firmly down on top of it. “That was decent of you. If it helps, I don’t have any hard feelings.” “But you’ll pull out all the stops, huh?” I asked. “I’m not evil,” he said. “I’m not doing evil. I’m only doing what I can to keep this situation contained, and quite frankly, it’s kind of a rush to do it with the family’s backing. I go years without doing anything on even half this scale.”
it's almost like losing empathy in the service of what you think is the greater good to the point of killing or sacrificing innocents that you feebly justify as being in your way makes you a bit of an asshole.
(edited)
Someone should write a story about that
Evan descended to a stair two steps above Duncan. Then Evan screamed. Blood-curdling terror distilled, an echo of a memory. All without warning, in the ear of a man who’d thought he was alone with me and Rose. A man standing on stairs.
Look I'm gonna say this every time: I love evan so much he's the absolute best entity in the whole entire universe
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A bird 🐦 16-Jun-19 07:42 AM
Agreed
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JayManiac 16-Jun-19 07:42 AM
Oh hey bird! started a conversation with you at the start of my read!
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A bird 🐦 16-Jun-19 07:43 AM
I do have thoughts on your universe as both audience and author, but I'm on some meds that are making me somewhat fuzzy
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JayManiac 16-Jun-19 07:44 AM
Ah, gotcha. We'll wait for next time I think of something like that. But hey at least you can relate to Blake and sense of awareness! He's on a strict perscription of almost getting himself killed every two days
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A bird 🐦 16-Jun-19 07:44 AM
My main point to inject there is how does that tie to the other themes you've found?
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JayManiac 16-Jun-19 07:45 AM
Gotcha, I'll keep it in mind and backsearch the logs of my read to remember what other themes I've found
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A bird 🐦 16-Jun-19 07:45 AM
And to Blake? His relationships and actions?
Legacy, power structures, momentum
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JayManiac 16-Jun-19 07:48 AM
Yeah, I'm especially interested in how this ties in with the arc names, a sort of legality of the universe at large and that itself as a power structure
not sure if I've come up with very much just yet, but it's kickin around in the old essay-maker up there
I’d already given so much. A little more… I let go of my right arm, and my hand was so sticky it pulled at the open wound. With my bloody hand, I reached over to the window, planted my hand down on the second rune, smeared until I broke the connection, and vaulted over. This time I made it through.
Meanwhile, Blake...wins? I still think there has to be a third round of the third confrontation with the behaims, but this feels like round 2 goes to Blake
Something, a lot of somethings, broke, all through the building.
especially since he just forswore duncan at least a little bit
“Maybe,” I said, my voice low. “I’m… seeing things.” “What things?” “Conquest’s tower-” I had to stop. I hurt. “-A world that’s sort of like Johannes’ demesne.” I turned my head, looking around. “You’re sinking,” Rose said. “Something like that. There are different terms for it in different books.”
Holy frick, he's glimpsing the other planes, looking more abstractly at reality. This is the coolest thing in the weird conceptual world he's on shadesmar
Losing touch with reality. Too much me given away.
That's such a good payoff to the opening lines of the chapter no wonder we spent all that time on them
“You go where anyone goes, if they slip through the cracks.” “Vague,” I said. My heard hurt. My body hurt more.
Say hi to shotgun's girlfriend while you're down there
shotgun's son's girlfriend, rather
Dark places, dog-eat-dog, unpredictable, hard to navigate. The spirit analogue to the deep wilderness.”
The part of the universe unaffected by its structure of power, by its government
“I already had a taste of rock bottom before,” I said. “Before this. I don’t want to experience the practitioner-hell version of it.” “Then don’t use more blood for power,” she said. “Because I don’t want you to go there, especially if it means you drag me there with you.”
I'm glad we got this, because it's been way too easy to see blood as this unlimited resource of power that Blake has, and to be reminded of its limits, and of the stakes associated with those limits, is really important at this point in the story
“I… think we have to,” I said. “For June? For the locket, I presume?” I ran the edge of my thumb along one of the sore spots where the locket’s chain had rubbed me raw. “Those things too.”
Okay whether or not you're innocent of actually killing the kid, stealing his body has got to be like twelve different kinds of illegal
“I want to see you, Evan,” I said. He didn’t react. “Are you sure, Blake?”
jguess I was right about that one
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A bird 🐦 16-Jun-19 08:00 AM
I'm glad we got this, because it's been way too easy to see blood as this unlimited resource of power that Blake has, and to be reminded of its limits, and of the stakes associated with those limits, is really important at this point in the story
I prefer to think of Pact power as having more consequences than limits
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JayManiac 16-Jun-19 08:00 AM
That's a better way to frame it, I agree
“Rose-” I started. “Him?” “Feels right,” I said. “It feels wrong to me,” she said. “He’s a soul. A person. For real.” “He’s a person that’s said he wants to stick around,” I said. “You don’t have to like it,” I said. I was too tired, too insubstantial, to pick my words carefully. “-have to decide. Either call him back, tell him to take us to the inventory lockup, or go get the book.” “This is something huge for both of us. I’m attached to you, and I’m attached to him by association.” “Are you saying you don’t like him?” “That’s not what I’m saying. I don’t know him. This is something that takes time.”
This is exactly the kind of tension I was dreading from the start of the chapter. I mean, we know that Evan is The One when it comes to familiars, Blake's not gonna get much better, but Rose's position is really understandable. At the same time, he just saved Blake's ass by distracting duncan and maybe that should score him points
“Time’s a luxury we don’t have,” I said. My voice was ragged, came off harsher than it otherwise could. “I just carried out your plan, binding the imp, giving it to Conquest. I fought the Hyena, and that was a bitch in its own way. I’m spent. Say no, say yes, but don’t fucking dither when every second counts!” “You can be a real asshole sometimes, Blake.”
Seconded. I mean, he has a few good points, but also fuckin hell that's not the way to talk to your #2 ally in the fight against the entire universe
“If it helps,” I said, my voice still ragged, worse for having shouted, “I’m not really me right now.” “Is that it? Or is it the opposite? Is this Blake Thorburn with all the flesh and mortal warmth bled away?
If only blake had the flesh and presence and awareness to feel that fucking burn
“Did you decide, Evan?” I asked. “The answer to my offer.” “To be your partner?” “Yeah.” “Why not that girl?” “It doesn’t feel right,” I said. “I don’t want to pick her because she’s there. I want to pick someone who feels like they fit.”
That's kind of cold, especially when being your familiar would almost certainly save Rose's life. I'm kind of getting more of why Rose is so pissed off right now. I mean obviously it makes sense to add another party, to extend power and reach and find a teammate that'll balance everyone out, but at the same time...Rose doesn't have forever, and you gotta find a way to save her.
Or else you're literally forsworn
Duncan was in the basement, but he didn’t come for me. He went to another room, then stopped. He couldn’t see me, nor could he see the connection between us.
oh great, he's so insubstantial that it's working to his favor. yay?
“I can say that I’m probably going to go up against some scary things. Things like your wolf. I’m going to try my damndest to stop them. To catch them or kill them. I want to be a force for good in the world, and helping you, stopping the Hyena? That’s the first time I felt like I was doing that.” “I want to help people too. It’s not so complicated when I think about it. I don’t want people to feel like I did.”
spoop 💜 sharkhi
“I, Evan, agree… to… be… bound… by… the…” “Strictures,” Rose said. “Strictures…”
speaking of power structures...
this is like, the motherload
no more essential power structure than this one right the fuck here
Breathing hard, hurting all over, leaning on the drawer, I stared down at the body that sat between us. The centerpiece for our little ritual here. A portion of my attention rested with our adversary, the remainder was split between Evan’s recitation and trying to figure out what time it was, how much time I had left Duncan Behaim would get his round three after all. With luck, he’d also get something of a surprise.
The fact that I must sleep is an eternal disappointment\ i just want to read about The matThorburn Trio forever
But alas, that's the end of the chapter, I'm super sleep deprived, but this ritual is something I've been excited for since arc two and I'm so hyped to get back to this book. I have a frickload of editing to do tomorrow but I hope I wake up early enough that I have time to do next chapter before all that
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JayManiac 18-Jun-19 04:20 AM
Ended that last chapter off not realizing it would be father's day and I probably wouldn't have a spare few hours 🤷 But I'm back! maybe even for a double chapter? Who knows!
5.4!
When we last left off...
uh
was blake even blake?
But more importantly FAMILIARITUAL spoop bulba spoop 🐦
We made it three-quarters of the way through the ritual without any sign of the fanfare or effects that had accompanied Rose and my mystic awakenings. Of course we did. The world surrounding me was already touched by craziness. We had an audience of psychic echoes.
I'm willing to bet that this is not the most metal familiar ritual that the world of practitioning has ever seen- I'm betting it's hardly even above average- but god damn this is the metelest familiar ritual I've ever seen
Then I, _____, by the old rules, invite you into the world of man and mortal, I read. “Then I, Blake Thorburn, by the old rules, invite you back into the world of man and mortal,” I improvised.
spoop but also i dunno I'd be careful about just switchin up the ritual willy nilly like that. I guess it has a Y/n slot so it can't be that adherent, but still
I wonder who acts as the Officiator of Familiarism?
I drew a circle on the floor in soap, retrieved from the dispenser above the sink. Surrounding Evan, and the body. He stood within, I stood without. As icons of civilization went, hand soap was… it was something. At least it was distinct enough in the gloom, with the lights catching it. All we’d really needed was a circle.
I'm sure if you believe in its symbolism enough you'll be good. Cleanliness...okay that's all I got.
WAIT
nvm
Just remembered that soap works as a way to let oil be dissolved in water, essentially to combine two elements that wouldn't be together otherwise
perfect!
“I accept the offered shelter, and I agree to guard that territory as if it were my own.” The walls were falling away. Not fading, not collapsing… they were already hard to make out, dark in a room lit only by the glimmers of ghosts. Light snow fell on Evan’s side, rain and wind on mine. Shadows congealed into trees behind him, dark, barely lit by the moon. Leaves were falling along with the snow. They landed in darkness, settling on a surface that was well beyond the walls of the morgue.
Apart from being just really beautiful, is Evan's ghost still tied to the environment of the Hyena Woods? I suppose the trauma inherent to the ghost part of him knows the forest as its environment, so that would make a degree of sense....I'm definitely gonna try drawing this and may share if it's in any way presentable. Hhhhhh this is just so awesome
“By the compact, I guard you against those…” “Selfsame,” Rose mumured. “-selfsame forces.
I know it's not this at all, but Evan struggling through a word and Rose helping him just touches the image of a parent helping a kid learn how to read by having them read a chapter in a book, and it's just this one little nostalgic, wholesome image of the two of them in this chaotic, strange ritual. Beautiful.
“I give you asylum from the forces that follow you, as the old laws permit.” Death, the usual ‘force’ this line referred to, wouldn’t claim Evan’s soul for the time being.
Followed immediately by the reminder that Rose would've probably been saved by being Blake's familiar and there might just be some resentment on her end
intentional or no, the juxtaposition of those two concepts works really well to build the tension of whether Rose and Evan will end up getting along
Duncan had noticed what was going on. That was concerning. I could understand him noticing me even with the amount of myself I’d bled away. I was asserting myself here. But he shouldn’t have that kind of power at his disposal. I’d won. I’d turned his promise into a lie, and that came at a cost.
But we have no idea what kind of cost Duncan will have to pay. Yes, he's forsworn, but it's implied that you don't lose all your power at once, and you don't even necessarily get to know what power you lost. And plus, if you just end up winning here you win the third round, but if he manages to loop you it's the third round of the third round and who knows what happens then
But I'm guessing at least that- as they're treated as the same entity- all three of them will have the memory of the last loop, and they'll still be familiars
it wouldn't make a lot of sense if the familiar ritual were reversed so easily...I think. I could be wrong, of course, but it seems like a convention of the Others that people would be careful about messing with.
“Blake,” Rose said. Stirring me back to the matter at hand. I read the book. “I give you this with no expectation of secret knowledge or revelations,” I said.
I might have to compile the whole famulus ritual so I can read and analyze it all at once when we're done here, because I've only half been paying attention to the actual text of the book
There were options and suggestions here. This part was more freehand, more personal. I didn’t really have to dwell. I definitely wasn’t giving Evan my body. I wasn’t serving as his mortal hand for a quest. There were no big terms to stipulate here. “I, Blake Thorburn, give my friendship to Evan Matthieu. I offer from a place of shared history, and I give it willingly, with no expectations. I give my mind and spirit, my body and power, and agree to defeat evils, so I might give him a satisfaction he might carry beyond.”
Blake is damn good at these oath things. And by that I mean saying them, not choosing when to make them. But really, this is a more economized, less romantic version of marriage vows, and Blake just stole everyone's hearts with that one right there. If I ever get married, I hope I can write something half as awesome in advance.
“I’ll take your watchful eyes, Evan Matthieu,” I said. “I accept your company as scout and guardian, as companion, and I offer you a mortal body, as our mutual power allows.” A pause. When I glanced at him, he was looking to Rose. She nodded. “I accept,” Evan said.
But there are these little moments between Evan and Rose that make me think this might be alright. He's trusting her, looking to her (something blake never bothers to do) and though we haven't seen it explicitly reciprocated, I dunno how could you help becoming at least a little attatched....in a non-metaphysical sense...or is it a metaphysical sense?
He ceased to be a ghost. He became something else, a form no larger than my fist, shrouded in the gloom.
🐦
Lords, I know because I cheated using r/parahumans-banner secrets, but a bird is just the perfect animal for Evan to manifest as. I'm guessing the animal is representative of the bond, of Blake's disposition as well as Evan's, and it works. I wonder how you make sure your familiar isn't a dog or a rat? Work it out with the Other beforehand? Do they get to choose?
The double doors were decaying. An offensive use of time magic, apparently. Paint peeled with accelerated speed, cracks formed in the fiberglass, and the little glass windows began to crack, warping slightly as the door distorted around them.
So not that costly then
When he spoke, it was with the same voice. “I, Evan Matthieu, will take, and I give in return. I accept, and I likewise swear.” The connection between us went from insubstantial to solid, dim to bright. It was like a breaker had been thrown, and the dark backgrounds surrounding us were cast away. The room returned to what it had been. Not quite normal, but a ways there.
This moment of celebration has been stretched out this entire chapter so far and I've been pulling each paragraph because I'm just living for it.
I hopped up, putting one foot on the counter, starting to make my way up. I heard a gun click. No longer moving, I said, “Why not shoot?” “Is that really the question you want to be asking me?” Duncan asked. “I might reconsider and actually pull the trigger.”
He was gonna tase blake earlier so I'm guessing whatever prevents the behaims from directly harming him isn't that binding. Still enough that Duncan would rather risk forswornness than just kill him, though. Speaking of, wonder if he can still do the loop-de-loop like this?
He was glaring at me. Behind him, the deterioration of the door was reversing itself. The cracks in the glass shrunk, and the damage to the fiberglass gradually healed.
So he wasn't really aging the door, just temporarily reverting it to an aged state, which is probably easier
convincing the spirits to act a bit older for a couple seconds in exchange for whatever the cost of the magic was
“How?” I asked. “You said you’d keep me in the building for the day. You lose access to your magic if you lie.” “And you aren’t really you, are you? It’s why you were able to slip my fellow officers so readily. A portion of you is still occupying the floor of that jail cell. The man who jumped from that window was… well, I imagine many spirits had trouble figuring out who he was, just as the others did. I did take a hit, but a lot of the power I’m using right now is borrowed power.”
Shit. Yeah, that'd do it. I was wondering if being forsworn would fuck up borrowed power too, since the spirits have to listen to you still, but apparently the answer is no
“You managed to escape, and you came back here. Why? You did something, didn’t you?” he asked. “A ritual?”
He doesn't know? Oooooo he doesn't know
I mean he could just be pretending not to know, but if he really doesn't then that's a helluvan advantage
“You’ll be suffering from a bullet wound too, if you don’t start talking. Necromancy, yes or no?” “I don’t-” “Yes or no, Blake Thorburn? Don’t test me.”
is it time?
is it time for me to unearth one of my favorite clips on the internet?
I can't believe I didn't connect that sooner, it's so perfect
btw, it's a fifty second clip so not too much of a time commitment
“What was the ritual intended to do?” “Settle Evan where he was supposed to be. I’m hoping,” I said.
Should've stuck to your reductivity duncan, question like this is way too open ended
“Demons and devils do ask for people’s souls. Or they make Faustian promises. They don’t put any particular value in the soul, though. That’s not to say the soul is useless as a commodity, it does have some power to it, but my understanding is that most such Others are more interested in the soulless than the soul itself.”
Putting a big pin in this to talk about identities and the magic system and the soul later when we're not being held at gunpoint
i'm kidding
blake is always being held at gunpoint
even if it's metaphorical, I bet on some plane of existence there's some metaphysical gun being held to his identity-head
“You polluted yourself, and you’re going to get rather sick, given time, Mr. Thorburn. The initial effect, when the foreign bodies take hold, it’s disorienting. When they make themselves known, the effect will be very similar to injecting dirty water in your veins. Our bodies reject foreign entities, and our spirits will do the same. I don’t even need to do anything.”
And you know? I'm betting it's exactly the same thing happening as dirty water in your veins, just on a greater scale. After all, identity-loss is just the version of blood loss that's integrated with the magic system, and this is just the version of blood poisoning that's integrated with the magic system. Lords, this is such a great magic system
Pact is definitely my favorite- and potentially the best- of wildbow's worlds. Twig has my favorite protagonist, Ward is the most skillfully written (and probably the best plot, though I haven't finished pact or ward so I can't say just yet), and Pact has the coolest world.
Worm is...
uh
a stellar Ward prequel
Aw fuck. No police officer liked it when one of their own was attacked. “I know the usual protocol,” Duncan said. “But he’s clearly troubled. I looked at his sheet. He was homeless for a stretch. A few near-misses with the law, hospital records suggest he was the victim on more than a few occasions. Go easy on him.” “You sure?” “I’m sure,” Duncan said.
Oh Duncan, that's almost human of you
and then there's the reminder of a "usual protocol" when it comes to these things, which is I'm guessing collectively beating the shit out of him
so
uh
great
“Oh,” Duncan said. He looked at me, clearly displeased, then back to the bird. “Enough of that.”
So I'm guessing he's guessing what blake was up to in there?
Does Duncan have a familiar? I mean he has the spirits, but those are from the behaim circle. Maybe he doesn't? maybe a police dog?
maybe he's got a famimplement too
His back to the officers as they led me further up the stairs, he twisted and snapped Evan’s neck.
AAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHH!!! WHAT THE FUCK!?
Does that..like..work?
can you just do that!?
No!
I looked for Rose and found her reflection reflected in a black LCD screen. One glance told me she’d felt the effects of Evan’s second death just as much as I had. There was no way I was going to put up a fight. I could barely move. Rose couldn’t affect this world. Evan… Evan was lying in a snowbank with a snapped neck, until he pulled himself together.
Okay, okay, phew
he's fine
I mean no the fuck he isn't
but he's fine
If I was going to win this, we needed to achieve it with this alone. “I’m sweating, I don’t feel good. I need some cold air,” I said, stressing the word cold.
Cold air? But it's the middle of june!
i'm so fucking glad my read coincided to make that pun possible
gotta go eat real quick but I'll be right back
Avatar
JayManiac 18-Jun-19 05:49 AM
am right back
He carried my hatchet because it was the best way to ensure I wouldn’t find my way into that locker and claim it the moment he had his back turned. “June,” Rose said. “Make your presence felt.”
Rookie mistake, Dunc. Rookie mistake. Although I'm anxious to find out whether this is June's last appearance
she didn't seem super powerful last time she showed up
Rose raised her voice. “June! Remember that moment! You remember that moment when you realized you were going to freeze to death!” Duncan dropped his coat. He shook his hand a little, as if it stung. He didn’t bend down to pick it up.
But power is power, and this is pretty clever. Let's hope he's also got his other totems in there too
That all he had to do was turn his head and fly, because I needed him. A moment later, she was breaking a window, to give Evan a way in. The sparrow came flying through the police station, in from the stairwell, making a beeline straight for the fallen coat.
The four of them are tag teaming Duncan!! This is great! Blake and the Vestiges, and their upcoming album: MisBehaimin'
Avatar
Wildbow 18-Jun-19 05:58 AM
That was pretty good
Not going to lie
😁 2
🎸 2
Avatar
JayManiac 18-Jun-19 06:02 AM
“Why is that evidence in your pocket!?” I shouted, ignoring him. “In that jacket pocket!” Heads turned. “I was right! You’re screwing with me! You have no reason to have that! You’re not supposed to be touching my case!”
Blake's continued use of the law (or attempted use, as the case may be) is fascinating, since he's essentially relying upon the status quo, the power that society "agrees" upon- instead of or in consort with the one that Others have agreed upon. It's an avenue that seems to catch Duncan off guard the first few times, since he figures it for a situation he has complete control in.
The bird flew past me. As with the snow, he gave me just a bit more of a bump than he should have been able to. The two shots missed.
So Evan's true(er) form is still Evan-sized, this is more of a representation of the bond, of mortality. Also duncan totally just tried to kill blake holy shit that escalated slowly and at a good dramatic pace
I guess whatever kept him from hurting blake isn't worth the trouble anymore, starting now
“I collect birds,” I said, glancing at him. “Keep quiet,” an officer that held me said.
Do you? I mean I guess he has the tattoos, but it might've been more accurate to say "I collect them" and be referring to ghosts, because you sure as hell collect ghosts
“He’s resetting time,” Rose said. I glanced at the door, unable to reply without sounding like a lunatic to my neighbors in the next cell. I shrugged. At least it buys me more time to plan for the abstract demon.
Oh yeah, and that's what you've been doing. Planning. When does Blake ever follow a plan that he didn't make up in the past six minutes...okay there's Rose's plan for conquest, and that's literally it. Maybe he's learning.
Evan flew down to my hand, then lifted one foot. He let go of the locket, letting it fall into the bowl of my cupped hand. I smiled. I murmured, “I had a feeling you were a good pick.”
Oh hells yes. 🛑 Glamortime
The other leg raised. No wonder he’d had trouble landing. I held out a hand, and Evan deposited another object into it. I grinned, feeling relief wash over me. “Definitely a good choice.”
👀
“You introduced me to June earlier,” Evan said, in my ear. His voice was hoarse. “You were saying you needed more help, before. She was the first person I thought of.”
I've read a fair bit down the page and I still don't know what it is. Unless..he didn't carry the friggin hatchet with him, did he?
“What Duncan was saying earlier,” Rose said. “It’s true for any ghost. A fractured echo of a person, it gets filled in with the relevant pieces. Evan’s… he’s a little bit bigger than a ghost. I’m guessing we’re seeing one thing that filled in the empty spaces.”
He...can pick locks? With his beak? I guess there were lockpicking spirits?
“Yet you’re really okay with waiting? With trusting the system here?” Rose asked. “Duncan is out there, manipulating it.” “That’s three wins for me,” I murmured. “Three times I’ve successfully woke his boss up to the fact that he’s gaming the system, gunning for me. I’m thinking maybe this time, it’s going to stick.”
I interpreted that "a third time" as not working, but maybe...and I'm guessing the thing Evan dropped was a Behaim Talisman because they don't seem to be discussing the possibility of a time loop anymore
I wonder if Blake can use it for something, some other little hint of power he might have at his disposal
I'm desperate for anything that gets blake more power than he's got at this point, and I don't know what that says about my gradual descent into villany
He was shouting, and something or someone was keeping him from entering the hallway. Maybe he was being led away in cuffs. Didn’t matter. He was pissed, and the day hadn’t reset. “Good job Evan,” I said. I smiled, shutting my eyes again. I moved my hand, to ensure the object was still there. A short silver chain with the charms on it. A bracelet, with little silver etchings of the individual components of Stonehenge. Evan’s second retrieval from Duncan’s jacket pocket.
OOoooOOOOooooo shiny
And now Duncan is powerless motherfuckers!
I like that the story covers its bases here
This time the law trickery sticks, because Blake's won with it three times, but also because Duncan's connection manipulation has been crippled
it's just really tight and covered
“What time is it?” “Six in the afternoon. You had a pet bird?” she asked.
How many hours does it take one diabolist to bind one abstract demon?
When they helped me to my feet, though, I was surprised at how weak I was. No more strength than a baby. I staggered rather than walk, my leg muscles failing me. This might be phase one of the rejection process. Worse, it was phase one of the possession process. I’d read about what happened when too big a spirit took up residence.
I guess I'm glad that Blake dealt with the hyena before he got..well...this-ed. Presumably there isn't much physical struggle you can do against an abstract devil anyhow, so more of a win?
I’d seen it before. The forces that had been keeping me in were now disrupted. Balance sought to restore things, and that meant pushing me out. I just had to leave the door open for it to happen. “I have no intention of leaving Toronto in the near future,” I said. “You’ll have my full cooperation, you know where I live…”
I suppose cosmic backlash is a thing to look out for with any Practice, not just glamour. Good that it worked in Blake's favor here, and hey! Maybe without Pauz, the animals and humans quickly revert back to a relatively harmonious existance? Yeah...might not work exactly that way, especially with Pauz's radiation in effect.
“This isn’t going to be a run-around binding, or I’m not going to be able to handle it,” I said. “Even without… this, I’d be too tired to do anything of the sort. This one is one we’re going to have to tackle with our brains.” “Yeah.”
Yeah! You'll do fine! Three against one, what could happen?
The abstract demon wasn’t the end of it. Five minutes after midnight, tonight, Pauz was free.
Oh
oh yeah
that might require a little more physical power
Maybe
just maybe
you should've thought more about the future, diabolist
Ilovethis 1
anyhow, sweet scion was that only one chapter!? It felt like a third of an arc!
I'm not gonna have time for another one, but I hope you enjoyed and I'll be back at it again tomorrow for what I'm sure is gonna be...just a delightful set of confrontations
Avatar
JayManiac 19-Jun-19 05:39 PM
and by tomorrow I mean right now!
5.5!
when we last left off, blake had beaten duncan, gotten released, had his familiar and vestige in tow...
and was still undeniably screwed!
It was already dark. Heavy snow was falling, making it feel darker, even if the snow was white. The lights that shone through windows felt oddly small, and headlights offered fleeting flashes of brightness.
Sweet scion what a tone setter. Dark, darker, yet darker. Especially since this chapter is presumably dealing with the abstract devil whose domain of power is obfuscation, the anti-light
It was probably visible from anywhere in the city, to Others and reckless practitioners who were struggling to hold on to their humanity, like myself. Conquest’s symbol of power.
Just the way the big guy likes it! I love this check-in with where blake's at perception-wise, and the perception as a window into his identity. I also love that he just called himself reckless; I know it's not some great level of self awareness or anything it's just fun that he's like "oh yeah all those damn reckless practitioners...like me!"
I moved my arm until the locket itself reached my palm, and then popped it open. I rubbed my thumb on the inside of the lid. “June.” Evan made his way back to me. Surprisingly few people noticed as he descended and made his way onto my shoulder. I moved my hood. I felt the connection. I drew a smudge on the wall, to feed that connection. “June.”
Oh yeah...June. Well you promised to be there tomorrow, so I'm sure you can come and get her then. I wonder if Evan's state is just tied to blake and that's why he's unnoticeable, or if familiars are just Like That to the unawakened
“If I feed the connection, though, she might find her way to me, or I’ll at least be able to keep her from slipping away and getting lost before I get back to the station.”
Oh yeah! I forgot that you can do that, feed the connection. It even makes a lot of sense in the real world, that thinking of something and saying its name will help you find it
It wasn’t something I liked to admit, but the judgments of others did matter to me. My judgment and perception mattered to, as far as how I could and would view myself. I didn’t like being bedraggled.
I think that if anything, this is an especially valid viewpoint in the pact universe-- when there are less people around a practitioner can manipulate the environment more, which leads me to believe that the world is in fact only held in place by the collective perception, which leads to the thought that looking some way and being that way are interconnected on a thematic- and therefore metaphysical- level here. Blake looks bedraggled, and therefore is. Although if he were of the sort that didn't care about the public perception of himself, he might be less influenced by it since he perceives himself a certain way and thus holds that way in place.
I'm going through a process of changing my irl name rn; it's still quite early on, and the results so far have keyed me into a thought about glamor. When I introduce myself as my new name, I have cast the glamor. When people call me by that name, not only does it "reinforce the illusion" so to speak, but I perceive it as becoming my name. And far enough down the line, it will just be my name. Nothing new, I suppose, just a new vantage point
“I was instructed to bring you to the factory building,” Fell said. “Turn around, look at me.” I did, leaning against the car door for support. “What?” I asked. “I don’t have to bring you if I have reason to believe you’re not you. You look like you could be possessed.”
Interesting. Duncan did say that a chunk of identity was left in the cell, and Blake could totally be possessed here, by various dirt-in-the-blood unfriendlies. I think he still counts as him though
“It’s a bad idea, to go forward. I’ve been reading the texts. We don’t know enough. We aren’t ready, not for this, not for tonight.” The stress she put on that word… she was referring to our ability to deal with Conquest. To use Pauz and enact some plan.
Well then what the fuck are you gonna do!? It's not exactly like you put a snooze on your pauz option right there, this is the one thing in your favor, guys
Rose continued, “It’s hard to protect against something as abstract as this, especially when you don’t have the information. You can barely move. Just… accept that Fell isn’t going to give you a ride. That you can’t go and stop the abstract demon tonight. You tried, you failed. You met your end of the bargain with Conquest.”
I'm struggling to recall, did he make any promises to the knights? Any "I'll deal with that thing don't worry about it"s or anything?
The odds are very, very low that anyone is going to get hurt in the meantime, waltzing into the abstract demon’s lair. It’s isolated, by all accounts,” Rose said. “It is,” Fell said.
Just realized that it's likely isolated because no one remembers that they're supposed to do anything there
“There isn’t a lot I can do,” Rose said. “I can’t really affect the world you live in. I was… I was put here, and I’m supposed to be the figure on your shoulder, guiding you, but you don’t listen to me. You picked a familiar without my input. You blithely stride forward, trusting your instincts. Can you understand how this impacts me?”
she does got a point there, chap. Rose is kinda useless if Blake doesn't listen to her, and I imagine it's super duper duper frustrating still. Moreso, now that she's lost two days
“I’m coming out of every altercation a bit stronger,” I said. “With more tools.” “You’re coming out of every situation in pieces. I don’t even think you’re running on metaphorical fumes anymore, you’re running on borrowed fumes. Power borrowed from me, and now power borrowed from Evan.”
I laughed out loud when Blake said this. Prior to that last altercation he had a locket full of glamor, a hatchet full of june, and more than half a lords damned identity
Sure, he walked out with stonehenge and a new familiar, but we don't even know what that first one does and he might've had the familiar part anyhow
“What I think,” Rose said, “Is you’re falling into the same trap most diabolists do. The same trap grandmother did. An inability or unwillingness to look forward. You’re too focused on the present.” “Present is kind of important.”
snaaaaaaaaaaaps
I think I said something to the effect of "you should've planned for the future diabolist" last chapter, and I'm glad Rose is here to be the reader surrogate
“Grandmother hit the end of the line, she had to pick an heir… she admitted, at least to me, that she had waited far too long to do it, that she didn’t prepare us enough. But I can’t help but wonder why she set the rules that she did. Going to meetings, reading for the future. Forcing us to make plans and lay groundwork. Do you think, maybe, she wanted us to do better? To not repeat her mistake?” “Do as I say, not as I do?” I asked. “Look forward,” Rose said. “Think beyond today.”
Since Rose was fond of the author of black lambs blood, I think the answer is most likely yes. She probably tried to be that "good diabolist" but I'm betting it was hard, dealing with the consequences she'd already incurred and having to make more and more sacrifices. It's the kind of problem that's gotta be nipped in the bud, and I can't help but wonder whether Rose was created to say this exact thing right here
“Then focus on it. But… can’t we find a way to work together? Compromise? Let me focus on the future, you focus on the now, and we find a way to make it work together? Except you need to fucking listen to me when I give you advice.”
Yes! Blake Rose Evan Dream Team! Doing Diabolism Right!
“If you two want to hash this out,” Fell said, “I’ll go.”
It's probably a little awkward to be the guy standing three feet away from the dramatic character moments, yeah
I couldn’t tell Rose in front of Fell, not without raising problems, but we needed more firepower to deal with Conquest. We definitely needed firepower to deal with Conquest and Pauz at the same time. At the very least, if we could do something about the demon, we could get the Knights on our side.
Ugh, this is so complicated, because I think that rose is absolutely right in the abstract, but not about the abstract...demon, that is. Blake has context Rose doesn't, and while that's still his fault, I think he's probably right here in this specific instance.
“Not certain. Reasonably certain. There will always be surprises. There’s nothing we can do about them. But if we ignore random happenstance and bad luck-” “Which are a factor, with our bloodline’s karma.” “Fuck karma. Life sucks, it’s always sucked a bit. I’ve fought for everything I have, and I’m still fighting for everything I have. Nothing’s changed, as far as I’m concerned. Here’s what I’m saying. You and me get in this car. We drive to the factory. We talk. We hash out a plan. You treat it as if we were deadly serious about it, no quibbling. If we’re not on solid footing by the time we arrive, we turn around and go. Or we walk back, if Fell insists, or I call friends and get a ride. I don’t know.”
I love this conversation and I love this compromise and I love that Blake's going to be desperately trying to tell Rose things without Fell picking up on the fact that they're totally trying to take down conquest.
“I swear I won’t, so long as you’re saying so in our mutual interest, go against your word. The power is in your hands, Rose.”
Again with the fuckin oaths. This is maybe a good one to make? Yeah I'm gonna say it's a good one to make
“Okay. Just… just give me a minute to get some things together.” I nodded. “I don’t seem to recall giving you permission to enter my car,” Fell said.
They reach this great compromise and it's a moment of victory and fell's just like "hello? still here? Fuck you?"
“Some practitioners have barometers, to measure where they stand in the grand scheme of things,” I said. “Implements and the like, yes,” Fell said.
Which reminds me, now that you've got a familiar might wanna get one of those. I'd go implement next, and then demesnes so you get the most powerful demesnes with which to make sure rose doesn't die.
“I hope you’re going to treat that bird on your shoulders better than you treated these ones.” “I certainly hope to,” I said, trying to catch my breath. The struggle with my coat hadn’t helped. “This? It’s not quite good enough. It almost works against you.” “Probably,” I said. “Man, you really cracked yourself wide open, didn’t you?” “I guess so,” I said. “Needed to make myself small.” “You may well have done that,” he said. He unlocked the car door.
Fell says it isn't quite good enough, then unlocks the door anyways, which to me suggests that he just feels bad enough for blake here that he's gonna do it anyways
“Demons and devils fall into choirs. Choir of dark, choir of chaos, choir of ruin, choir of madness, choir of the feral, choir of sin, and choir of unrest, in order. What we’re dealing with… I think it’s a demon of darkness, by all descriptions.”
Seven choirs. Convenient number, that. Also that makes Pauz of the fifth choir "choir of the feral" which makes a lot of sense. I like that we get all these, and kinda want to go back to other places choirs have been mentioned, like black lambs blood, to see what those were specifically. I also wonder if there's a meaningful difference between demons and devils. they've been using the terms interchangably, and so have I, but maybe there's something more? I dunno, my friends are trying to get me into pathfinder and there's a big difference there
“Maybe you did. But we don’t know where demons come from, but they exist as a sort of counterpoint to the forces of creation, civilization, growth, and order. The choirs aren’t real things… only an idea that some have clung to, some demons and devils included. They’re a handy way of categorizing.” “A dangerous way of categorizing,” I said. “Like calling something a goblin, when it could be something else entirely. You prepare to deal with a goblin, and you get surprised.” “Yes.”
I mean, that's what granny rose was all about! But it's cool to mention that demons and devils themselves have clung to the ideas, thus giving them some meaning. Something becomes a "real thing" in pact when the people or Others involved believe it is, so...they kind of are a real thing, just not real enough that you can make assumptions based on it
“It’s the thing I have the hardest part with,” Rose said. “I feel like there’s a science here, a rationale behind it all, and then we run into something like time magic or some other garbage, and it doesn’t fit. I want to figure out the underlying rules, so I keep reading, I keep hitting the books. If we can figure out the internal logic of this world, we can start to nail some things down. I don’t like the Others that straddle or ignore categories. Especially the scary, demon-tier Others.” “My view on it,” I said, “Is that there aren’t hard and fast rules. This isn’t a science, exactly. It’s not like math, where you can decode it and figure out the system. It’s more like English class. Or art theory. You interpret, you divine the symbols and commonalities, you inject your own voice, views, and apply your own labels and rules, given the chance. Math is just there, waiting to be discovered. With English, with art, you can forge your own way.”
Ilovethis Ilovethis Ilovethis Ilovethis Ilovethis Ilovethis
(cups hands over mouth and scream whispers)
this is my favorite part about the booooooooooook I love it so muuuuch
and it's great that we have these two approaches to the idea of practitionerizing. I'm certainly of the latter, being a prospective english major who just got distracted from writing by reading the poems of william blake yesterday (what a guy, amirite?).
“I hated English class,” Rose said. “So did I,” I said. “Mrs. Gazo?” “Fuck Mrs. Gazo,” Rose said. “I hate a lot of this too, for that matter,” I said.
Okay, fair. But also nooooooo. English was my least favorite- wait no, math was always my least favorite- but I did have a string of four shitty english teachers in a row and it put a dent in my enjoyment until high school, where I had the best english teacher in the world. I get it, man. Also the conventions and methodologies of english class are trying to kill you so it makes sense.
“Okay. For our purposes, let’s look at the demon we’re after as a creature of darkness. Virtually every creation myth touches on certain key ideas. Light is the most common. The sun, fire, something in that vein, it’s intrinsically linked to creation in the human consciousness. To the birth of the universe, the planet, society, and other things. Water and earth tend to follow in general popularity, but those aren’t choirs we need to focus on.” I nodded. “Choir of darkness.” “The antithesis of creation. You could say it’s the most powerful choir. Entropy distilled.”
I'm getting homestuck flashbacks rn guys. In all seriousness, light is generally a pretty big deal, and I talked about this a lot with my philosophy teacher (the only complete book we read was plato's 'republic', in which light plays a pretty central role)
In a sense knowledge is reality, creation, especially in pact's world
“My idea is that we ward off darkness with fire. Prometheus, Khepri, the sun. Fire keeps figuring into myths. It holds a key place in culture and myth. I mean, mankind survived, back in the day, and Others presumably preyed on us then. Fire was a staple.”
Khepri, you say. Khepri, you say
no but i like this for reasons other than the worm reference
specifically thinking back to the days of early man and whatnot
Like, my read is that all Others are human-derived, but obviously within a more christian worldview the original Others are angels and demons and God (if he counts). Within a Nietzschian worldview, God is just something humans made up, etc.
“But fires go out, Blake. Fires spread, raising questions of what happens if we burn down the factory. I’m not sure which choir Barbatorem figures into, but he’s an abstract entity, and grandmother bound him with rigid, defined lines.”
The choir of hairlessness, Rose. It's the secret thirteenth choir. We also discounted the magic circles idea, according to the knights, but maybe that was just because they were using the wrong stuff
But this was about finding ideas, not just about shooting them down. “What if I were to create a flaming diagram using glamour? Work around some of the inherent problems? ” “That’s fine if you’re doing it, Blake, if it’s you alone. Except you’re bringing another individual into the picture, bring the demon into the picture, and maybe it believes in the flame enough to make that flame act like fire.”
See!? HOW IS THIS NOT THE GREATEST MAGIC SYSTEM EVER!?!
“Glamour doesn’t work,” I said. “Okay, something else then. What about… something glowing? I’m picturing a length of chain, red hot.” “Or fluorescent lighting, to be a little more down to earth?” “Or that,” I said.
I love the interplay of this dynamic. Blake is already thinking drama, mythos, red hot chains and firey bindings and Rose is just like "how bout just like christmas lights or something?"
to be fair to blake, it probably would be super badass and the spirits probably would think it's super badass, but maybe it's best to sacrifice a little badassery in the interest of practicality. Not all of it! Badassery is an indisputably important part of existence, but just a lil bit
The passenger door opened. Fell handed me a roadside kit. “Can I say-” I started. He closed the door in my face. A moment later, he opened the driver’s side door. “-I really respect a man who’s always prepared,” I said.
This is friggin gold
for so many reasons
not the least of which is that blake is never prepared
alright but they've got a flashlight, so they're gonna combat the abstract devil with a flashlight...the abstract devil that might not even specifically fall under the choir of darkness...because that choir might not actually be a thing this devil gives a shit about
“We’ve already talked about where I stand,” he said. “Right now you’re helping Conquest get his hands on another one of these creatures, and you know my feelings on that.” “I do,” I said. “Return to your conversation. The only help you’ll get from me is either assistance in getting yourself removed from the greater picture, or assistance I’m obliged to give.” “He doesn’t like you,” Evan commented.
oh shhhh, I think he's warming up
the comedy beats with fell here are just pure gold, I can picture the looks on his face each time
I wonder if he'll warm to blake once blake defeats conquest in hand to hand combat on top of a bridge that's burning for no reason and shoots the abstract devil like a kamehameha blast out of his hands
if that's where this all ends I'm not even gonna be mad
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JayManiac 19-Jun-19 07:04 PM
I have no doubt it'd be done in such a Pact way that I would have to take a few steps back to intuit it in anywhere near the way i just did
but it could happen
“A circle drawn on the ground may not hold up,” Rose said. “But in the interest of being more positive than negative, putting my best foot forward, there’s another direction we could go, if we wanted to brainstorm.” “Another direction?” I asked. “Rather than light, maybe creation?”
You could also try memory? I mean, I think it'd be best to deal with this thing on its own terms, not through the intuition of what choir it's probably a part of? Maybe that's just me. Maybe you could steal a bunch of scrapbooks from unsuspecting grandmothers and make a circle out of that
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David Hunt 19-Jun-19 07:08 PM
Well, granma Rose's scrapbook would either be ideal or the worst idea ever. Probably both.
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JayManiac 19-Jun-19 07:09 PM
Maybe if all that knowledge is obfuscated forever...it's not such a bad thing
“Can we count fire as one idea?” I asked. I held up a pack of matches. “What are you burning?” Rose asked. “I’m hoping our very prepared Fell here has a can of gasoline in the trunk.” “Planning on blowing yourself up?” Fell asked. My eyes closed, I said, “Might incinerate myself, or burn the place down with me inside it. That a good enough reason to give it to us?” “Yeah,” Fell said.
I can't get over how amazing fell is as a thing that exists in this story. He's not my favorite character, because Evan, he's not my second because Rose, not my third because Blake, not my fourth because Maggie, but I love him so much! Very few things in books just make me actually laugh out loud but several of fell's comedy beats have.
“Objects associated with growth… plants?” Rose asked. “A wreath?” “Hard to find something that really grows year-round,” she said. “Evergreen plants,” I said. “Holly?” “Hmm. Or just pine. I’m not sure you’re in a condition to weave anything complicated, and I’m not sure how ordered it could be. Put it in the maybe pile?”
How bout a wreath...that you set on fire
combo ideas, gentlemen!
Oooo! Objects associated with growth, creation! I've got it! it's perfect!
surround yourself with a bunch of babies and get them all to hold hands!
Oh! and then set them on fire!
“Maybe. Okay.” “If we take Fell’s car battery-” “No,” Fell said. “Was worth asking,” I said. “If we steal someone else’s car battery…” “That’s more like it,” Fell said. “If you want to get arrested again, please, be my guest.”
I want to say this is the last time I pull a fell beat just because it's funny, but I think that no probably it won't be
lol 2
this is a really great blake beat too, they work really well together and even better now that rose is in the picture
“We need weapons,” she said. “Protections mean jack squat if we can’t do anything to the demon we’re supposed to take down.” “We can talk weapons,” I said. “How long do we have?” “Half an hour,” Fell said. “It’ll have to do,” I said. “Same ideas apply?” “Light, fire, energy, creation,” Rose said. “Can you put together a torch without setting your head on fire?”
See!? SEE!? I love this book and it's really funny. This is a chapter break, which makes it funnier
The oil factory. The building was ominous. Blocky, with large windows that hid more than they revealed. A lonely chimney stack stood off to one side, the trees around the building were thin and badly bowed by snow and ice, like overgrown saplings more than trees, Graffiti covered the structure, hinting at how many people had once come here to explore and leave their mark on the isolated building before the demon had taken up residence.
Oooooo and then we jump right from funny into...that
Reminds me of this old oil factory that now houses an indoor mountain biking arena in east cleveland
it just looks ominous and rust-brown and run down and then there's this sign it's like "oh yeah come to the mountain biking place we're here!
And they've converted like six warehouses into awesome jumps and stuff
over the course of thirteen years of slowly buying up more of the oil factory and building ramps and stuff
it's actually like really cool im getting super duper off topic
I couldn’t help but feel that if I asked, Rose would say no. That she was contrary, on a level, that if I said white, her first impulse would be to say black. On a level, that was fine. It was good to have something to keep me in check. Tiring, frustrating, but good. But I still wasn’t going to budge or comment. “We don’t know enough,” Rose said. “We’ll never know enough,” I said, before I could remember to keep my mouth shut. Maybe I was the one who was contrary, now that I thought about it.
Let's put it this way: if I had to protect myself from a rogue demonic rose, I would get blake to hug my legs, creating a magic circle that protects me from all her powers, and vice versa
I continued. “Black Lamb’s Blood suggested it’s the diabolist’s responsibility to handle this shit. We had that responsibility thrust on us, in a way. If we’re going to do any good in our short, violent existences, this is one way.” “Not if you’re giving that bound being to Conquest,” Fell said. Not helping.
Have you met Fell? But also i think blake does have a responsibility to rid the world at large of demons and general pieces of shit...including conquest. I don't think this is Dragon Prince Dark Magic, it's redirection of forces that were already bein little shits
“What I’m asking is just… if we don’t stop it, who will? And is anything really going to change if I wait until the day after tomorrow? Do a little more research? Or is it going to be what it is? Something scary and unfathomable, where we can only make educated guesses in how to deal with it.”
With great power comes great responsibility
and with not-so-great-power
still comes great responsibility
suck it up, kiddo
“A little more education can go a long way here, when we’re relying on educated guesses,” Rose said. “Hell, we could find a Tesla coil or something, spit out electricity. Or get a neon sign maker to do a diabolic circle. We could have better resources, too” “That sounds marvelously tacky,” Fell said. “I’d be offended on behalf of practitioners everywhere, if you tried it and it actually worked.”
Okay, so Fell's on team Giant Red Hot Iron Chain. Glad to know he's in our corner.
I imagine the thorburns just stealing one of those open signs and it's fabulous
“If you’re asking,” she said, repeating herself a little, “and if we have to weigh it against the chance that we might not get another chance, and all the consequences that would entail? I guess it comes down to you.” “Me?” “I don’t know if you’re in good enough shape to do this,” she said. “Prove you are. Get out of the car, without Fell’s help, without Evan’s, and get the gas can out of the boot. Walk to the treeline, so we can start on our evergreen protection circle.”
Well shit. That's what the setup in that taking-off-coat-line was all about
I mean, yeah
that's a good point
Whether he has to wallop this abstract demon in a chess boxing match or no, he still has to have some standard of mobility
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A bird 🐦 19-Jun-19 07:29 PM
Let's put it this way: if I had to protect myself from a rogue demonic rose, I would get blake to hug my legs, creating a magic circle that protects me from all her powers, and vice versa
Do you bind with like, or opposite forces? Fuck it, both
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JayManiac 19-Jun-19 07:29 PM
I didn't intuit it that way but holy shit that's absolutely right
i've found it
the practitioner cure-all
just make a copy of whatever you're trying to defend yourself against that's the opposite
I opened the car door, and I forced myself to move. My legs barely budged. Stiffness had set in. It was more like I occupied a corpse than a body. I used my hands to lift my right leg, moving it over to my right, then did the same with my left. I slid out of my seat more than I climbed out.
oh this is gonna be friggin brutal isn't it
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David Hunt 19-Jun-19 07:32 PM
Blake Thorburn can make taking a sip of water a brutal trial.
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JayManiac 19-Jun-19 07:32 PM
I wonder if that's how Wb thinks of it? "now how can I make getting something out of the trunk the most horrible thing ever?"
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A bird 🐦 19-Jun-19 07:33 PM
The universe can make Blake Thorburn's attempt at taking a sip of water a brutal trial
agree 3
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JayManiac 19-Jun-19 07:33 PM
True!
or blake thorburn can, by making water poisonous to him in the previous chapter, whatever the case may be
“Shh,” I told Evan. I popped the locket open and drew a ‘wind’ rune on the gas can, then rubbed my finger against the lid to get more of the dark grit that had accumulated, and did the same for the roadside kit. “Shh?” he asked. “I’m cheating a bit,” I admitted. “Don’t tell.”
Okay I just think this is really cute and not actually all that cheating-y. okay it's just more cute than it is cheating-y. Like a parent taking an extra cookie and saying "don't tell mom". In fact that's just kind of the vibe I get from this relationship, not that I see rose/blake as romantic, but that it has the non-romantic aspects of a marriage. Romance as a concept is flawed, Kismesis and Moirality forever!!!!
and also it's not like Blake sees Evan in a particularly parental way, but the book can draw upon that when it wants to without it feeling weird
“Yeah?” I asked. The word was curt, cut short because I didn’t have a lot of breath to spare. Reduced lung capacity? I thought of the ‘wind’ rune I’d drawn on my chest. Fuck. “If you are cracked, if spirits are taking up residence, maybe your spirit needs a bit more encouragement than usual.”
I mean just affirming him as Blake has got to help, maybe even fill in the parts of blake that aren't there right now with glamoOh No that's a horrible idea what the fuck am I talking about!?
Bad Jay! Glamor is not a solution to every problem!
“Yeah,” Rose said. “You want to get us started on the evergreen protection circle? We’ll need the torches too. I guess I’ll get us started on the whole plan against Conquest.” I began to free branches from the tree and wind them together.
finally, a hashing out of what exactly this is all supposed to do
(edited)
“I think we could,” I said. “It’s not going to be easy. Conquest… he’s weaker than he lets on. If Pauz realizes, that’s going to give Pauz the clear win. We need to strengthen Conquest, but we need to do it in a way that puts him on an even playing field with Pauz. We need to do it and we need to get away alive.” “Yeah,” Rose said. “We have the goblin?” “He has the goblin. But… it’s not very comfortably bound. Very reluctantly bound. I suspect we could unbind it rather easily.”
Worst case scenario: Hyena gets loose, eats you, eats conquest, pauz reverses polarity, Conqest eats hyena, toronto becomes conquest and pauzland forever, conquest graduates to the choir of fuck you
“And we have the Knights on our side. If we get this thing, and only if we can make headway against this thing.” “Okay” she said. “Give me a minute to think while you work. First things first.”
At least rose has all the context now
My hands shook so badly I could barely weave the branches together. Last Chapter Next Chapter
Oh and what a fuckin note to end on
that was a really good chapter guys
Lots of talking, but I love the talking and also we just had a ton of action and also also the talking was funny multiple times and so it covers its ass twenty different ways and I can no longer see or even perceive or remember the ass it's just a really good chapter
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JayManiac 19-Jun-19 10:48 PM
Don't worry about distracting me, I'm gonna get distracted whatever which way I do these things.
Also didn't mean to imply with the last part of that read that the abstract demon eats the ass, in fact it's only now that I'm rereading what I wrote that I realize the connection I've drawn
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JayManiac 21-Jun-19 09:07 AM
Ok it is far too late to start a new chapter tonight, but I'm listening to the deep in pact for the last chapter and i can't help but disagree with the notion that blake had no valid points/less valid points when it comes to binding the abstract devil now or later.
She frames the argument in terms of granny rose/black lambs argument, and i think that's a fine thing to do
But that's a two sided sword, because on Blake's side of things you could say that "focus less on the present, more on the future" means dealing with problems now, no matter what's going on. Blake is right that unless he swears an oath he's not gonna have the time to deal with this thing any other time, and even if he does swear, there's literally no guarantee he'll be in better shape or a more convenient place next week, with the way things are going
Maybe don't let the world's problems fester for centuries eating kids like Evan and shotgun kids girlfriend.
just cuz all the people capable of dealing with them had other shit going on. (edited)
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Fursuit Lightsaber 21-Jun-19 09:16 AM
I mean, he's almost certainly at his weakest he's ever been now
He can barely leave the car under his own strength
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JayManiac 21-Jun-19 09:17 AM
I'm willing to bet not the worst he'll ever be, though
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Fursuit Lightsaber 21-Jun-19 09:17 AM
There is certainly an argument for literally just, not right now please Blake. Sleep maybe?
😶
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JayManiac 21-Jun-19 09:17 AM
I know, and i'm playing diabolists advocate a little
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Fursuit Lightsaber 21-Jun-19 09:17 AM
Only a few hours ago he was so close to not existing that he slipped partway into the spirit world
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JayManiac 21-Jun-19 09:19 AM
But i think there's a bit of hypocrisy to roses choice of argument in that when i hear "focus more on the future" i don't usually think "meh, take care of it next week"
This is literally why the hyena was around for centuries. People just thought it'd get dealt with eventually and it hurt a lot of people and others and souls in the meantime
And the fact that Blake puts his foot down and says "no, we're doing it now" has something so noble to it i can't help but respect and admire and love despite the fact that sweet scion it's stupid
agree 3
Anyways, the fact that ive been thinking about this as a really conflicting moment ive been going back and forth on for days, and Reuben and Elliott seem to start by taking rose being right as a given, meant i had to pull it out and talk about it
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JayManiac 22-Jun-19 05:34 AM
Huh, weird
I was supposed to send someone to read this chapter this morning, but I guess that didn't happen for some reason?
And I thought about sending someone to find out why, but I don't remember following through with that either
guess I'll just start reading, then
Conviction: 5.6
When we last left off, Blake was super screwed
Hey I wonder if conviction means that the rest of the knights aren't nonexistanced. they've just been teleported, and we're just gonna blake them right out of jail this chapter! that worked fine in young justice
“Scared?” Rose asked. “Yep,” I said. I moved the wreath, and checked it over. I pulled some tape from my pocket to fix a spot where a branch had come loose. Four feet across. I wasn’t sure how to make it fit any geometric principle, so I’d simply repeated a simple pattern. One large circle, one smaller circle, and y-shaped branches filling the space between, all taped together. “Me too.”
Well it's no neon sign, but it'll do
hopefully
I hope the fact that we're reading about Evan and Rose means that neither of them will just be wiped from Blake's memory and existence in general but honestly I wouldn't put much on it
“There’s nothing in a lot of the windows. No people, no things, no walls, no floors.” “Yeah,” Rose said. “Only emptiness.” “A little more afraid, now,” I said.
Yup. That's horrible and awful. I wonder why this thing stays here? Is it not still hungry? Is it satisfied with the meals it gets from random passersby? Did some lazy practitioner half-ass bind it to stay inside the building?
“Good,” Rose told me. “Fear keeps you alive. Just don’t panic. There are rules to follow. It’s abstract-” “Can’t look straight at it,” I said.
Rose and her rules. There are no rules! Viva la revolution, Sanderson! (not actually I really love brandon sanderson's books and his magical theorems are endlessly interesting.)
“We’re close,” Rose said. “Let’s get geared up. You know what your number one priority is.” “Staying alive,” I said. “You and Evan are the scouts, you’re the voice. I’m the vulnerable lump of meat that you two are stuck with.”
On one hand, if there's anything physical involved here Blake is super duper screwed and might as well throw in the t- no, wait, he can't lift the towel.."Try a wind rune, buddy" okay, we're making progress. He can drag the towel into the general vicinity. Point is, if it's physical blake is sorta screwed, but that just makes me think that the struggle with the abstract demon will involve some physicality for Blake, just because it's such a source of tension right now
the reason that took so long to type is that I went through the last few chapters to catch up on psychogeckoness because I forgot I was supposed to be doing that
“Can we have signals?” Evan asked. “In case we’re far away or something happens?” “Signals are a fantastic idea,” I said. “Signal number one? Screaming? Screaming means something bad is happening.” “Don’t be a jerk, Blake,” Rose said. “I’m not,” I said, at the same time Evan said, “He’s not.” “Ugh,” Rose said.
Listen, I love me some Fellariousness as much as the next guy, but it's good to show we can have all the comedy we need with just our core trio! This is so...familial and I love it. Not just because familiars haha, but because it reminds me of my parents. Blake is the best bird dad...husband...thing okay that makes it sound weird but you get what I mean
“Can you sing?” Rose asked. “No,” Evan said. “Tweet? Chirp?”
Anyone can sing, if they really try. Also i would totally follow evan on twitter: "big shoutout to @blake4burn, for returning me to the corporeal plane!"
“You’re a song sparrow,” I said, as I stuck the sealant can in the pocket further down my leg, “I think. You’re not rusty enough to be a swamp sparrow, not red enough to be a fox sparrow. Maybe a Le Conte or Savannah sparrow?” “You know birds,” Rose commented.
Awesome detail. It fits so well with what we know about Blake but I didn't expect it, which is my favorite way to experience learning new things about long running characters
“I try to rationalize it now, but I dunno if it makes sense. I wanted to be away from people some. I paid attention to the birds outside my window, even fed them until Joel got pissed off. My landlord.” “I know who Joel is,” Rose said. “Evan doesn’t. I’m explaining this to him too. I got my tattoos because I needed to do something to make what I had permanent. I would have done the moment Alexis helped me, but I dunno how I’d even do that. The birds… above it all, I like the aesthetic, and I liked the idea of the detail contrasted with the vague watercolor… I’m yammering on, here. You gotta stop me before I do that.” There was a noticeable delay before Rose said, “No harm done. Does it help you to feel more grounded?”
"So what should we do at the start of this chapter about dealing with an abstract devil that casts people into obscurity along with everyone around them?" "A cool conversation about birdwatching where everyone's being really cute and heartwarming" "Perfect." "So it'll hurt that much more when-" "hOld UP"
I also noticed Rose kind of forgetting Evan in the same way Blake kind of forgets about Rose sometimes-- they're more similar than either of them would like to admit
ooo
wow
"forgetting" may have been a poor choice of words on my part
“How are you physically?” “I feel like I got gently rolled over by a few cars,” I said. “That doesn’t make sense.”
What part of that doesn't make sense!?! That makes perfect sense!
I made my way to the fence that enclosed the area, leaving the kit behind, hand on can and wreath. Weather-worn signs were bolted to the fence. No trespassing. A man in a circle with a line drawn through it. Barbed wire ran along the top of the fence. In a way, the ‘no man’ thing seemed ironic. Or prophetic, depending on how I looked at it.
Yeesh. Blake's prospects of survival are almost as low as my prospects for his survival are
Wasn’t even good graffiti, I noted. Big, bulging letters, scrawled letters. People making a mark on the world, showing that they’d been here once upon a time. That, too, was ironic in a way. Fucking up here meant being forgotten, being erased. There would be no legacy. No mark left behind.
I love Blake's recurring status as art critic and hope that this isn't the point where I spontaneously forget that this book exists, that this channel exists, that I've posted pages and pages of reaction here, etc.
My existence, recent events excepted, had been a quiet one. I hadn’t made a huge impact in my parent’s lives. I hadn’t done anything so defining that removing me from the picture would make the world a noticeably different reality for anyone. No angel would be getting his wings from showing me some Blake-less world. Practitioner bullshit aside, I couldn’t see myself having kids. I’d yet to see any good parenting, and it seemed better to be safe than sorry. I had Evan now, but Evan would leave the world when I did. I had friends that would mourn me. I hoped they would mourn me. Being accused of child murder might have hurt me on that front. But mourning was temporary. Those wounds healed. I wanted to make a disturbance. If the universe maintained a balance, then I wanted to leave something of an imbalance in the grand scheme of things, to be big enough that the world would hurt a bit for my passing.
Wow. Just wow.
Except I'm gonna ruin the 'just' part by saying more
It's a pretty common sentiment I see, to want to make a huge impact on the world, and it's something that works so well here because the sentiment itself is relatable but it's said in such a Blake way that encompasses him and his history and ties me to the character. I think this is maybe what the story could've used a little more of towards the beginning- not because it wasn't engaging at the beginning, just because Blake as a protagonist wasn't as fleshed out and shown as he could've been
Knowing his beliefs and reaffirming his Convictions (yeah that's intentional) at the start of the conflict like this is an awesome move, and we do it in so many ways. We get the conversation that characterizes him via his frie- his partners, we get the internal reflection on life, we get the sensory detail and art-critic judgement of the scene, we get so many different ways of doing it just to make sure it works best for everyone before we jump in
Evan’s parents had cared. That much had been obvious. “You think mom and dad will miss you, Rose?” “…The fake mom and dad from fake memories?” “Yeah.” “Yeah, of course. Why?” “Nothing,” I said.
ah, the tragic comedy. I totally still laughed, but then I felt sad too
With my eyes fixed on the ground, picking up details from peripheral vision and stolen glances, the vague, nebulous shapes and colors that the graffiti left on the walls all seemed like they could be the demon, lying in wait. They were grimy, painted with the illusion of three dimensions, sometimes given three dimensions where leaves or architecture allowed. The light the flashlight provided was seductive. I could feel the demon’s presence here. No connection I could make out, nothing obvious or apparent enough for me to put my finger on it. When the light was cast on more distant objects, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the demon was just behind me, or to the side of me. So close it could caress my cheek. When the light was closer, it was out there. Watching. My eye wanted to follow the light. Human nature, common sense, a desire for security. Knowing had a way of making things better.
I feel like each of the chapters in the past arc and a half have been the best at something, and for this one I'm really able to put my finger on it, the reaffirmation of character, the equally skillful tension of the scene that perfectly captures the feeling of walking into an empty abandoned factory without knowing there's a literal actual devil of darkness inside (urban exploring's super duper fun guys. Bring friends, don't get the cops called, and don't wander into the secret layers of abstract devils). And I love the light as the antithesis of the darkness that Blake may have to leave behind in order to see
Something moved at the edge of my field of vision. Not the demon. Evan, flying by and looking in. Here and there, there were holes on the floor. Cracks, deep enough for me to lose a foot in them.
The language here is so awesome at conveying the devil's presence, or at least what's on Blake's mind as he searches
I wasn’t even done when the light subtly changed. Rose doing her thing at the window at the far end. Covering things up on her side of the window, leaving space uncovered to let faint light through. It was… it was feeble and weak, I had to admit. It had seemed clearer in my head. But I had a dim oval of moonlight surrounding me. Something moved in my peripheral vision. Not Evan. Not Rose. A stirring.
Okay first of all, that's an awesome light circle that just got made there
but also (edited)
It's a really awesome three beat of 'something moves, oh it's evan', 'something darkens, oh it's rose' and then 'something stirs, oh shit'
Perfectly succinct and executed and pointed out real clearly so my dumbass can see it
Ilovethis 1
I saw it to my left. It was barely visible in the shadow before it retreated to further darkness, vague and nebulous when I looked at it without really looking. It moved like a hand without an accompanying body, of its own volition, using fingers to drag itself along the floor, perhaps. A bulky, multi-limbed, asymmetrical body, with limbs that moved so quickly they might have been flickering. Matte black. It might have been a spider gone wrong ten times over with some full-body cancer, or a giant hunchbacked man with a dozen arms that were stretched long enough to reach over and under one another. But it wasn’t. It was a demon of the choir of darkness. Something that had been given life in counterpoint to creation. It was aged limbs, withered ones, from every species and no species in particular. It was nearly silent. There was only a shuffling, the faintest scrape of body against floor.
AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH THIS IS THE COOLEST FRIGGIN THING IN THE WORLD!!! It's a buildup and then a payoff of this pure incredible disturbing awesomeness
The front of the body disappeared, and some form of lower body or tail dragged behind it, like entrails trailing behind a man that had been bisected, a spine without the accompanying stomach, or a naked tail. The trailing flesh was bent in places, as if it had been broken badly and bones had reset improperly. A kind of detail that teased, invited me to look, as if it were a clue I could use. But looking was a trap. The thing didn’t stop moving. I could make out the larger body shuffling forward to my right, and the ‘tail’ was still being dragged along the floor to my left.
Like, it's just so cinematic to me, the horror standoff here. I never watch horror movies and I don't know shit about movies in general but I can picture all the camera angles and movements and lighting in perfect clarity here
“Demon,” Rose’s voice echoed throughout the space. “I am Rose Thorburn of the Thorburn line. All of the choirs know who we are. We are not to be trifled with.”
Now Blake has had some pretty badass moments, but Lords of Gimel, how I missed our pRose
“Demon, I compel you to tell me your name! Tell me, or I will claim the right to name you! I will repeat myself thrice times thrice. Prove your weakness by refusing to provide an answer, and I will prove my strength by giving it!” She hadn’t gone into any detail on this trick.
Maybe she's running on sokka's instincts! I love this idea, that the rule of three could just be used to brute force a demon's name out of them. I don't know if there's basis for it, but I bet if you think it'll work....
The demon stopped. All of the coils and cordons, the segments and limbs, they froze. The only movement was the distortion in my field of vision, where my eyes had gotten used to movement. The darkness kept moving, even as the demon remained still. There was silence, still enough that I could hear my own heartbeat, the creak of the open front door being moved by wind, and the periodic drip of fluids falling from the demon’s body overhead.
An abstract demon ate my homework any ability I once had to express how fucking cool this is
Limbs caught me. Fat, brutish ones, like fingers that could bend in any combination of directions, and being so disproportionately long didn’t make them any less fat or brutish. They hooked between my legs and into the flesh of my belly, trapping one arm against my side. Clutching my body. My feet were lifted clear of the ground.
Sweet Lords, he's dead, that was a terrible plan I take it all back doing this tonight was an awful idea, hell just leave the fucker in the factory until you're king of the universe and then come back carefully
Ilovethis 1
lol 1
Evan found his way through the gaps between the coils, segments and half-formed limbs, momentarily ceasing all flapping and continuing forward with momentum alone, so he could make himself small enough. I was already moving. Sluggish compared to Evan and the demon both. I hopped over the flame, meager as it was, stumbled and crashed to the floor. It loomed to the side, and I twisted my head away before I could look, twisting my arms around as well, can in hand. The contents sloshed out, touching the short patch of dying flame that still remained. It exploded to life with light and violence. The demon was burned as if the flames themselves had touched it.
The moment you realize "oh, this is the conflict" is perfect, because it involves Blake moving, it's so brutal and ruthless, it's dynamic and rancid and powerful
A ‘hand’ reached out to the side, then jammed itself into the thing’s yawning mouth. Guillotine teeth severed the hand. Blood flowed forth. Not the demon’s.
What in the holy hell is that?
A naked, jawbone lined with yellowed, uneven fangs clattered to the ground, gums included. I couldn’t wrap my head around any of it,
huh, glad we're at least on the same page there then
It was destroying itself, feeding more and more of itself into the fire. If there were hints or clues as to why in the creature’s behavior or body language, I couldn’t see it.
Blake still has no idea how powerful this thing is, it could be a waiting game for it
just overwhelm the little fleshball eventually, cuz it has endless flesh and grossness pent up
it might even be everything the creature's consumed, in which case we might be here for a while
how many knights do you think it's burned through at this point?
fine
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JayManiac 22-Jun-19 07:06 AM
My careful and furtive glances around me showed that the demon had cut itself off. This part of itself that it was feeding into the fire was dead. Like a worm cut in two, it had grown another head. That head had thrust its way into one window, high above. Nothing in the neighboring windows suggested that it had left that same windowframe. It had gone in, it hadn’t gone out. It was in Rose’s domain
NOOOOOOO how didn't we see this coming!? It's abstract of course it can enter the mirror-verse! I mean Padriac could do it and he's only kinda made purely out of deception
I dropped the gas can and torch, reached into my pocket and withdrew the small mirror. I held it straight overhead, covering it with my other hand, and faced it straight down. “Here!” I shouted. I moved my eyes along my body, a safe territory, up my arm, and to the mirror. Reflected in the mirror, safe within the circle, was Rose, curled up on the ground, so she could remain small enough to be entirely within the reflection.
The adherence to the rules of the conflict, the cowering imagery, it's all just yanking me back and forth here
The demon’s reflection was it, as much as any part of it. It passed in and out of windows and unrusted patches of metal without traveling the intervening space. It kept extending, spreading, claiming all of the darkness. Becoming the darkness.
That's so fucking awesome...and bad, real bad, super bad. I wonder if the demon can do this only because Blake is here generating a small mirror dimension with him wherever he goes, or because this is just something it can do with anything?
I could not look directly at the dark here without looking at the demon. At cords and sinews rubbing against one another, columns of flesh grinding against limbs. It finished eating whatever it had caught and murdered in order to stain the windows crimson. “It dawns on me,” I whispered, feeling somewhat numb, “That we really should have hunted this demon in daylight.”
Oh my Lords Blake is dumb. Blake is super duper dumb and I know that I endorsed his decision in a special "Jay's argumentation corner" but it was really really dumb
Ilovethis 1
I unfurled the blanket, swept it across the patch of unlit gasoline, then into the flames. I reached up, grabbing too close to the flame, and thrust it at my face. Not into my face, but enough to fill that one eye’s field of vision with fire and light.
The way this fight involves movement, the way it forces physicality is just really awesome. I love just how different it is from Pauz or the hyena, very little is the same between them they're just three vastly different and different feeling kinds of conflict, and we never ever feel like we're 'doing this again' (even when duncan literally makes us do this again)
“No,” I said. But the upside is this thing is apparently minor. Or was it moderate?” “Being a smartass doesn’t help, Blake.” More serious, I said, “You’re right. Um. I think three of our allies just died.” “What?” “Three others. Maybe more, but I only saw three. At least one was a goblin.” “We didn’t bring help.” “We don’t remember bringing help,” I said. “If we don’t remember bringing any help, there’s none left, so I have to question how much it matters. It’s a moot point.”
That's such a cool payoff to all that stuff that didn't make any sense before, I was really confused. Luckily, that means that things eaten by the demon aren't remembered by the readers either, which means that Rose and Evan are likely safe. phew. Rest in the eternal peace of the void, whatever poor assholes the Thorburns dragged into this mess. I mean best case scenario it was three of Maggie's paper goblins she mailed to him. But when is it ever best case scenario? He could've just doomed two more knights, two satyrs (that would be fine), a few more ghosts he picked up in the Hyena's forest, who knows!? Not us! That's what happens when the shadow people happen.
“Demon! For the second time, I compel you to tell me your name! Tell me, or I’ll claim the power to name you! I will repeat myself thrice times thrice, all in all. Will you give your name, or will you let it lie fallow, all the weaker for being unused?” “Sounds awfully good,” I said. “Will it work?” “Supposed to,” Rose murmured. “But she can best me in a contest of her choosing, to claim the right to keep the name a secret. This is kind of a last ditch thing.”
Rose literally had no faith in any of this she was pretty sure they were gonna die. I mean can't the devil just pick "strength" and whoop them? I mean maybe it's primordially unintelligent, and that's the saving grace
“Theatrics. It becomes a gimmick instead of a power play. Have to show confidence.” “We’re not confident,” I murmured. “Still have to show it,” she said. “Demon! You have not answered my last two entreaties!” Good word, entreaties. If I were a demon, I’d give more weight to words like that.
I loooooove this. And yes, pRose is the greatest weapon the Thorburns can bring to bear. Which is not saying very much, but damn them if it isn't saying something- wait bad choice of words don't actually damn them
“What game plan were you thinking of?” Rose asked. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” I said. “What makes you think I have a plan?” “I don’t think. I hope. Because my plan sucks moose balls.”
That's uh...probably a canadian affect of spe- you know what i'm just gonna laugh and be done with because sweet anti-jesus we really needed a laugh right now
“A hiding spot. Probably the darkest place in the factory. If we can find and penetrate that place, maybe we could find the demon itself. Its heart, its head, its source. I dunno. It’s a gut feeling, I guess?” “It’s a good plan,” I said. “Better than mine.” “What’s your plan?” “Get over there, to where the roof fell in, and get to the wood. Use it for a longer-burning fire, if we make it.” “And then?” “I didn’t get that far.
And then hearing his plan, which actually does suck moose balls, is even better. I was also wondering if the plants would come back
“Yeah,” Rose said. “Demon! This will be the fifth time now I’ve asked for a name. Five times, you’ve proven the coward. Name yourself, or-” The demon rumbled. A groaning sound, as if the entire building were straining with the demon’s mass. “Urrrrrr-” it whispered, a sound from very far away, off to one side.
Well that's a little weird, nice to meet you, I'm Jay, these are my buddies Blake and Rose. I'm just an abstraction called a "reader" following them around, it's like a type of spirit that gives them points based on threes and threatrics. I mean theatrics. You know, we'll just call it the same thing to be safe. That good with you ur?
“He’s eating it,” I said. “Eating what?” “He’s giving the name, and he’s eating most of it before it can reach us,” I said. “He’s technically obeying. It’s not going to work.”
So not smart enough to challenge them to a contest of not-being-stupid, but smart enough to work a practitioner truth. Guess that's what you get these days
“It sounds like a plan… but I think Evan has the better plan.” “What’s that?” “Forfeit. Like you said, we’re in over our heads. We run.” “Run?” “It’s… we can’t beat this. Not here, not on its turf, not in its medium. In the dark.”
Hey! look! I think I see it!
It's the smartest thing Blake has said in this entire book!
“I forgot to bring something to light the torch with,” I said. “No,” Rose said. “That doesn’t make sense.” “I don’t have anything.” “You lit the circle.” “I-” I stopped. “She ate it,” Rose said. I sighed.
That's gotta be the most frustrating kind of demon to fight. Okay I take that back. But it's pretty damn frustrating. As opposed to blessedly frustrating
I bent down and ignited the torch by touching it to the flames below me. I strode away from the door. “Blake! Don’t be dumb!”
Oh you've known him more than five minutes rose, when has that ever worked!?
Torch slashing low, close to the ground. Claws grasped at me, only to let go as the torch got closer to them. Hands gripped at my ankles. I used gasoline to splash at the circle, eliciting flares of light and fire, and they let go. Most did. Only a short distance to the nearest window.
Oh that's smart. Oh that's really smart, Dumb thorburn. i actually think it's smart but blake doesn't get out of being dumb that easily. Also the image of blake walking with the torch and the fire and everything is badass
Glass shattered all the same, and without the grime obscuring it, it made the interior brighter. I threw Rose’s mirror through the gap. Hopefully she had a safe escape to Grandmother’s house, from the factory outskirts on. Nothing barring her path.
Oh yeah, great, she can fall through the cracks when this plan gets you eaten into nothingness because she is based on you you're the same person
Evan came through the hole in the window, and tendrils and cords snapped shut just behind him, as though the window had hidden a net. He darted close to the demon, and the demon grasped for him. Dumbly pursuing the closest available target. It bought me time. As the demon moved in pursuit of my familiar, the coils and limbs that moved and constricted around me weren’t moving with me as the target. They got in my way, but I could stagger over them, stumble through, and use the torch to scare away the worst of them.
Evan is so clutch, I love him and he's the best. Still crazy that this demon isn't smart exactly, but it can still practitioner truth
Evan turned, clearly intent on distracting it. I caught Evan out of the air. “No.” Let go. He took another path. Something told me Evan wouldn’t escape a third time.
Good call, Blake. I don't know if I ever intuited that things that work twice don't always work a third time, but it's a classic threebeat (see our buddy scapegoat) so it makes sense
I saw one of the demon’s arms that didn’t shrink away. Dead, severed. It had cut the arm off when it had been snatching up a goblin. I grabbed it.
If blake survives with this and gives it to conquest like "now you're armed and dangerous haha" I'm gonna count that as a win
I collapsed on the snow. I saw the limb shriveling in the light, and shoved it into the cold snow where the light wouldn’t find it. Evan settled onto my stomach. We’d failed. Only a detached limb to show for it. Three allies gone. How were we supposed to face down Conquest like this?
What a perfect friggin end to one hell of a chapter. This really just kicks you into the snow, as a reader. And of course, of course Blake fails on the third trial. It's a trend he predicted right here. Of course he lost three allies during the battle. It's just so broken. I mean, we have no idea what tools he could've had, what could've been if only he wasn't so dumb.
I kinda see how ruben, with future spoiler knowledge, opens the discussion of last chapter with "So Rose's points are all way more valid than Blake's right?" because in retrospect yeah that's exactly the read you come away with
Don't get me wrong, I still think I was right in some abstract sense, and I probably would've done exactly what Blake does and gotten twenty times as rekt for my trouble, but...wait what was I arguing again?
Anyhow, that's that chapter
next one's a histories, and i'm crossing my fingers for fell
should I look right now just to see what i'm getting excited for next time?
Nah I'll save it
It could be the demon, it could be the astrologer, it could be conquest himself going by that final line, but I'm thinking fell is a pretty nice choice right now
Lords, one click and I'd know, and it wouldn't even be that much of a spoiler since that's the next piece of information I'll know in the story
I score low on any evaluation of self control guys I don't think I can do this
Just remembered that interludes don't always reveal who they focus on right away and that's helped me not click
Okay I closed the tab and now I'm closing the computer so I won't be tempted bye!!!!
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JayManiac 22-Jun-19 07:51 AM
sharkhi
it's like watching blake with horrible suffering
you just know he's gonna
anyways goodnight!
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JayManiac 23-Jun-19 10:18 PM
ALRIGHT
Tis Time
to read the next chapter
but first we have the old ManiacallyPatented method of spoiler-hiding:
putting
a
useless
page
of
text
before
the
read-
through
so
as
not
to
S
P
O
I
L
anyone
who
looks
at
just
this
first
page
un
less
they
scroll
past
all
this
bullshit
I'm sorry to anyone who just wants to read my readthrough, tis the price we must pay, so sayeth the scripts of solomon and I'm just gonna quit wasting time and get into the chapter
Now when we last left off:
Blake was screwed, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't seem like that's particularly pertinent information for this next chapter, because we're not following blake
We're following:
The streets were thick with people. Men in bowler hats, with long coats. The streets had both automobiles and horses and carriages. Joseph glanced around, wary of attack from any direction, tales of pickpockets made him anxious.
Joseph?
“Rest easy,” the man’s companion said. “You have me here.” “You’re right,” Joseph said.
What kind of companion? 🐦 🐶 🐱
although I wonder if this guy actually is a practitioner? would they be afraid of rando pickpockets?
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Ishamoridin 23-Jun-19 10:25 PM
You can just post a column of asterisks or something btw, easier than using a word for every line 😛 (edited)
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JayManiac 23-Jun-19 10:25 PM
But that's so booooring
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Ishamoridin 23-Jun-19 10:26 PM
ooh, we need a page break ascii art!
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JayManiac 23-Jun-19 10:26 PM
Hells yes we do
Oh by the way I totally didn't have any self control and I clicked on all the spoilered stuff y'all were talking about
I didn't notice most of it, but I remembered that the subgoblins were supposed to have been a thing
I absolutely didn't connect that Blake's plan actually would have seemed pretty feasible with all the allies and supplies that were eaten during the battle
agree 1
But it makes a lot of sense
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Ishamoridin 23-Jun-19 10:29 PM
Yeah that kind of thing is largely why Pact is my favourite wildebeest work
Ilovethis 1
Infinite rereading potential there
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JayManiac 23-Jun-19 10:29 PM
same
“Is it worth it, this trip? These extremes?” his companion asked. “I’m offended that you even have to ask,” Joseph said.
Also still totally sure this Joseph guy is- well he's not Fell, that much seems obvious by how much agency he seems to have over his own life, something Fell never had- but I still think he might be Fell's ancestor, especially since we get "men in bowler hats" and bowler hats haven't been popular in a while, much to my chagrin. it was probably that time they tried to take over the world
Joseph turned to regard his familiar. The man was dressed as well as anyone else on the street, his hair cut short, neatly parted, a long coat over a suit with a tie, and over-the-ankle boots with slight heels. The only oddity, one that no passerby seemed to take note of, was the face. The familiar’s face appeared to have been carved off and pulled free, only to be haphazardly nailed back into position, with nails all around the edges. The skin hung loose in places, was stretched too tight in others, and he had a permanent leer, exposing perfect white teeth that looked like they had never touched food.
AAAAAAAAHAHAHAHA THIS IS CREEPY AND FANTASTIC
The nameless bogeyman had adopted this new role and familiarhood with a surprising ease. Then again, he was a stealer of faces by trade. An actor. Toronto was very much his sort of city.
I don't know very much about toronto, but I like the description we get of...hmm...I'm gonna call him Bugs, short for Bogeyman. A spirit kind of like Koh maybe? I wonder what his animal form is like?
A boy in a cap came running down the street, jostling the familiar. “Careful, my lad,” the bogeyman said, clapping a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, sir,” the boy said. Then the boy looked up, and his eyes widened in fear. The boy was still young enough to be innocent, it seemed.
And this is a good rule to establish about him up front, and maybe a hint into why he's called a bogeyman- he's something that adults take no notice of, but kids can see for a monster. I don't think this is how it works with all Others, but I could be wrong. After all, I saw a ton of supernatural stuff as a kid that I now chalk up to an overactive imagination and a tendency to blow through fantasy novels faster than all the authors on the planet could write them. Maybe I just lost a bit of innocence, and now I readily shake hands with people whose faces fall off?
same 2
“It’s your trick,” the companion said. He let the sheath fall, extending the knife, and the sheath slid into place over the blade. “I’m only borrowing it.” But you can do it without anybody noticing. “Thank you all the same.”
Ooooo, Familiars can borrow each others magic and tricks!
let's take a moment and talk about how much I love this
Since a familiar and practitioner are bound by the contract, they can effectively 'stand in' for each other and have the authority to act as each other in any agreement or meeting. And since all power in pact comes from agreements and meetings and relationships with spirits, it would make so much sense for a familiar to just take the mantle of a practitioner in the terms of that agreement, therefore gaining whatever boon that spirit or demon or whatever is granting.
In any other fantasy universe it would just be "the bond that ties us allows you to manifest my power as your own through the metaphysical power-tube between us"
whereas it's a lot more grounded in the nature of agreement and relationship in the book literally called Pact, which is just a great little microcosm of why this is my favorite magic system ever to exist
agree 2
Step aside, homestuck, you've been replaced (okay I still love homestuck's magic system almost equally but it plays second fiddle now)
Also now might be a good time to mention that I won't be reading all of 5.x right now, because I'm a little short on time and thought I would have more
I'm hoping that this is broken into sections like Roselyn's diary, BLB, and Famimplemense were starting with this doofus and ending with fell because I'm still on my jguess here and I'll have a good stopping point
“Did you?” the familiar asked. “Yet you brought me. You bound me as your familiar knowing full well what your mission here would be.” “Yes. Rescuing her. Your… talents, they’re a just-in-case measure. Nothing more.”
Does Joseph not understand that Familiars are a lifetime thing? Why was he willing to bind a familiar, a familiar for a just-in-case measure!? This is so engaging already because he seems like such an idiot
It's reinforced just by the opening paragraph of the chapter, even, that this guy isn't all that. He's scared and maybe kind of weak right off the bat
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Ishamoridin 23-Jun-19 10:47 PM
He wouldn't be the only practitioner to bind a familiar because he's worried what they might do unsupervised, I'm sure
Or worse, bound to someone distasteful
Not smart, of course, but desperate actions are a bit of a theme in Pact
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JayManiac 23-Jun-19 10:50 PM
Oh, that's a real good point that I didn't think of but makes sense, especially considering what Fell said his family was known for doing. I really hope I'm not wrong about this Fell thing because I'mma look really stupid if I am.
“As you wish. Take off my mask, and I’m a monster. Your mind is sound, you knew what I was, you knew what you were doing when you reached out to me and offered a position as familiar.” “I liked you.” “You’re telling the truth, of course, but who was I, then? You knew that the complete picture was monster and mask. I was playing a role, in part. I was a factory worker with gentle hands, genial, a father. You knew my friendliness was borrowed, the natural charm and kindness taken with the face, and you could peer past the act when even his family couldn’t. You still made the offer.” “I suppose I did,” Joseph conceded.
And that context really kind of makes me like him a little, if he's one of the good ones. I mean, Fell says he'd murder a kid, and that's what any member of his family would've done before being bound to conquest, but Joseph seems like a nice-ish guy maybe? I mean he's walking around with a familiar who's like "oh yeah I'm a murderer down to the core of my being" but he's just a loveable dork
“No. I have never felt more certain about what I do.” “You feel certain about why you do,” the companion said. “You follow your heart. But what you do? You bound yourself to a murderer because you knew you might need a specific someone murdered. Let’s not pretend we aren’t going to run into him.” Joseph frowned.
And that's not the frown of someone who's eager to do the wrong thing, even for the right reason. Probably someone willing, though, if Bugs is to be believed
agree 2
“You’ve decided that you’ll be using me, then?” “I suppose I have.”
hyup
but they're having this conversation about guilt and it's pretty fascinating, especially knowing fell, and considering the trajectory of the story at large
“Yes,” the companion said. “You asked, I answered. When I agreed to the deal, I agreed to be your servant and confidante. The only lies I tell you will be for your own good.” “That’s all I ask for,” Joseph said.
You're okay with the admitted guiltless murderer deciding what's for your own good and not? To each their own, I suppose. Unless their own is an admitted guiltless murderer!!?!
The building was a proud one. White, with columns at the front, gardens well tended, trees trimmed. No single individual could have looked after it alone, much less look after it so well.
Is this conquest's house 👀
They kept walking until they had crossed the street. Joseph reached into his coat. When he withdrew his hand, he dashed blinding powder in a half-circle around him. The powder expanded rather than dissipate. A rolling cloud.
I think this is meant to be confirmation of this guy's identity, or at least his...relations
each family has their little tricks
timeloops
connections
binding the manifestations of chaos and opposition to humanity
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Ishamoridin 23-Jun-19 10:56 PM
Yeah little tricks like that
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JayManiac 23-Jun-19 10:58 PM
“I’ve been preparing for this day for some time,” Joseph said, not taking his eyes off the door. He drew his knife-sheath from his pocket. Nobody emerged from the house. If it weren’t for his third eye, Joseph might have thought they weren’t inside.
This feels like a climactic moment to a story we, the reader-spirits, just dropped in on. Also little detail: I like how he refers to the Sight as his third eye. It's not a necessary detail, it doesn't call attention to itself, it's not even that unexpected. it's just "hey, people have different ways of talking about this aspect of practitioner-ing"
Kinda like Goddess' "you have a camera-person?"
“I do what men have done since time was first recorded.” “That doesn’t make it right, Mr. Canfield.” “It makes it reality,” Canfield said. “It seems you’ve brought a knife to a gunfight.”
Huh, yeah he literally did. Bet he's gonna make it a magic fight tho. I wonder what Canfield is? He could be conquest, all we know so far is that he possesses people, but we'll see. He doesn't seem to talk like conquest, though. Also Conquest might be much more powerful here, closer to the colonial times
“You tell me. Maybe I have the wrong idea, boy. Could be you’re holding on to that knife because you have another use for it. Loose thread on your jacket need a slice, hm? Are you going to tell me it’s something like that? That you were just stopping by to ask how my daughter was doing, and then you were going to skip along and do whatever boys your age do these days?” “I was, but I was intending to leave with her.” “I’m older, boy. More learned. Better armed. I have more power, more contacts to lean on. I’m in good with the Lord of Toronto. This isn’t the fairy tales. This damsel isn’t in trouble-” “She is,” Joseph interrupted.
the plot thickens
“No, I suppose I-” he almost slipped into ain’t. “I suppose I’m not.” “If you want to pick a fight, you should know you’ll lose, and if I do you the grace of leaving you alive, you’ll have some lifelong reminders of what it means to cross me.” He stopped at the far end of the street. Joseph chanced a look. Courtney was indeed in the window, blonde hair falling across her shoulders, hugging herself.
Why you gotta be so ruuude, don't you know I'm human toooo (in a relative sense I mean how much are any of us really human I'm bound to that thing you just shot twice and you're obviously at the very least awakened)
I point this out to wonder if this is a trap, since it seems like such a textbook storyline
trap is the wrong word
I think there's a lot more to this than we understand at the moment
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Ishamoridin 23-Jun-19 11:04 PM
Sounds like the tagline for anything that happens in a Wildbow work 😛
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JayManiac 23-Jun-19 11:05 PM
'swhy I love em!
“What are you, then? You practice, clearly. What do you practice?” “Illusion.” “Glamour?” Joseph shook his head. “Only illusion.” “Hardly a fitting match for my daughter.”
uhhhhh what's the difference. Also that's a civil conversation to have with knives and guns out. Have you even met each other?
Canfield scowled a little. “Spreading ideas behind my back? If you’d come at me head-on and been polite about this whole rescue nonsense, I might have let you off easy. But you’re running short on my mercy, acting as cowardly as that.” “Your colleagues talk about it as if it were a charming quirk. Your enemies talk about it like it is. An ugly thing. Your family… it hoards. You collect and make trinkets, you decorate yourself with them, and you’ve twisted that, turned it backward. You’re hoarding her.”
Well that's an interesting direction for that to take. And by interesting I mean horribly uncomfortable, as usual.
As the powder cleared, Joseph remained out of sight. But Canfield had donned a monocle. Another trinket. The man aimed the shotgun- Then half-turned as his heavyset manservant strode down the stairs. He could sense the danger, but he couldn’t move fast enough. The heavy man stabbed him.
Ah, what an interesting man whose face is now bugs'
Joseph reached into his pocket. Cards. Bound creatures. Illusion wasn’t all he could do. He tore the cards, and the creatures lunged. Three dogs, noble hounds that might have served as companions to divine hunters once upon a time.
this is really cool. Not much else to say, I just like the paper goblins tactic. I'm interested in whether this is a variation on that eastern-originating practice, or just something similar
Joseph drew further effects from his repertoire. Things he’d collected. A rusted old ring- he raised his hand up, then slammed the ring down on the street. He didn’t succeed in breaking the ring – only hurting his hand. He did it again, and something minor came loose. The older books hadn’t ever described a moderate spirit of this kind, but they were becoming more of a thing with the turn of the century.
Hahahahahahahaha I love this beat. It's stuff like this that makes Wildbow's books feel real in a way that other books often don't. they're willing to undercut the drama of the story by adding...nuance, mistake, even. And it still works, because we know the spirits are cringing at that, so the story-ness of actions is a mechanic of the fight, of the magic, of the story
agree 2
The hounds were leaping into the air when Canfield used another trinket. A child’s toy, with a handle at the side. Everyone present, spirit or otherwise, was bound where they were, hounds held in mid-air by green threads.
And I feel like this scene is just so fun, because it's a practitioner showing all their carefully collected cards, and a practitioner who collects all the cards, so it's just trinket vs trinket and shows off a bunch of really cool effects and toys, fleshing out the world and making it clear that we're just seeing a little part of these two bigger stories
He drew out a line, and a dozen other lines scrawled along the length of the road. He drew out a more dramatic scribble, and scribbles spanned the length of the street, interrupting and confounding Canfield’s circle. But Canfield continued drawing.
joseph isn't necessarily a protagonist here, as in I'm not rooting for him, so you can almost just have him pull out anything as long as we believe that he would save it until that moment, and we won't feel like the story's solved conflict in a contrived way. We're just content to watch the duel
“Father!” the familiar screamed. Courtney’s voice. Canfield turned, then went white. The familiar held the skin of the manservant’s face dangling from one hand. Courtney’s face was the one that it wore, his body matching hers. Canfield turned to look, and he saw Courtney in the window, slumped down, her flayed face having left a smear where it had dragged against the window.
oh Lords, that's a brutal twist. Unless it's just an illusion, I mean we don't get Joseph's reactions, the text focuses on Canfield's
When he could see again, Canfield had turned the tables. Canfield had a scrap of white cloth in hand, and he had company. A man in a white jacket, with a thick handlebar mustache. The Lord of Toronto. The illusions had faded, Courtney was fine, as was the familiar.
Called it! Ugh, I just love the dynamics of the battle and how they're pulling at me. And of course, here's our guy. Asshat McCanadaquest
“I prefer subjugation over death. I surrender my self,” Canfield said. “It’s my understanding that an incarnation needs to root itself in humanity from time to time, to stay relevant and rooted in the doings of man.” “Yes.” “All I ask is that my daughter is taken care of.” “You’ll have it.” With that, the Incarnation stepped forward until it intersected Canfield.
Oh! So he is conquest, and he isn't! That's perfect, because he seemed to have aspects of conquest in his introduction (collecting, hoarding as a smaller aspect of the larger concept) but he still wasn't totally the conquest we know. Being a small piece of him fits so perfectly
“You will not walk away,” the Incarnation said. Joseph’s eyes widened. “I name you forsworn, Joseph Attwell. You did not see the girl’s father meet the end you promised. You cannot.”
I didn't pull the part where he swore the oath, but yeah that was an awful idea. It's like when Frisk says they definitely won't get hit this round, they get more ratings if they actually don't get hit, but if they do they lose rati- hey!
PACT IS JUST THE METTATON FIGHT FROM UNDERTALE
I love this connection so much and I'm not budging on it
that's how I sell pact to my friends now
Ilovethis
“Then I bind you by that which you swore by. I bind you by name, by your entirety. I bind you by your blood, to bind all of your kin that follow after you. I bind you by your word, to claim your obedience for myself. I offer you a second chance to gainsay me.” “I can’t,” Joseph said. “With my claim, I offer you the protections you would forfeit. It is your choice, whether to accept or refuse. To be at the mercy of anything and everything, all of the vulnerabilities of mortal and Other both, or to be in Conquest’s service?
That. That was the mistake that cost him everything, that cost fell everything. Duncan really dodged a bullet there, holy hells. That one moment was a perfect microcosm of the dark magic rule, staking so much on an oath, just to get a little advantage in the now
“Your children and children’s children, all down the line, are mine, from the moment they learn the practice. You will not bar them from it, after they’ve come of age.” Somewhere in the haze that followed, Joseph heard Courtney’s voice. “I didn’t ask for your help.” It was then that he knew he was lost.
I was waiting for this moment and it came. This is such a payoff and I love it so much.
alright I'mma end off there for now, hopefully I get the chance to read more later today!
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JayManiac 24-Jun-19 07:24 AM
OK I'm back to finish this History!
When we last left off
Joseph was screwed. So was his family.
A hard shove sent the boy sprawling into a chair. He looked up to see his father glaring down at him. “What are you going to do about it?” the man asked.
Speaking of...
I hope we don't learn that this is Joseph, but I'm sure we're going to learn that this is Joseph
The father, not the boy (edited)
just to clarify
“I have never been more disappointed than I was when I first set eyes on you,” the man said. “That disappointment, that shame? It eats at me. Get out of my fucking sight!”
What the fuck!? You couldn't handle your own conquest damn mess and suddenly it's everyone else's fault?
The man made his way to the kitchen. His wife stared at him, accusing, holding a child to her shoulder. “Not a word,” he said. There was only disgust on her expression as she set a beer bottle down on the counter in front of him.
I mean it's entirely possible this isn't joseph, but his wife is acting kinda the way I figured she would, had that relationship progressed
One beer bottle became two, then four. His nightly routine. The click wasn’t routine. He opened his eyes. It was the boy. Gun raised, held in both hands. There were tears in the boy’s eyes.
Gods, I'm beginning to think this isn't joseph, because I'm beginning to think that this kid might be Fell already, and Fell's grandfather was the one who forswore himself into conquest's service, right?
“You hate me,” the man said. The boy nodded. “Then pull the trigger. Your mother will clean up the mess. She hates me too. She’ll be glad to have me dead. Or are you a coward?” “You’re the most horrible person I’ve ever met,” the boy said. His voice was hoarse, his words a whisper.
I've decided not to care who it is, since that's getting in the way of this super fucked up story that I really want to keep reading
I meant this section of this chapter specifically but go ahead and apply the statement to the book as a whole if you want
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Fursuit Lightsaber 24-Jun-19 07:32 AM
Ilovethis
Ilovethis
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JayManiac 24-Jun-19 07:38 AM
“God, the way I treated your mother? I’d shoot me. And you don’t know the half of that.” “She never loved you, she said,” the boy said. “Yeah. Loving her was my second biggest mistake, after making you.”
Considering what loving her might've done, that's among the most awful things he could've said.
I tried to distill Joseph's story down to a moral in my head and I can't because the fuckups just keep coming. "Find a familiar who doesn't admit to wanting to manipulate you into murder" "Don't stake your very existence on a fight you're not winning" "Be sure to ask whether your rescuee wants to be a rescuee" "While you're accusing someone of objectifying women, try not objectifying women"
“I’m going to shoot you,” the boy said. “You keep saying it, but you haven’t done it.”
Oh, but he has said it twice now. Surely you're not that bad at practitioner-ing; even blake figured it out!
The moment that hand touched book was marked by the sound of a shutting door. The boy turned. A man in a white coat, with cold eyes, and two figures in chains trailing behind him.
Here comes the one person who's a bigger asshole than Joseph in this story
agree 1
“Oh gods, I’m so sorry,” the boy’s father said. Tears welled and streamed down his face. “You should have pulled the trigger. I deserved no less.” “You’ve done your duty, Joseph,” Conquest said.
Yeah, maybe he really should've.
“I’m so sorry, my son,” Joseph said. “I… I thought you’d run away, out of his reach. That you’d hate me enough to kill me. I left the guns in reach… none of what I said, I didn’t mean it. The disappointment I felt was in myself. I made myself laugh when I killed Red…” The boy’s eyes widened with each statement. “Oh gods, I’m so sorry, my son. It was the only way out that I saw for you. The only path.” Conquest intoned the words, “Matthew Attwell, as I bound your father, I bind you. By your forsaken blood, you are bent to my will, your well-being is purely at my behest…” “I’m sorry for everything I’ve done, and I’m sorry I pushed you as far as I did. I’m sorry I didn’t push you far enough.” “You will serve me unto the end of your days, Matthew,” Conquest said.
FUCK
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Fursuit Lightsaber 24-Jun-19 07:43 AM
Yeah, Joseph's tale is really, really tragic
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JayManiac 24-Jun-19 07:44 AM
why, why would this book do this to me!?!?!?! Probably all the reasons I'm reading it.
agree 2
I took everything he said for true, because Practitioners; I didn't think he'd stay forsworn, although I guess he would, if only to be useless to conquest. And then at the end of it, having the plan that all the self hatred and abuse and kept secrets required just fall apart
agree 2
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Wildbow 24-Jun-19 07:46 AM
He was telling the truth
agree 3
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Fursuit Lightsaber 24-Jun-19 07:46 AM
Exactly! But just... In a different way
Imagine, forcing yourself to laugh while burying your kids pet
Just so you can use that later to try and make him kill you
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JayManiac 24-Jun-19 07:46 AM
That makes a degree of sense, I'll have to look at the phrasings to see whether they could refer to him rather than the boy.
Yeah I see it now
“Yeah. Loving her was my second biggest mistake, after making you.”
that's the truth, but I read it differently the first time through
And then at the end of all of it the final thing he says is I’m sorry I didn’t push you far enough.” and it's just awful. hhhh
anyways, time to watch Matthew's Incarnation-awful existence now
“A riddle, if you will,” Matthew said. “Turning the tables?” Isadora asked. Matthew smiled. He was tall, pale blond, with round glasses and a tweed jacket.
not the start I expected, after Joseph. I mean, not that smiling is always happy by any means....
but still, he's cracking a joke (and a sphinx joke at that, which I'd be careful with), he's smiling, it sets a whole different tone from the last two sections
“Fair. Is there an answer?” “There are several,” Isadora said. “That’s good to know,” Matthew said. “Is the answer obtainable?” “Yes. But not in your lifetime.”
So Matthew is taking a different approach, thank the Lords (except you, Conquest. You ain't gettin shit). His voice so far is really charismatic and amiable and conversational, not like anyone we've met before, and certainly not like the people adjacent on his bloodline
“Your wife.” “She’s a lovely woman.” “She’s unfaithful.” A wide smile broke across Matthew’s face. “You chose her because you knew she would be unfaithful.” “She’s a brilliant person. She must have figured out what I was going for.”
See!? Can I be blamed for reading this smile as genuine? He just really thinks he's clever there, he's proud of that really weird but completely understandable plan
“She’ll teach my children well. Well, ‘my’ children, even if they aren’t my blood. Enchantment works well with illusion. Maybe that’s what we need, in terms of different approaches.” “You’ve defined yourself by those games, by these studies,” Isadora said.
Oh? Is Fell not blood-related to Joseph? Could he use that to break free somehow? Maybe even forswear Conquest while he's at it?
Also that's the perfect way to describe Matthew's whole vibe
he has this super fucked up situation, but so long as he treats it like a game, he can find it fun
Is it healthy? Well, who knows? I mean, if he's gotta do it anyways, at least he had a better attitude about it
“And members of my bloodline are doomed to be slaves to a greater power. Fate deals a harsh hand.” “Yes,” Isadora said. “But a child born to poverty can fight their way to success. A disabled child can overcome their limitations,” Matthew said. “An uphill battle. For every one that succeeds, there are many more who simply live with the hand that life dealt them.”
That's something to remember; there are lots of stories that aren't rags to riches, they're just rags to rags and never get told.
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Wildbow 24-Jun-19 08:01 AM
Childbow was super resentful of being told over and over again that Beethoven could play piano
It's like yeah, and the other 271,176,724 deaf people who've ever existed couldn't play music for shit. 😐
Ok, that's unfair, there's some good musicians out there who aren't beethoven.
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JayManiac 24-Jun-19 08:06 AM
Yeah, I think sometimes- perhaps often- the culture of "you can do anything" is present in a way that belittles and underappreciated how some things will just be harder for someone to do than others, and places the burden of their disadvantages on their shoulders instead of seeking to alleviate and work with it.
“Your wife is unfaithful, Matthew, but the children she bears will be yours. They’ll be Conquest’s, too. Your struggles to date have been fruitless.” The smile fell from Matthew’s face. “I’m sorry.” “Damn,” he said. “Damn, damn, damn!”
Damn. I think that's a three beat with the smile, too, a hint that maybe he's not finding this as fun anymore.
I'm actually going to be looking a lot more for that connection of privilege to the practitioner world. After all, circumstances of birth has been a pretty heavy theme so far; not one that I've ignored, but one that- now that it's been pointed out explicitly- I don't think I've given its due. Especially because, yknow, that's a pretty central part of the presence
“Damn!” Matthew shouted. He kicked the chair to his right. He hated being this angry, even when it was a real anger, and the anger he’d grown up with had been partially an act. He forced himself to stand still, calming down. It wasn’t very effective. His back to the sphinx, he stood there, head bowed. He moved his glasses to wipe at his eyes.
But I love that Matthew has made a conscious choice not to go the routes his father did. I could see this going in a different direction, where he internalizes the last thing Joseph said and does push his kids even harder, but this is a far better direction. He's very open with his feelings, expressing them in what seems like a very genuine way, and he's just trying to get the best he can for his kids without a plan that's "be the biggest asshole you can"
It almost makes it more tragic, since he seems to be a good person, this isn't his fault at all, he's maybe handling his situation the best he possibly could, and he's gonna die without freeing himself or his children from Conquest because of someone else's stupid mistakes
Fell closed the car door. The diabolist was staggering away, gas can and emergency kit in hand. Hooded jacket, tousled blond hair, and a general look that was more Other than human. Hollowed out.
Okay, we're finally to one of my favorite characters...who's not actually even top five because this book has lots of good characters guys. I love how he describes Blake here.
Ilovethis 1
The little familiar had taken to the air, circling around a few times, while three maimed goblins with chains around their necks trudged behind, dragging bundles of halogen lights and wires. A quick glance suggested that Rose wasn’t in the mirrors here. Good.
Oh thank fuck, they were all goblins. I thought something important had died and I was really worried. Interesting that we get this here, implying that it still happened (since this is a histories) and it's just the perception of it that's changed (since Blake doesn't remember this in his own head)
Also: he calls Blake 'the diabolist' but calls Rose 'Rose". He might not have a name for Evan other than the little familiar, but I think he's already picked a favorite Thorburn
His own bloodline had fallen prey to bad circumstance. The thing in that factory was worse. Worse than a force that had altered the lives of generations.
Given that I just spent hours reading the awfulness that was Fell's bloodline's 'bad circumstance', the fact that Fell thinks this is really telling. I mean, he's probably right, considering what it did to the knights and what it might do to whatever the seven hells shows up there.
Also I amend my interpretation of the idea that we're seeing the goblins here because we're not in fell's head; we clearly are. I think we're just seeing them because of timeline shenanigans; they haven't been eaten at this point in the story yet.
He needed to prepare. The Lord of Toronto, if left unimpeded, aimed to summon things that should be left alone and forgotten. But they weren’t forgotten, as Blake and Rose were demonstrating, and Conquest was already demonstrating that he had no plans to leave them be.
But uh, what can Fell actually do about any of that? I mean I get that he's on Team Blake when it comes to overthrowing conquest (and very little else) but he can't actually work against conquest's interests
They’d win through nicks and patience, with one eye open for opportunities. Except the Thorburn had arrived, giving Conquest a convenient way of getting the power he wanted. Inadvertent, but still a problem. Still unforgivable. Fell had little pity for those who’d been doomed by circumstance.
Well drat, there goes my Flake ship (I mean Blake still has to marry a man and I don't think Evan counts). It kinda reminds me of (ward)Victoria, and how Matt and Scott have pointed out that she has little pity to those doomed by circumstance (rain, victor, chris, certainly nobody else that's relevant in the story right now) possibly because of how she feels about her own mistakes
But it would weaken Conquest, and a death colored by spite wasn’t such a bad thing.
Isn't it though? Just me? Okay maybe that's just me.
Defeating and removing Conquest would be better still.
See, I knew we'd find a more productive use of our time
He reached his apartment. “Uncle!” He wrapped his arms around his niece as she ran up to him.
YESSS!!! I'd been worried that without any kids for Conquest to threaten, Fell wouldn't have enough to fight for
“We’ll talk later.” He talked to his niece. “For now, I want to hear how my niece enjoyed the last few weeks at the castle.” “It was amazing! The very first day there, Jaclyn showed us all of the friendly others! There’s a merman in the basement, where it flooded, and a giant in the hills, and there’s…”
Aw, look at lil Kendra back from fablehaven (I know that she's a lot younger than Kendra but it's a nice image. Maybe Annie from Magic Tree House. I loved those books as a kid, I even forced my dad to force me to build a treehouse because of them. These parentheses are bursting I'll just go back to reading.)
Her father, Fell’s older brother, had gone the way Fell’s father had. A reckless death. Suicide by Lord, simultaneously causing trouble that put Conquest on uncomfortable footing. Making her his.
And maybe Maggie's, I mean there's certainly a way you could spin it where she's got some kind of responsibility in that particular matter (please I want to see our goblin queen try to raise a little kid let's make it happen)
His to look after. His to doom to subservience, when the time came. His grandfather had tried to use anger and hate to drive his father away. His father had tried to misdirect, to game the system. Fell only used distance.
Noooooo. That's a whole new kind of sad that I have to be and i already was the first two types of sad in this chapter.
“I really want to start doing the stuff they did.” “Maybe one day,” he said.
ooooh no ya don't ya little scrapper.
“What I’m going to talk about with grandma here has something to do with whether we’ll let you learn magic. If things work out in the next day or two, we won’t have to wait.” We won’t have to wait until Conquest forces me to indoctrinate you, like my father was forced to do with me.
the amount that this sucks is getting to me even more than the last two ways things sucked, and part of it is Fell's desperate attempt at indifference
“It might not stay small if things start catalyzing here. Thorburn is dealing with the abstract demon.” “Will he succeed?” “That’s the question. If he does… and if he doesn’t have a plan, then all hell might break loose.”
Luckily, the Thorburns have a plan and there's absolutely nothing to worry about. If they've got ya covered, you can rest easy
fine
“Careful about hyperbole.” “It’s not hyperbole.” “Be careful all the same. Go on.” “If Thorburn fails… something tells me that my understanding of what should happen differs from our local lord’s expectations.”
Yeesh, maybe be careful about understatement too, buddy
“No,” Fell said. “It’s… eight thirty. Thorburn’s deadline is midnight. I don’t think things are going to settle down then.
Yeah that seems pretty impauzable
see it's even better cuz I fit "imp" into it
👍 2
and he's an imp
and he's gonna wreck all sorts of shit
“He’s severed his connections with the rest of the world. Very nearly bled himself dry. He’s now straddling the line between human and Other. I genuinely wondered if he was possessed, earlier.” “My family doesn’t particularly want him to do well here. My own feelings… well, I feel fairly lukewarm about my family’s wishes, given how things have played out in the last decade or two.”
Oh yeah, wait, they mentioned some people coming over for the wedding in Jacob's bell, could this woman be a Behaim? A Duchamp? I can't think of any other reason her family would be invested in Blake specifically, unless they're just super anti-diabolist
“Yes, but… well, Blake Thorburn was having a discussion on the way over to visit the demon. He and his partner talked about the dangers of using fire as a diagram.” “Not very conventional.” “That’s just it. He’s… he is fire, metaphorically speaking. Hard to predict, hard to control. Even as a useful tool, he’s dangerous.”
Hahahahaha yeah, the Thorburns ain't exactly 'ol reliables. I liked the idea of Blake as more windy, but no yeah he's definitely got some fire in im
guess I have to restart on that fanart of wildbow protags as the four bending types then...alas
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JayManiac 24-Jun-19 08:51 AM
“Not games. I will always expect you to stay sharp, Malcolm. Give me an answer, instead of complaining. Your grasp of the answer will be better if you achieve it yourself instead of me giving it to you.” “The mirror-companion is heavily tied to Thorburn. The Lord of Toronto is tied to the companion. Does he think he can somehow rescue Thorburn if it comes to it?”
I like Fell's mom. Fell's "chosen for her unfaithfulness" mom. But also, i think the answer is no. Rose is derived from Blake, and would thus slip through the cracks, right?
“What else could she be?” Fell asked. “If she isn’t the riddle… she’s the answer?” His mother smiled. “Thorburn gets removed from the picture and… the mirror dweller is the one who takes up the position as heir?” “It answers questions.” “It raises more,” Fell said.
Yeah, like "does Rose live if Blake dies?" and "does she get out of the mirrors?" and "does she just possess Blake's old body really creepily and "does she count as blake enough that Evan would stay with her?" and "if he doesn't then would she be able to take another familiar" and "will I ever finish this chapter or will I just keep getting dragged off on tangents until I fall asleep on the space key?"
“A pet diabolist. With everything that entails. It might be in our best interest to look after Mr. Thorburn.” Fell frowned.
Hahahahahahahhahaha that's the last thing he wanted to hear and it's freaking fabulous.
“We can’t help him now. Trust Mr. Thorburn to manage for the time being.
about that
fine
I mean, he's alive
But I hope you weren't bankin on those goblins with your whole "take down conquest" deal
Setting him up to die. Again. Stirring more trouble, creating chaos. “Shall I assist him?” “Your choice,” Conquest said. “I’ll go meet with him shortly, then.”
The Blake and Fell tag team is a go! And they're both super happy about it
You know as much as I know Fell doesn't really like Blake, I get the sense that Blake likes Fell, or at least enjoys his presence, if only for the purpose of being able to needle him
Conquest had brought the mirror-dwelling girl here much as he’d brought Fell. More expenditures of power. “Now,” Conquest said, to the girl, “You will tell me everything you don’t want to tell me. Starting with Mr. Thorburn’s plans.” “No- I-” “There is no choice in the matter,” Conquest intoned.
Uh oh
Fell paused. “Miss?” Conquest turned. Ms. Thorburn ceased stuttering. “It goes easier if you just obey.”
oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck
Ms. Thorburn’s voice cracked. “I- he’s setting the imp on you. It’s already scheduled. He was calling in the Knights, and he’s releasing the Hyena too. I think they figured out how. They want to trap you in your realm with the monsters, and use the demon’s appendage to lock the door.” Conquest nodded. “This is a start. Keep talking.”
NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!
Fuck!
He is smarter than he looks, Dammit, Dammit, Dammit
Curse the human need for sleep
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Fursuit Lightsaber 24-Jun-19 09:00 AM
ohno psyduck
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JayManiac 24-Jun-19 09:00 AM
If I wake up early enough tomorrow I'll jump into the next chapter
This was my favorite Histories so far, I feel like the book is just getting better and better as I read it (something I feel with Ward, too. Little less so with Twig and Worm, at least less noticeable, but definitely present here).
Anyhow, really loved it! All the feelings! (most of them awful but like a good awful)
Night, everyone!
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JayManiac 24-Jun-19 11:30 PM
That makes so much sense! Especially with what fell and his mom were talking about last chapter. I remember i was confused about how blake bleeding away his power ends in the same fate the knights' girl suffered, but fell confirmed last chapter that Blake's powerless state had weakened his connections, meaning that identity and even existence, then, is reliant on connection
Also meaning that conquest could conceivably rescue rose using their connection even if Blake was eaten, which had been bugging me but makes more sense now
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David Hunt 24-Jun-19 11:33 PM
It's Pact. Everything is reliant on connections.
I actually wonder if the records about the people that the demon ate are still sitting around, but it's just that no one can see them, or at least the parts that refer to the victims, because there's no connections.
I remember Fell threatening Blake, saying he could kill him and make it so that his corpse would rot in place with no one even noticing him, and Fell is just an Illusionist/Enchanter(?)
Would paper records eventually be disposed of because they looked blank to clerks? Would computer records be deemed as available by computers and eventually overwritten?
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JayManiac 24-Jun-19 11:53 PM
I think it's likely that they do still exist, but their connection to the thing that they reference is gone, so they can't represent it anymore. A picture of a consumed person's face might still be hanging, but if you asked that person's spouse to describe it they wouldn't even recognize it as human, just as part of the scenery. "There's that kinda tan part, brownish stuff stickin up out of it..." If his hair had been described as weedy, no observers would be able to describe it as such, because the path for that connection is gone.
It was part of the victims identity, which is what's been obliterated
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JayManiac 25-Jun-19 12:02 AM
I haven't watched westworld I don't get that reference sorry
Oh also I was at the grocery store yesterday looking for vinegar and found myself whispering "vinegar, vinegar, vinegar, vinegar" because it would strengthen the connection between me and the vinegar, allowing me to find it (edited)
Ilovethis 1
Didn't work, because it's apparently a "condiment" instead of a "cleaning supply" and I was totally in the wrong aisle but I like the principle of it
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JayManiac 25-Jun-19 06:30 AM
Alright! We are back
And we have a new arc! Subordination 6.1, which...uh...does not bode well for the whole conquest situation
Speaking of!
When we last left off.......
Blake was maybe the most screwed he's ever been? Maybe not, but close
I was still lying in the snow when the Knights found me. I’d called them, they’d answered. Headlights shone through the wire fence. They didn’t want to get closer. I heard the truck’s doors slam, followed by the murmur of conversation. Men and at least one woman.
Well that's a helluvan arc starter right there: still lying on the ground from the last arc while conquest knows all your plans for killing him
But hey! At least we have the knights!
I dug in my pocket with my free hand to get a mirror. “Rose?” “I’m here, Blake.” “You got out in one piece?” “Yes.”
is he talking about the fight, or has Rose already been yanked back to conquest? What's the timeline here? Wait, fuck, conquest probably won't let her go back to him to let Blake know he knows what blake knows yknow? It'll be up to Fell to tell him that
One foot under me, good. Another under me, using the demon’s severed arm as a cane, and I still lost my balance. Evan tried to catch me and failed. I landed face first in the snow, arms to my sides. Every single one of my injuries felt like they’d just inflicted on me a second time. I felt Evan land between my shoulderblades. He said something, but I couldn’t hear with the snow muffling the sound.
this is just hammering in that Blake is just...impossibly exhausted and hurt and not in conquest-fighting mood
It's so ominous, because we know the general sentiment of what's coming, if not conquest's exact plans (although I have a few Eyedeas)🔥 👁 🌪
“I’m the Knight’s blackguard. Priss. A lot of groups have a member like me in them.” “A blackguard?” “The designated liar,” she said. “Sometimes you need someone with the protections ordinary people have, or you need a person who can bend the truth or lie, when questions start getting asked.”
Huh. Guess that's one answer to DiP's discussion question: why not both? Involve them, don't have to awaken them!
“We didn’t want to interfere if you were doing something convoluted, and no, we didn’t want to pick a fight without knowing what we were getting into.” “You really don’t have to explain,” I said. “I’m not… I guess I’m not expecting or demanding anyone to go against their nature or take risks. I get it if you’re shy of getting into any more messes. I just had a taste of what you guys went through, way back when.” “My husband said you failed?” I nodded. “I’m sorry.” “Looking at you, I don’t think we can say you didn’t try.”
So maybe he didn't win the knight's gratitude, but maybe he won a bit of empathy, being a kindred spirit who fought that thing, survived, but didn't by any means win.
I mean, there's the arm, which is further than the knights got, but still
I don't think that the Knights are gonna be much direct help against conquest, if they weren't willing to go up against Duncan and his vague threats
Which is absolutely understandable, I don't think anyone but Blake would ever be stupid enough to fight a horrific monster they didn't have to just because it was the right thing to do or whatever, I think the Knights are the secret geniuses of the Pact universe if I'm being honest
Sucks for Blake though. Blake should surround himself with more reckless allies
actually no he shouldn't
“Hi there, bird,” Priss said. “Hi,” Evan said. Priss didn’t even flinch. But it wasn’t the non-flinch of being unsurprised by the unusual. It was obliviousness. She hadn’t heard.
Hmm, well good to know Blake can talk to Evan in public and they'll only think "that guy's crazy" instead of "holy shit a talking bird!"
When I got close enough, I let go of Priss and hobbled forward until I could lean against the front of the truck. My leg briefly blocked the headlight, and the sudden darkness made my heart jump.
Fuck. I wonder if Blake is gonna be permanently scarred by this experience in some way; I wouldn't blame him if he was scared of the dark for the rest of his life after this. Then again, maybe just rule-of-the-battle jitters left over. Probably a little bit of both
“What’s in the jacket?” Nick asked. “Demon arm,” I said. “You got a piece of it?” Nick asked me. “For what it’s worth,” I said. He nodded.
What is it worth? I mean now that you've dropped your faerie haer guess you got a demon arm to work with. Maybe start an arm farm. Welcome to the Thorburn arm farm, what harm could it do to buy an arm? lots and also don't look at it directly or it'll be blake's eye farm next
“I was just telling them we had to run,” Rose said. “We went in with ideas, only one really worked.” “Fire,” I said. “When we do this again, we use more fire.”
Blake!?!?!?! BLAKE!?!?
When we do this again!? When we do it again, Blake!?!
BLAAAAAAKE YOU ALMOST SUPER DUPER DIED THERE
I mean I know why he does and it's why I love him so much but Good Lords of Gimel, blake, take a break
“You’re going back?” Nick asked, stepping forward to wrap one arm around Priss. Priss wrapped one arm around him in turn. “It needs to be bound or eliminated,” I said. “But it won’t be tonight, I don’t think. Probably not even tomorrow. We figure out how to trap it inside, we burn it out. Or we burn it until it’s small enough to bind.” “I can’t believe you want to do this again,” he said. “God.”
Probably not tomorrow!?psyduck PROBABLY!? Words and emojis and text alteration combined can do nothing to express the amount of frantic hand-waviness that's happening from me to blake right now
“I wouldn’t object,” Nick’s male friend said. If I’d been given his name, I’d forgotten it. “But getting this close is about as much as I can manage. Scares the everloving shit out of me.”
I agree with teddy. Also his name is teddy and he's great.
“We’re not ready,” I said. “We need to deal with the Lord of the city, but we don’t have the assets. It’s ugly, and it’s about to get uglier.” “When you say ‘we’-” Nick started. “I’m saying Rose and I. Evan. You said you weren’t willing to do more than offer token assistance, low risk assistance.”
Yeah...I get it...one could argue that much of the current mess is Blake's fault anyways
“I have books on hand,” Rose said. “Incarnations, binding Greater Others…” “Is he a greater other?” I asked. “He’s Conquest,” Rose said. “That’s a name we don’t want to be throwing around willy-nilly, Rose,” I said. “Sorry. I sort of picked up on that during my last big conversation with the Knights.”
I don't know if there's any knowledge in the godsdamned universe that could successfully bind Conquest with only a familiar, a vestige, an inability to stand, a demon hand, and a bottle of leonard. I just don't know that it can be done, in the realm of things that are possible.
You could try tricking him solomon style, but I'm pretty sure he's all that he is and also not that dumb
“He’s not the C-word,” I said. “He’s a C-word.” “Well put,” Nick said, from the driver’s seat.
Haha Cunt
it took me a sec to get it but once I did I just smiled at the beauty
“Right,” I said. “Can you bind something like him?” “Can I? Probably not. But binding anything is theoretically possible.”
Imagine if Blake and Rose had a Conquest sword and just came back to Jacob's bell like "Sup Laird we got a CONQUEST SWORD
But no, I think that that will not happen and Conquest will instead proceed to kick the shit outta botha you
“But we don’t have a plan,” I said. “C-word has few friends, and a good few enemies. Except none of them want to play ball with us. Which means we’re doing what we can with the very limited resources we have. Two bound ghosts, Evan, you, me, maybe the Knights giving us another ride if they’re feeling particularly generous, and a few small tools.” “That’s essentially it,” Rose said. “We do have other allies, but-” “But they’re allies who ask a heavy price,” I said.
That pretty much sums it up. I laid it out a little earlier in the readthrough myself, and it doesn't sound that much better right now. Oh yeah but don't call the lawyers. As soon as the lawyers get called, our buddy BLB dies for a little bit more nothing, and that's unconscionable
“I’m not quite sure what a diabolist is supposed to look like,” I said. “Sunken eyes, gaunt, lanky, thinning hair, clearly not taking care of yourself, with a crimson and black robe and hood, and some flesh-bound tome in your hands…” “I look like that?”
Hahahahahahahahahahaha Blake realizing how many ways he fits the stereotypical diabolist is amazing
You’re kind of a middle ground between the two.” “Between an old, deranged man in a wizard robe and a clueless goth teenager?” I asked. “A slightly deranged, clueless young adult?” Rose chimed in. “Exactly.”
But not quite as amazing as this!
“I’m not so sure,” I said. “Just about every time someone says ‘worst case scenario’, I immediately think of a bunch of ways that things could get even worse.” “Pessimism?” Priss asked. “I like to think it’s the creative side of me more than pessimism,” I said.
Never thought about it like that, but now I'm pretty certain Wildbow immediately elaborates on every "worst case scenario" he hears in his head
“We could fight fire with fire,” Rose said. “I mean, we bring out the big guns by, well, calling in the big guns. Summon and bind something from one of Grandmother’s books.” “How is that any better than calling the lawyers?” I asked. “It’s cleaner. The demons are technically safe to use, if we make absolutely no mistakes.”
Hahahaha oh Lords that's an awful idea. I think you have a fifty fifty shot at least of just now having to deal with two big guns
“…Or we use controlled demons to achieve our aims, for the good of everyone in this city?” “I think that’s a pretty slippery slope,” I said. “I think you’re exactly right,” Nick said.
Blake should hang with the Knights more often. Hell, every Wildbow protag should hang with the knights more often. Happy ending of Pact is Blake becoming a Knight of the Basement with Joel and Alexis and Tiffany and retiring to a demonic sitcom type scenario
Ilovethis 2
“Let’s work backwards,” I said, leaning forward, the demon’s arm in my hands. “Evan’s good at escaping, yes?” “Yes.” “That’s the last step of our plan. Escape. Getting away intact. The step before that… let’s say we find a way to bar the door to the C-word’s personal realm. We’ve never seen him outside of it, and we can safely assume he’s going to be there when he calls us. I think he’s setting a stage, almost, in that tower of his. We get in, do our thing, whatever we need to do to distract him…” “How?” “Imp gets loose, and we release the Hyena, too,” I said. “There are more than enough ghosts in there for it to use against C-word, and it’ll weaken him.”
I like how we get the steps to how Blake works out the plan even though we already know the basics of the plan; I think it's good to know what headspace Blake is in with these ideas so we can keep up when he's forced to change them. It's also building the tension for when Rose is going to get yoinked, and we want it to happen sooner rather than later so Blake has more time making not-conquest-known plans
“We could teach you a rune or two,” Nick said. “No power to supply to said rune,” I answered. “And we’d need a lot to counteract his stores of power.” “That’s a bit of a problem.” “Thanks though.”
I mean, I'd take the runes anyways, might be useful. But yeah for runes you need power, literally any power, blake is drained in every way except arguably mental and that's a super agruably
“Sure. So this is your friend that you said was in trouble.” “Yeah.” “His nearly useless friend,” Rose said. “I can read, and I can argue, and I can’t do much else.” “You can give awfully frightening suggestions,” Nick said. “That too,” Rose said. “For all it’s worth.” She sounded so much like me sometimes.
Ilovethis
“If you’d like,” Priss said, “I could pay visits to a few locals.” “Priss.” Nick said, with a warning tone. “Not taking sides. More like I’m doing my job as a good citizen of the community and conscientiously informing the locals of exactly what’s going on. Of course, I’ll probably only be able to visit a few over the course of the evening.” Visiting only the ones she thinks she can convince. “I don’t like this,” Nick said. “You never wanted to get into all this. You were probably right, too.” “I want to get into it here and now,” Priss said. “I’ll be careful.”
And I love this too!! I like Priss, and it seems like she's taken a liking to the stereotypical diabolist who's wandered into the knights' life. It's such a Blake thing to do, just having to help someone out. And if she does end up making a difference then maybe it reinforces that humans, while not a cure-all, can stand up to humanity's most horrible machinations
Priss glanced back at me, offering me a small half-smile. Nick said something I couldn’t make out, and they started a whispered conversation.
Then again, if Rose has to spill everything to Conquest...I really hope this doesn't doom the Knights to his wrath
“He isn’t human,” I thought aloud, interrupting the conversation between husband and wife. “He follows a set of rules. There are things he can do, but there are an awful lot of things he can’t.”
Things you can do//some can't be done
if anyone gets that reference props to you, it's a deep cut but such a good one
“Yes,” Rose said. “But any Incarnation will tap the ranks of humanity for fitting subjects and sacrifices, to give themselves a reservoir to draw from. Pride might be able to perform actions that don’t raise its standing or gain the ability to bow to others in a pinch. If they go too long without sacrifices, they start to become more… I don’t know how to phrase it…” “Mechanical,” I said. “They become more mechanical.” “Basically. Parts of the overarching machine of reality.”
This is an awesome wrinkle that I was actually thinking about earlier, when they were talking about sacrificing autonomy and giving into the concept; I was like "wouldn't that make something really predictable?" and I'm glad we're getting the reasons why now
“They’re fairly rigid. Something like the sphinx could theoretically learn some magic to a degree. Like, shamanism, the source might differ, but she could learn the runes, still appeal to the spirits, and make an offering, hoping to achieve a small effect. But Incarnations… basically are what they are. No more, no less. One that’s absorbed a lot of people might be flexible enough to bend the rules, and a human that’s absorbed an Incarnation successfully could, too, but they’re mostly just going to do what they’ll do. For the Toronto Lord, he has a narrow repertoire.” “Okay,” I said. “The book says that within that repertoire, well, an Incarnation can approach a god in terms of sheer power,” Rose said.
Oh well that makes everything better. In all seriousness, I really like these types of opponents; the ones who are really unilaterally powerful but just can't do certain things. It's one of the things that drew me to Worm initially.
“Alright,” I said. “What about binding, then?” There was a pause. Priss glanced over her shoulder. I, for my part, looked up. Rose wasn’t in the mirror.
And here it is. I see this as the part that gets really tense, since everything before this has zero chance of winning or working, while everything after has above zero but still pretty close chance of winning or working
I stood up in the back of the truck, until my head touched the roof of the truck. The book was there. Lying on the street, dropped. She’d been abducted.
and the fact that he figures it out so quickly is a good sign, now it's just working out what conquest will inevitably know
“My friend has just been abducted,” I said, feeling very weary and a little afraid. “Do you need to run to the rescue?” Priss asked. “We should,” Evan said.
Evan and Priss are the best people in the universe even tho one of them is a bird.
“I need to… arm myself, somehow. Build up my strength, in more ways than one.” “Weightlifting,” Evan said. “Not fast enough.” “Magical weightlifting?”
Okay there's a reason I'm pulling this that isn't just because it's funny
but it is really funny
the other reason is that we see that Evan/Blake dynamic of just saying the things that come to mind, even if they're obvious/stupid/won't help because hey, it's a start! And I really like that they're on the same wavelength there and it's at least the second time that it's been pointed out
“We can’t drive you around all night. Gas is expensive, and I’m not sure that it’s going to get you anywhere,” Nick said. “Where can we drop you off? We can hang out a bit, if you need a bit of company.” “My place. Near the University, you’re close. You don’t have to stick around. You’ve helped a lot already.” “Not a problem. What’s your next step after you get home?”
I like what Nick is doing, just talking Blake through the issue, being there for him, trying to help him get a grasp on the situation
it's just a really cool thing for someone to do
“Yeah,” I said. “He’s got some sway over… F-word.” “I wouldn’t worry about throwing his name around,” Nick said. “He got ticked the first time I called for a ride, repeating his name,” I said. “But yeah. He also told me he’s sort of under C-word’s sway.”
I love that we're uh...not calling them fuck and cunt but we're kind of calling them fuck and cunt and it's wonderful
Without moving my head, my eyes still closed, I said, “The plan was scary, flimsy and incomplete enough that I’m not devastated to realize our enemy knows what it is.” “No?” “I’m more spooked at the idea that he might think to ask Rose if she can access the books he wants. If she can bring mirror-world variants to C-word, then it’s all over.”
We get the "yay!" moment right before the "oh yeah wait fuck" moment which is the best way to have it be
“Can we make him take something he shouldn’t?” Evan asked. “Maybe,” I said. “I’m not sure what that would be, and that’s probably the sort of circmstance where he draws from his reservoir of humanity and bends the rules.” “Alright.” “I like the line of thinking, though,” I said. I made a mental note.
Hey! Look at Evan go! See, this is what I like about their method. Maybe two thirds of the time it suggests things like "magical weightlifting" but then sometimes they hit upon something that leads to something potentially useful! And Evan's not afraid his ideas are dumb and Blake respects Evan and doesn't think Evan's ideas are dumb and it's fantastic.
Lots of kids want to be listened to and have creative ideas; it's a largely untapped resource, I think.
“He’ll bring us to heel. He won’t kill us. It might be he can’t kill us. He can only set us up to die by other hands.” “‘Might be’ is pretty thin,” Nick said. Pretty thin was at least something.
That would make sense as a thing that Conquest is wary of doing straight up, but I could see him killing blake in order to conquer rose and that being in line with conquest, so it's not that specific limitation
That situation could have gone worse. Except maybe it had gone worse. Fuck.
Someone- whoever rereads pact next- should keep a repository of all the quotes that perfectly describe the book as a whole
“Right,” I replied. “Thank you.” “You going to be okay?” “Honestly? Probably not.” “Figured as much.”
Alas, the Practitioner's curse. Blake sayin "yeah i'll be fine" is one of the things that could fuck him up even worse
My bike was also there. I really wanted to go for a ride. It would be suicidal, given the local weather, but I really wanted to go.
The weather is not the only reason it would be suicidal. I know it's motorized but you still need like...balance. And to be able to mount the damn bike
“You have a motorcycle?” he asked. The enthusiasm was so clear I couldn’t help but smile a little. It was like a perfect reflection of the little boy inside me who had first given me the push to consider the thing.
Ilovethis spoop
“It does. But it’s okay. It’s interesting to think about, and it makes me miss my parents. But not in a bad way.” “That’s sort of what family is, isn’t it? It doesn’t always feel great, but that feeling of connection kind of helps fill a hole, doesn’t it?”
hug
I needed more strength to go up against Conquest. This was it. Nourishing me. Building up the reserves I’d spent when I’d spilled my own blood and sacrificed a part of myself to revive Rose. “Third floor, my apartment. A friend helped me get set up-” I stopped short. Said friend was there, sitting by my apartment door, back to the wall, legs crossed, phone in her lap.
Yes!!! Replenishment! Not almost-being-nonexistent! Also this is going to be one heckuva conversation right here.
But hey, Blake said that it was like replenishing his energy when he hung out with friends so 🤷
maybe for the best
“Hey,” I said. “What are you doing here?” “Where the hell have you been?” “The police arrested me. I thought they quizzed everyone I know.” “I know,” she said. She climbed to her feet. “You’re bleeding?”
Is it that time of the night again? Is it time for the tears to start flowin? Will keep posted on that front, but certainly felt the first inkling at this interaction here
“Let me text Joel,” she said. “He’s been worried sick.” I nodded. I wanted to say no, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak around the lump in my throat. A part of me had believed that I’d come back to find only an eviction notice. That radiation of some sort might have caused me to lose my ties to friends and home. “There. Are you okay?” I shook my head a little. My voice came out hoarse with sudden emotion. “No.”
aND THERE'S THE NEXT ONE
“You didn’t tell me it was that serious. Holy fuck. They framed you for murdering some kid?” No doubt in her mind?
That's- this is- I just...I'm not finishing sentences here cuz I don't know how
She glanced at me, then at my apartment door. “Your apartment, they totaled it.” “Yeah.” “We put what we could back in place.” I nodded again. “Thank you.”
I’d had thoughts on want and need earlier. This was the flipside. I needed this, but I didn’t want it. The genuine caring about how I was doing.
agree
There were stacks of paper on the coffee table that were supposed to be in a box in the other room. Scattered by the police, no doubt, and set in place by my friends.
I needed to recharge my personal batteries. I needed the emotional support, at a point when I felt lower than ever, and damn hopeless.
But that's the thing, that's what @David Hunt helped me realize earlier today when I read the chapter; that personal power that you bleed out? It only gets replenished if you strengthen your personal connections, because on a level that's all someone is, in Pact's universe as much as our own.
oh fuck this entire story is calling me out on not talking to friends or getting enough sleep for weeks because I'm always writing isn't it?
I mean I know it isn't
but it still sure as hell can be!
I'm just gonna lay there thinking about that tonight aren't I. That using magic- in my case, writing stories about it- is equivalent to bleeding away my personal connections until I fall through the cracks or cease to be me
Hell I'm just sitting here thinking about it now
and I'm supposed to be reading the chapter
I'm gonna keep reading the chapter now
I thought of what I’d just been saying to Evan. “Joel?” “Yeah?” “Before, you were telling me that friendships didn’t have to be even. That sometimes they were lopsided.”
Because holy shit the thing that I've been vouching for this whole time is finally coming to fruition. I don't know how I didn't realize it earlier, what with Priss earlier in the chapter presenting a kind of middle ground, Evan asking if his friends could help him, and now what seems like a move in a pretty telling direction
“How do you know which side the scales should tip? When it’s lopsided, how do I know if I’m serving the friendship or serving myself at the expense of the friendship?” “I’m not sure what you mean, but… trust your gut?” “Uh huh,” I said.
The age old question; then again, I've always said I thought that- if Blake's friends knew the full story- they'd want to have been told earlier. I would. My friends would. But I guess this is where I'm proven right or wrong with that! I'm kind of scared? Maybe not as scared as Blake is, but still really scared
I leaned against the wall. I couldn’t look at them, so I looked the same way I had with the demon. “The selfish sort.” “Be selfish if you need to,” he said. I nodded.
Please this is the thing I'm banking on here
“I’m in a bad place. So much worse than you can imagine. So I’ll start you off slow.” “Sure?” “Evan!” I called out.
spoop sharkhi psyduck
This does nothing to actually alleviate the tension yet
💜 💛
Ilovethis
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JayManiac 25-Jun-19 05:58 PM
ooo wow nope don't click on that jay
anyhow
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Terrifiedham 25-Jun-19 05:59 PM
yes! no Clicking for you
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JayManiac 25-Jun-19 05:59 PM
restrains self. Okay but i literally cannot wait to read the next chapter, so let's get right into 6.2!
When we last left off:
Blake was pretty dang screwed, but he had a pla- okay well I wouldn't say that much
he had friends
When I made my way to the living room, they’d already settled in, Alexis looking impatient, Joel typing.
oh man, so the magic destiny wait is killing them just as much as it's killing me
I'm really glad we're not jumping too far ahead because I want to see everything that leads up to this, everything that this is, I just want to see it
“This waiting is killing me,” Alexis said. She leaned on the back of the armchair that Joel sat in. She was short enough that the back of the chair covered her from the chest down. “Give us a tidbit? Something to assure us you haven’t gone completely around the bend?” “Easier if we wait for the others,” I said. “Once I get started, there’ll be questions, and it’ll be too easy to get caught up in explaining myself. Better if I explain the once, give you an out, and then give proof to anyone who stays.”
Took the words right outta my mouth Lex. I like Blake's plan here; I think it's what's most fair to everyone and I think at least Alexis and Joel will jump at this chance
I also love that Evan is just hopping around on his fingers here
I mean, I know he doesn't want to give them proof immediately but he totally could, even if it's in a more "Now I'll make this bird disappear!" way
or like getting a bunch of seeds and telling Evan to write his name or something
worked in Fablehaven
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A bird 🐦 25-Jun-19 06:08 PM
The old "make some content so I can't hear the call of the spoiler box" strategy
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JayManiac 25-Jun-19 06:08 PM
Well now I can
it's up there
simmering in the conciousness
quick! Make more scroll wheel time!
“They’re your friends?” Evan asked. “Yeah,” I said. “I consider those two family. Joel’s my landlord, and he’s one of the nicest guys I know. Alexis saved my life.” “I’m not sure if I should interrupt your conversation, if you can call it that,” Alexis said, “But I really didn’t.”
Hahahahaha I love these conversations where mundanes can't hear Blake's companions. Endlessly funny
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A bird 🐦 25-Jun-19 06:09 PM
I wonder what sort of practitioner would use a wheel as an implement
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JayManiac 25-Jun-19 06:10 PM
I dunno it's kinda
Unwheeldy
😂 2
Ilovethis 2
lol 2
There was a knock on the door. Alexis answered it. Tiffany.
Oh fuck, Blake is really calling everyone. I wasn't sure if Tiffany would be invited, and I wasn't sure if she should be invited. The rest of them have a time-proven bond with Blake, whereas he just met Tiffany what, two days ago? And she's infatuated with him, which might mean she makes the magic destiny choice under some kind of influance
“What happened to you?” she asked. How bad did I look? “I’ll explain when everyone’s here,” I said, once again. I was surprised they’d called her, but couldn’t ask why while she was here.
Gotcha; That wasn't blake's call, which makes a bit more sense
“Okay,” Alexis said. “No more stalling. Explain.” “When my grandmother passed, she made my cousin Molly Walker her heir. Molly inherited a trove of magical knowledge. The other locals arranged to have her killed, because they thought that knowledge was too dangerous.” “Magic?” Tyler asked. “Magic. Spirits, ghosts, goblins, monsters… all real,” I said.
Helluva way to start that off. Blake does not beat around the bush
“I know,” I said. “But I’ve only got two hours to get ready. If this is going to be two hours of me convincing you, or two hours of explanation while I hold your hands, then it’s not going to be enough. I guess I’m asking for a leap of faith here. A willingness to leave your old life behind, if it comes down to it, and lend me backup.” “Leave our old lives behind?” Alexis asked. “If this gets messy enough, might be I and everyone associated with me need to leave Toronto. There might be danger.”
Wow, when he said he was being selfish...yeah. But my answer doesn't change, because again, I'd want to know
Yeah,” I said. “It would sound even crazier if I told you everything. But I guess I need you guys to trust your instincts. Decide if it’s possible for you to believe me, and decide if you’d want to make this sacrifice.” “Without you telling us what that sacrifice is?” “It’s dealing with the kind of horror you usually only read about in fairy tales. The sort of thing you were afraid of when you were little.” Evan nodded. I saw eyes turn his way.
I just love all of this: evan nodding along, the way Blake describes the sacrifice, how crazy he knows he sounds and just asking people to trust him
“Turning the tables,” Joel said, “Can you do us the favor of maybe accepting that you’ve gone around the bend? You’re in bad shape, and there are treatable things like thyroid problems or manageable stuff like mental problems that could explain a lot.” “If you’re willing to entertain the idea that I’m not completely off my rocker, just for tonight, I can return the favor later,” I said. “I can do what I can to accept that I’ve maybe lost it. Tomorrow.”
That's a good trade! And besides! Maybe he is just manageably crazy instead of unmanageably, magically screwed
“If it involves leaving life behind, or the possibility that something could happen to me,” Joel said, “I don’t know if I can.” I wasn’t surprised. “Your mom?” “My mom, yeah. A couple years ago? Maybe. Another few years? She won’t last that long. But right now?” I nodded. I understood, and I didn’t want him to lose ties to his ailing mother for my sake. It still stung, just a little.
😦 pika
I like that we're showing actual reasons that Blake's friends might not all jump to his side
and that Joel and Alexis are actually taking him seriously
Four more people remained almost silent. Goosh, Joseph, Tyler and Tiffany. “I’m thinking of Natty,” Goosh said, when I met her gaze. “I know,” I said. “Joel brought her up not long after I showed back up in Toronto.”
Okay so not all of them are taking him completely at his word, but they are taking him seriously still, making it clear that they're on his side whether that means mentally or metaphysically
At the same time, it was rooted in them caring about me, and nobody had said or done anything to suggest they wouldn’t have my back if I had lost my mind. It wasn’t just lip service, either. It was being offered with full knowledge of how much that stuff could suck.
Yessssss
“Tyler?” Tyler was black, skinny, his hair cut short, with a toothy smile. He wore thrift store clothing that was badly out of date, but put together with an eye to color and style. The thrift store aspect of it wasn’t so much that he was poor – he was, kind of, but even so – he just preferred to buy more, cheaper clothes to mix and match over having a few top notch outfits. Sort of a metaphor for Ty as a whole. Ty was one of the artists I worked for, a challenge of sorts. He had a hard time sticking with things, meaning I had to constantly adapt to whatever new thing he’d picked up. Thing was, Ty had a way of taking on something totally new and foreign and then abandoning it not long after he’d started to make money off of it. There had been a time when I would have lopped off a foot for his talent at any one thing. It was painful, sometimes, watching him struggling to get by. A part of me wondered if he loved the process of learning something more than he loved being good at that something. Another part of me thought that he might be addicted to the rush that came with uncertainty. Anxiety wore on some people, but it very possibly drove people like Tyler to flourish.
I really like that we get these three paragraphs, but I sort of wish we had more of a read on Tyler before this, or a few more reference points to go on; we only really know Tiffany, Joel, and Alexis here. it's not like I don't care about Tyler or believe Blake cares about Tyler, it's a lot of legwork for the story to do in a pretty short amount of time, but I dunno. If he ends up bailing here I won't feel the loss like Blake will, like I did for Joel
“I’m in,” Tyler said. “A part of me wants these monsters to be real.” Case in point. “You wouldn’t really want to, if you knew the full story,” I said. “Wanna bet?” he asked.
But that's not a concern! sharkhi And I'm really into Tyler just from this little interaction, because I think he's the one I relate to most just going by this description and conversation. Wanting the monsters to be real at least on some level, wanting to pick up tons of skills and stuff just cuz I like to learn them...I think I'm gonna like this guy if he doesn't die to conquest before arc end
“Tiff?” Tiffany’s expression was worry more than anything. Not directed at me so much as herself. “I’m not sure why Joel invited me. There were others the other night that have known you longer.” I’m kind of wondering that myself. “Because I trust you,” Alexis said. Going with her gut? “Okay,” Tiff said. “I don’t feel like it’s my place, but I’ll listen.”
Again, I don't know how I feel about this exactly, but I'll be so totally down for Tiffany being a real, direct ally to blake
“Evan,” I said, addressing my familiar. “Maybe you want to write a letter?” “I need paper,” he said.
Hey! I got it right! I got it write!
“Evan there is the ghost of the boy I was accused of killing. Last fall, he was lured into the woods. A monster called the Hyena stalked him. He survived until he died of exposure. Yesterday, I ran into his ghost. Earlier today, I bound that ghost into familiar form. He retains his wits, and as far as I can tell, a few minor powers.” I heard a thump. A moment later, Evan returned, flying very close to the ground. He was having trouble flying, with the way the paper caught the air.
Yeah that's gonna be a lot to take in. Maybe have him disappear too?
I made my way to my feet. “I’m this feeble because I drew too much from my personal reserves. I bled myself out to power effects.” “Self harm?” Joel asked.
Well when you put it that way...
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David Hunt 25-Jun-19 06:35 PM
Well, if your go to assumption is that magic isn't real, so therefore Blake is suffering some form of mental break, Joel is looking after Blake by noting more dangerous, extreme behavior. Because Joel is great.
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JayManiac 25-Jun-19 06:36 PM
Oh no im not criticizing Joel's read, I think it's fair given the circumstances
I'm actually considering whether there might be a metaphorical connection between self-harm and what Blake did: weakening connections, trying to be less you...Not sure if I want to follow that thread too much, but there's something to it
Certainly what Blake is doing isn't healthy
magic or not
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David Hunt 25-Jun-19 06:38 PM
Amen, brother.
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JayManiac 25-Jun-19 06:39 PM
He began drawing out letters with one toe. “No way,” Tyler said. He grinned.
I want all of blake's friends to hear the good news that Blake has found the best person ever
Hello, have you heard the good news about Evan? isn't he the greatest?
“That’s pretty impressive for something with a brain the size of a corn kernel,” Joel said. “Can I peck him?” Evan asked. He’d stopped mid-letter. “No pecking Joel,” I said.
He's the greatest
He
is
the
Greatest
I want the live action adaptation to dramatically cut from Evan's rant to "chirp chirp chirp"
Ilovethis 1
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Ishamoridin 25-Jun-19 06:42 PM
I love how that's the order he objects in
agree 1
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JayManiac 25-Jun-19 06:44 PM
“Okay, that’s a little uncanny,” Joseph admitted. “That’s not proof enough?” I asked. “It’s easier to accept that a bird might be exceptionally well trained, and that you or whoever trained it might have expected the apostrophe thing to come up,” Joseph said.
Really? Really? I do like that at least one of Blake's friends is being a hardass about this but you just saw a bird write the absolute truth of reality you dense motherfucker
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David Hunt 25-Jun-19 06:44 PM
I'm genuinely not able to come up with a WB character that I can objectively say is better than Evan. Maybe if sat and thought for a while. Maybe.
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JayManiac 25-Jun-19 06:45 PM
I can think of some that are great almost on par with Evan, but nope, nobody better
Fuck me. If cool, intelligent people who trusted me were going to be this fucking dense, I could probably get away with using magic in public.
remembers that time that Maggie was threatened to be put to death for doing that
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David Hunt 25-Jun-19 06:47 PM
Yeah, people without the Thorburn karma could get away with it. Blake...
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JayManiac 25-Jun-19 06:47 PM
Was this the natural resistance to the unknown? Why hadn’t I run into it when Rose first showed up?
🤔 I mean Tyler just readily accepts it as soon as it happens, I think that some people are probably just more naturally resistant to the idea of magic than others
plus they haven't seen their reflections rule 63 and start talkin
The coffee table slid a solid two feet, and the diagram disappeared. “You kicked it,” Joseph said. “He didn’t,” Goosh said. “Nope,” Alexis confirmed. “I watched.” “Magnets, then,” Joseph said. “Strings.” “That would only make sense if he wanted us to think he’s crazy,” Alexis said. “And he’s not that kind of guy.”
I was super worried that was just gonna crap out, what with the limited amount of glamour and the number of people not believing it. Guess Tyler just balanced it out
“You’re forgiven,” I said. “This shit is real?” Alexis asked. I nodded. “The people you thought were trying to kill you are part of this?”
People finding out about magic destinies is among my favorite content to read
“Among them, the Lord of Toronto, a circle of time-manipulators that include one cop in the police station, very possibly a group of enchantresses. In the past three days, I dealt with an imp that made the local wildlife go violent, the goblin-thing that caused Evan’s death, the aforementioned cop, and I tried and failed to deal with an honest-to-god demon. Each of which tried to kill me, or managed to take a piece out of me.”
Blake has been through the friggin ringer. and this is a good overview of practitioner life in general. I mean blake's had it more rough than others but it's just a good "oh hey this is real, this is real, this almost killed me a couple hours ago,
“What you’re dealing with sounds important.” “It is important. If the Lord of Toronto gets what he wants, the world is liable to become a less pleasant place to live, putting it lightly. But if you don’t look after your mother, Joel, the world still becomes a less pleasant place, get it?”
Ilovethis
same 1
It's a valid answer to utilitarianism, in my estimation
and of fuckin course blake thinks like this
it's wonderful
“I’ll take what I can get,” I said. “You in, Joel?” He nodded. I contemplated for a moment. “None of you guys have run away screaming, which might mean I’m not doing my job at explaining this.”
No it just means they have your back you big dumb dumb!
“That’s you. I get it, I respect it, and I don’t envy you at all. But you gave us a choice about whether we’d get into this, and I’m exercising that choice now.” “You’re running,” Tyler repeated himself. A statement this time. “Don’t stop him,” I said. “Maybe I am running, I don’t know,” Joseph said. “I don’t want you to feel like I’m abandoning you, Blake. Is there anything you need?” “Sure. Supplies,” I said. “Tools. Stuff I can use to draw. Possible weapons?”
Aww, I feel bad that he wasn't able to be convinced but I like that Blake is sticking to the choice he gave, and letting him go. I think Joseph would be resentful if he was dragged into the life against his will, and that's not something either of them needs. I don't think it's being a bad friend to say "i just can't handle that right now, I have my reasons and I'll help in other ways but I draw a line somehwere"
I’d really wanted him on my side, in the midst of this. To have his observant eye reading the situation would have made a world of difference. I felt like he would have been an exemplary practitioner, given the opportunity.
But that doesn't mean it doesn't kinda still suck...
Why had Alexis invited her? Tiffany liked me, and I liked her too, but I didn’t trust her on the same level I trusted the others. “This is major,” I agreed. “Then I’ll try to help, and I’ll do that very little that I think I can do.” “Are you sure?” I asked. “I had arguments with a companion, not long ago, and I don’t think this is the sort of thing where half measures will do. It might be better to back off.” “I’m sure,” she said. She sounded more confident, and left no room for argument. Damn it. Well, I wasn’t going to turn down help.
At least the dangers here are things that Blake recognizes and will hopefully be watching out for. Was this the best outcome? No, probably not, but it isn't the worst either. Four Practitioners are better than Three, maybe
At least im getting the sense that he's gonna awaken them
“Okay. Three people. There are things we need,” I said. “What things?” Alexis asked. “A dagger,” I said. “An hourglass. A skull. A coin…”
Wow, that- yeah I literally just had to scroll a tiny bit down
“You’re awakening these guys?” Nick asked. “Yeah.” “You’re aware that it’s typically very important to ask the local Lord for permission for this sort of thing?”
oH No, wHaTEVEr ShALl wE do iF CunTqUESt geTs MaD?!
I looked over the texts. Basic Protections. Possibly useful. Runes: Natural. Very useful. One text that had apparently been torn in half. Only the latter half of the book remained, and…
Yeah, I think Blake is gonna really want some more runes
especially because he has a bunch of basic practitioners with no specialization and runes are the most basic kind of magic (ish)
“Does it matter if we bend the rules some?” I asked. “I’m… my perspective is that the magic stuff is bullshitting. Symbolism. That the spirits really want to hear the right words and see the right steps being taken.” “We fudged it too,” Nick said.
I mean Blake's been fudging it ever since he awakened, and I'm pretty sure he's right here
“Who’s first?” I asked. Tyler. “I’m gonna step out, then,” Priss said. “Keep my eyes virgin and innocent.”
Speaking of, are they just gonna strip right here with everyone watching? I mean, Blake and Rose awakened together, but they were at least facing opposite ways
The remaining Knights stepped into the kitchen. Around the corner. Giving Tyler and the rest of us some privacy.
I mean it looks like it right?
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Ishamoridin 25-Jun-19 07:09 PM
Pretty sure Blake's friends are fairly open about that kind of thing, remember Alexis casually inviting him to a threesome the first time we met her?
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JayManiac 25-Jun-19 07:10 PM
Well, yeah
I mean I can get if it's the skinny-dipping-after-dark group of friends, but there's usually a bit of a boundary to be crossed here
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David Hunt 25-Jun-19 07:10 PM
I didn't get the impression that Blake's relationship with Alexis was casual at all. Not sexual, but still very close.
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Ishamoridin 25-Jun-19 07:11 PM
My read is that they'd be unlikely to do this kind of thing in general, but they're at the level of comfort with each other that it's not too awkward. Contrasts interestingly with Blake's issues really
🤔 1
agree 1
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JayManiac 25-Jun-19 07:12 PM
“You need to strip,” I said. “No way,” he replied. “Open yourself up, make yourself vulnerable, show you have nothing to hide.” “Really? Or do you want the girls naked?” “I offered before,” Alexis commented. “He said no. He wouldn’t go this far now.”
That there's a real good point, yeah. It'd be a pretty elaborate scheme
“Fuck,” Ty said. “No peeking.”
Still, though...not that comfortable
I opened my eyes, my hand raised to block my view of Tyler’s bits, and I could see Tyler in the midst of an oasis. Light streamed in through the balcony window in thin rays, making it seem like we were in deep space. Said light faded as the diagram and Tyler grew more pronounced. I hadn’t clued him into this part of the ritual. I would let him figure it out much as I had.
This is awesome. Could Blake just not see it before he was awakened, so he gets the awesome view now? Or can the one awakening not see the light show?
The knife appeared, sliding around until it was in front of him. Something Ty had made himself when he’d been into metalworking. Our ‘dagger’. “Severing ties to the old Tyler,” he said.
I love Tyler's answer here, and that it's so different from Blake and Rose's
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Ishamoridin 25-Jun-19 07:16 PM
Yeah there's a lot to pick apart in their awakenings
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JayManiac 25-Jun-19 07:16 PM
The dreamcatcher, one of the things we’d found that actually wasn’t fudging it. “I don’t want to be a salaryman. The idea terrifies me. I want to be on the other side. Be an artist, be a wizard, be inspired.”
I love tyler so much he'd better not die a horrible death at conquest's hands in two chapters
I bet it'll be more apparent on rereads, but the awakening ceremony is pretty muc- wait a second
There's this thing I do with my characters where I ask them a series of questions just so I can learn to write in their voice, learn what's important to them, get an overview of who they are
which maps pretty perfectly onto the metaphor of Pact as story and Practitioners as characters
it's the awakening ritual brought to life
from now on maybe I Awaken my characters instead
not actually I like my system
but it's a fun pull
The coin. “I get this is serious,” he said. He was rambling as much as anything. “There’s a weight to it. Price to everything.” I nodded. He’d caught that in my broad-strokes explanation of what had happened thus far.
have I mentioned that I love tyler? It seems like he's got a pretty good grasp on what it means to be a practitioner, from his answers, and I think he's shooting up the list of favorite characters right now, even if his awakening might just be our warm up to Tiffany and Alexis'
“It’s all interconnected, I guess?” Ty suggested. “Life, death, time… yeah. Saying I’m buying into this until the day I die is meaningless if I’m not in it when I’m alive. I’m devoting my life to this.” I winced. I harbored concerns about Ty’s ability to devote himself to anything. But, as I allowed myself to think it, maybe he could be something else. One could devote themselves to music without devoting themselves to a singular instrument and style. Ty was the type who, if they were a musician, they’d try every instrument and get the sense of every style they could find out about. That took a devotion unto itself.
Ilovethis
Practitioner-ing is the sort of thing that people like us could devote our lives to, a multifaceted, all-encompassing devotion that extends throughout the universe
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spinagon 25-Jun-19 07:22 PM
DiP had a whole thing dissecting these awakening scenes
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JayManiac 25-Jun-19 07:23 PM
I'm really excited to listen to it
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David Hunt 25-Jun-19 07:24 PM
The whole DIP podcast is great if you haven't tried it yet.
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JayManiac 25-Jun-19 07:24 PM
I'll do my best in the here and now, and I think- like the rest of my read- I'll miss a lot and I'll get some things that Elliot and Reuben don't
I've been listening along between my reads of the chapters, when I have the time
i'm a little behind, but I really like hearing their thoughts
“My sister is twenty years older than me. I saw life wear her down. Debt, a marriage that became loveless, kids. She did everything right and it did her wrong in return. That stick is my journey. The poetry I wrote when I was twelve, photos of the stuff I made last week. It has my email archive, and I’m pretty sure my emails to and from my sister are there. It’s… it’s me trying to find my way to where I need to be. Blake’s done right by me, and maybe I don’t need to be there long term, but I think I should be at his back in the short. But this stuff seems too interesting to not investigate. That’s who I am… and maybe with this, there’s no way I can fuck up and wind up like my sister did.”
Yess! yessssss But also you could wind up with way worse fates if you're not careful.
“Holy shit,” Ty said. He looked at Evan with eyes that were too bright. A lingering, very personal effect, like my tattoos had been. “Hi,” Evan said. “Shit on me. Hi, bird.” “Evan,” Evan said. “Evan, sorry.”
This is hilarious and weird and fantastic and i want Tyler and Evan to be best friends forever. Maybe not as best friends forever as Blake and Evan, but certainly up there
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spinagon 25-Jun-19 07:26 PM
Karmic debt, a loveless marriage with practitioner, kids raised among Others
ohno 1
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JayManiac 25-Jun-19 07:28 PM
Eye on the clock. There wasn’t a lot of time. I glanced at Nick. “Can you take Ty out? Give him a rundown, or take him where you know there’s something he could bind?” “Not really our thing, binding on the fly,” Nick said. “But I could teach him the basic runes.”
I do wonder how useful his friends are gonna end up being. I think that strengthening their bonds like this is going to help Blake with his current Identity crisis, but it's good to see that they're gonna be putting personal power to use here
I watched as the knife came up for Alexis. I leaned against the wall, so the corner by the kitchen meant I couldn’t see her, but I could see the area in front of her. “Sculpting. Carving,”
And it's Alexis' turn! I really want to answer these Awakening questions at some point
I think it's hugely fascinating, what you think of each object, and that it situates you in the symbolism of the universe. The magic of the world might even be based a bit on the awakening questions and how aspiring practitioners answer them
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spinagon 25-Jun-19 07:32 PM
Yeah, I would be like "Yep, that's a knife"
Not much for creativity over here
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JayManiac 25-Jun-19 07:32 PM
and that's an important read in its own way
The dreamcatcher. “Bondage.” The cat skull. “Violence.” The tarnished coin. “Pride.” The rose. “Pain.”
A lot to dive into here, but I like that we get the one word answers again and I wonder how tiffany's gonna treat it. The coin as pride, the skull as violence, they're all really important parts of how she's gonna treat and interact with parts of practitioner-ness that I'll be looking for in the future. Now that I see this as my getting to know the characters ritual it makes a lot more sense in my head, and I'm gonna be calling back to these in the futuer
“This one feels important. If I’m supposed to clue the supernatural world into who I am, make my signature as I step through the door, then… this is pretty fitting. We’re flawed, people are. We’re damaged. We come into the world nearly perfect, naked, and happy and then life delivers the beatdown. It kicks our asses and makes us feel like shit. It does permanent damage. Bad luck, people, our own mistakes. I want to work hard at things I love, find the good, be one of the people who fix instead of break. Who loves instead of hates, in my twisted manner of loving, I guess. I want to make as few mistakes as possible… and I say that as a smoker. So maybe stick a small ‘hypocrite’ label on me too, while you’re at it.”
Ilovethis Ilovethis Ilovethis
“Hi,” Evan greeted her, as she approached me. She smiled and raised a hand in a wave, then came to my side, leaning her head back against the wall, eyes closed. Taking it all in. Tentatively, I took her hand and squeezed it. I saw her smile, her eyes still closed.
💜
I was glad to see the items find their place. The knife. “Dangerous if not handled with care.” The charm. “Deceptively simple, has history.” The dreamcatcher. “Need to think outside the box, sometimes, to find your dreams, or to find the right ones.” The cat skull. “Frightening when laid bare… or beautiful? I can’t decide. Both.” The rose. “Symbolic, pretty, almost useless.”
I don't know if there's all that much I can say here except that i'm just actively drinking in everything here. Wonder where the coin went? Probably eaten by the abstract demon in Blake's next fight. My favorite things from Tiffany's here are the knife, which suggests the more reserved, careful approach to practitioning that I think she'll have, and the rose, which might represent the way she might not quite get the importance of symbolism
“Not mine. But my entire life, I’ve been defined by other people. I’m hoping this is when I can define myself. Get a little power, when I’ve always felt so powerless. I want to stand shoulder to shoulder with my new friends, find some courage. This is… it’s a reminder of broken promises. That reminder shaped me into who I am now. Flawed and broken, like Alexis said. But there’s a certain strength in rules, and I can feel good about myself when I swear to myself that I won’t drink, that I won’t do drugs, that I won’t betray my family. I like that I’m sticking to these rules now. If you… if whoever is listening now was listening before, maybe I didn’t sound certain. But now that the rules are setting in place, I’m feeling more sure. I want to become reliable, and I will, with your help.”
This is such a tense and yet such a beautiful assertion of self into the world of the story. It's just....so good
if I had a dollar for every time I said "this is my new favorite chapter" in pact, or at least considered saying that, I'd have...how many chapters are there of pact so far?
that many dollars
(not actually but at the very least this is absolutely true from arc 4 on)
“Hi!” Evan called out. “Hi,” Tiffany said. It was done. I had a circle now.
The Thorburn Circle!!!! THIS IS THE DREAMTEAM I ALWAYS WANTED
in all seriousness, blake's lack of consistent allies had been draining me a little bit, which is something I didn't realize until now
I really want to keep exploring team dynamics in this story, and that's not something that's been forefront so far
I mean Worm has the Undersiders, Twig has a whole lamb family, Ward has the *best team in the multiverse, team therapy
it felt like the Thorburn circle was a while coming
“Nick, want to help me out? My friends need a fifteen minute crash course in magic.” “I’m not that knowledgeable.” “Me either,” I said. “But it’s going to have to do. We gotta deal with Conquest.”
I'm so fuckin ready
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David Hunt 25-Jun-19 07:45 PM
Okay, I'm just making up this idea right now. Maybe Blake awakened some more friends and they went to help vs the abstract demon. Just kidding, of course. We've seen him going in with just he goblins.
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JayManiac 25-Jun-19 07:46 PM
I mean I assume Blake is gonna fight it again, so...maybe?
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David Hunt 25-Jun-19 07:46 PM
But damn, that demon makes every thought rife with existential horror.
agree 1
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JayManiac 25-Jun-19 07:46 PM
But also three is a good number for awakenings, I like that they have that on their side
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David Hunt 25-Jun-19 07:47 PM
Also, it's a god thing that Tyler came on board or Blake's whole circle would be him and the two ladies he was offered a threesome with. Awkward.
stare 1
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JayManiac 25-Jun-19 07:48 PM
I count Rose and Evan as part of the circle too
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David Hunt 25-Jun-19 07:49 PM
Goodness. I'm falling into Blake's thing of taking Rose for granted and/or expecting the worst from her.
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JayManiac 25-Jun-19 07:49 PM
Rose is the final boss of Pact
rooScared 1
"You couldn't realize that I was planning your demise the whole time because you never listen to my plans, muahahahahahahaha"
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David Hunt 25-Jun-19 07:50 PM
Evan's great, but he isn't a practitioner. I don't think that he'd technically be counted as part of a circle, but one of their assets. Which severely understates Evans worth.
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JayManiac 25-Jun-19 07:51 PM
Okay, but I think that Evan/Blake is also just a single entity when it comes to these things maybe, so he's a part of blake's part of the circle
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David Hunt 25-Jun-19 07:52 PM
Oh god. "And here's where I push you into the Well of Ultimate Suffering." "Yeah, that's nice, Rose. Help me find something to open up my veins with." (edited)
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JayManiac 25-Jun-19 07:52 PM
That's Rose's plan
just get Blake to destroy himself
flawless
is there any fanfic where Evan loses Blake but finds Aiden across the multiverse and, despite the fact that he's not a practitioner Aiden can understand him anyways and it's super wholesome? Because there needs to be they're literally a year apart in age and bird themed and they'd get along great.
Ilovethis 4
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Ishamoridin 25-Jun-19 07:55 PM
just get Blake to destroy himself
I think you mean 'let'
He doesn't exactly take much persuading :V
agree 2
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JayManiac 25-Jun-19 07:55 PM
sorry, autocorrect, you're absolutely right
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Ishamoridin 25-Jun-19 07:56 PM
He's like Bear Grylls except instead of drinking urine it's taking insane risks and getting fucked up
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The High Paigestess 25-Jun-19 07:56 PM
so like Bear Grylls
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JayManiac 25-Jun-19 07:56 PM
Man vs Literally Everything Holy Shit
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David Hunt 25-Jun-19 07:58 PM
Hey, Jay. There's a bunch of references in Worm and Ward to the Maggie Holt books. I can just see Aiden reading about Evan who's the familiar of Maggie's friend Blake and just wishing...
Ilovethis 3
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JayManiac 25-Jun-19 07:59 PM
To The Sky by Owl City starts playing in the background
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spinagon 25-Jun-19 08:00 PM
Some people say circle, some say cabal
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JayManiac 25-Jun-19 08:00 PM
is that a ward spoiler, pact spoiler? I need to know whether to resist clicking on it or not and you have my limited patience span to answer
i wanna click it
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The High Paigestess 25-Jun-19 08:02 PM
it's pact
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JayManiac 25-Jun-19 08:04 PM
Shoot. So i do have to resist. Oh hells I actually have things to do today let's conveniently close the tab and do those! Anyways, that's the read, I love that everyone's chiming in and coming along for the ride with me, this is already one of my favorite books and getting to experience it with you all like this is so much fun! I'll be back...sometime!
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JayManiac 25-Jun-19 10:44 PM
It calls, it beckons
But no I won't...for now
I came here to talk about something else actually
D'you think Rose is gonna be pissed when she finds out that literally every time they get seperated Blake is just like "well shit, better replace her with more allies that I'm now karmically responsible for!"
I mean it's only happened twice
but on the other hand
now it's happened twice
Blake: don't worry we've all come to save you
"All? what do you mean by- oh fuck not again" (edited)
On the other other hand
Blake did seem to like the idea of introducing Rose to his friends, and good Lords of Gimel Rose needs human connection
Not only because she just- she's human and wants to interact with humans that aren't blake, (edited)
but also because that problem extends into metaphor as well, the more she builds connections to other people the stronger her personal power will be, and hopefully she'll be powered by those connections as well as Blake's
On the topic of vestiges and ghosts and stuff have we confirmed that Molly isn't one?
I mean, not original Molly
but have we confirmed that there isn't a ghost of her in the woods of Jacob's Bell? I don't know if it's a thought I've voiced before but it's been in the back of my mind: death by goblins is probably not fun
perhaps even not-fun enough to hit the world with a molly-shaped dent
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JayManiac 26-Jun-19 06:19 PM
Alright I only have an hour and a half to read this next chapter 6.3 so let's just get into it with very little preamble when we last left off blake was screwed
sorry, blake- and all his friends ❤- were screwed
“Power comes with a price. Believe me on that,” Nick said. “Now, speaking as the owner of a shitty little store out in the middle of nowhere, that means the power has value. What we do, we’re bartering with that power. Sometimes you come out a little ahead, sometimes you don’t. You can change it around, work in different currencies, different kinds of power, you can give currency for goods or services, or give up goods and services for currency.”
This is a good tone setter, reaffirming the central metaphor of the story and reminding the audience of all this stuff, using the Thorburn Circle recruits as a conduit
“My family dug themselves into a deep, deep hole,” I said. “By inviting you guys in, I may have dug myself a little deeper.” “I was going to say you cut yourself open and bled your currency out to pay someone or something,” Nick said. “You did that to yourself?” Alexis asked.
Yes well I had to reverse the radioactive effect that this demon had on a genderswapped version of myself,,, it's complicated
Alexis had the book on protections in her lap, while Ty had the Essentials tome, his attention apparently on the very last few pages. The appendix? “It’s complicated,” I said.
Hey! Blake used my exact words and also I really just hope Ty finished the Practitioner book of Essentials in 15 minutes
“Yeah. It’s a gamble. People like me and my family, we don’t play with a lot at stake. You could say we did, once upon a time, and we paid the price. The rules here, they’re old. They predate modern society. Reach back to days when you had kids because many wouldn’t make it to adulthood. When girls were bartered off in marriage. People are currency, and we lost our people. You be careful with yours, Blake.” “You’re supposed to be helping them figure all this out, not me.” Nick raised one eyebrow, but he went on.
I love that Nick is the one to tell Blake this, to make him assume responsibility for the people he's dragged into this, because Nick knows the costs all too well...and by that I mean he doesn't know what it cost him at all. Now I'm sad.
Leonard-in-a-bottle rested between my feet. I also had a hammer I’d marked with a wind rune, as a dim replacement for June, and I had the demon’s arm. Nick went on. “You can pick an implement, too. Your tool of the trade. There are no takebacks. Everything matters, when you make your choice. The style of it, the history, the type of item, the purpose it’s meant to serve, the symbolism…”
I'm still at a loss for what Blake's implement could be but I hope we get to find out soon because out of the three practitioner powers I think it's my favorite- I still have to finish that implementum list I think I only have a few to go
“Yeah,” Alexis said. “It’s had a place of prominence on a shelf over my home kit for the last while. It’d be great to put it to use.” I nodded. “Custom iron?” Evan asked. “Old-fashioned tattoo gun,” I said. “Oh, cool!”
Holy hells that is cool! It's always fascinating when people choose modern implements, because they don't have as much of a history, but they have as much symbolism and you can trace a history of something like a tattoo gun through its predecessors. For example, it looks like a gun so it'll have some connections with that, it works almost like a paintbrush, which I'm sure has a well-documented history as an implement given it was one of my first thoughts (before I decided on my favorite mechanical pencil as an implement), but it paints only on skin, and only permanently. It's about altering identity, drawing important images or symbols that will be with you forever, making augmentations to yourself. And that's a really awesome connotation for an implement to have.
Ilovethis 1
Also Evan thinks it's cool and I think it's cool and it's awesome
I’d be worried about corrupting the kid with the smoking, swearing, tattoos and motorcycles, but he’s already dead, and it sort of pales in comparison to the terminal violence, demons, and the magic ritual bullshit.
1. He's a bird. 2. He's a kid. 3. He's dead
Finally, we have the familiar. Kind of like marriage, but with one of the monsters.” “I’m getting really sick of that comparison being made,” I said. “Can we call it something else?”
I think the nature of the Familiar is different from practitioner to practitioner. Like obviously Blake hasn't married an eight year old, but it's certainly more than a business partnership. I bet some people view it as a business partnership, some view it as a sort of Parabatai (mortal instruments) situation, some might even view it as a Kismesis, a friendly rivalry. Whatever it is, Blake and Evan are...family.
“Can you have more than one familiar?” Ty asked. “Not so much,” I answered. “It’s more of a commitment than that.” “Some circles over in Asia do,” Nick said. I glanced at him. “Different expectations, different rules. The ritual’s different, too. It’s less like a partnership and more… hostile takeover.”
I love how educational this is turning out to be for Blake. He thinks he knows it all, but he's only been at this for like two weeks, whereas Nick's had a much slower paced but much longer journey throughout all this. It can be easy to forget how much he knows, because he was ignorant to a few of the diabolist-centric things Blake was aware of when they first met, but he knows his shit
“I’d be into trying something offbeat like that,” Ty said. “Tradition has a power,” Nick said. I nodded. “I’ve never been much for tradition.” “What about respect?” Nick asked. “Having a familiar earns you some. Go off the beaten track, it’s going to change people’s perceptions of you.” “I’ve never put a lot of stock in that either,” Ty said.
I love Ty so much he's already my favorite besides Evan
“Summing it up, all kinds of power are currency, and anything you do from here on out costs,” Nick said. “Sacrifices, even small ones like being polite, or taking a risk by making a promise, they pay you back. Politeness forges stronger connections, and connections keep you upright in the grand scheme of things. Making promises and keeping them buys you favor from the underlying forces that drive things.”
I mean, we could have already figured this out from the context we got last histories but I kinda like that it gets spelled out here explicitly, since it's something that Blake might use to get himself in and out of trouble pretty soon
I closed my eyes, leaning my head against the headrest. “Nick sees things as a broad sort of business. Rose wants to view it as something in the same vein as science or math, with an internal logic.” “And you?” Ty asked. “I described it as a kind of art,” I said. “There’s some bullshitting, a lot hinging on trends and abstract rules, vague elements you can’t pin down. Things don’t fit neatly into boxes.” “I’m not one to talk,” Nick said, “given how I barely practice and how badly the Knights have fucked up when we tried our hands at it, but doesn’t that make you the stereotypical starving artist?” “By your definition, with power as currency?” “Yeah.” “By that definition, sure,” I said. “I guess it kind of does.”
Ilovethis
I love this conversation, because they're all right and they're all a little bit wrong and they're all imposing their definitions on everyone else and they all think they're the only ones that are right. Showing how different worldviews can exist with regards to magic is a really important part of why I like Wildbow's work so much. I find it most interesting and clarifying to view Pact's universe as a story because that's what I understand, but that doesn't mean anyone else is wrong, and sometimes I need little reminders that the other models are useful too
“I’m not an expert by any means,” I said. “Most practitioners don’t get in any real fights except maybe a conflict over their familiar or demesne,” Nick said. “Really?” I asked. “You might be more experienced than most. Not very knowledgeable, but from what you said about your library, you have a way of fixing that problem.”
Wow what the fuck?! That's not something I expected, to the point that I think Nick might just be wrong here, assuming- like Blake does- that the way he does things is the way everyone does. I suspect the answer is somewhere in between, but I never really expected that there were anywhere near half of practitioners who blake has already been in more fights than? I mean certainly the duchamps seem to have been in fights before, and Maggie certainly has. Duncan maybe hasn't, and the experience he has might just be as a cop...Fell has, Laird has, Meath maybe hasn't. Yeah.
“Fuck,” I said. “What about… I dunno, the local folk tales, the things that go bump in the night? The miscellaneous monsters?” “Is the thing we really want to do before you go up against an enemy is to fight another enemy?” Ty asked. “I want to feel more prepared,” I said.
If only you could give each of your new Circlemembers a goblin buddy....
But yeah, it really sucks that there are never any entry level spirits or ghosts for practitioners to...well...practice on.
“You feel that?” he asked. I wasn’t sure what he meant. Feel? I felt… tired. In pain. No, he was referring to another kind of sensation. “No fucking way,” I said.
Then again, could they try binding primordial spirits? I guessed it was how the first practitioners got their start and began to make the transition into Other, but...that's literally starting from scratch when the world has a 100000+ year head start
“Listen up, you two, here’s your first lesson in the field. I want you to pay particular attention to all the weirdness going on around us. Start with the immediate stuff, the connections between each of us, things being carried back and forth. Over time, you’ll visualize it into something like cords, strings, ribbons…” “It’s more a feeling for me,” Nick said. “Physical. Everyone sees it differently.”
We keep hitting this beat of "everyone sees it differently" and I really like it because Blake doesn't get the chance to compare himself to very many practitioners that aren't trying to kill him
“Like I said before, a mix of bullshit and confidence go a long way,” I said. “Trust that it’s right.” “Okay, trusting… what am I looking at?” “You’re looking at maybe ten of the major players in one place,” I said.
OH SHIT
Conquest had said that a lot of major players were gonna be making the moves on Blake, and not in a fun way...except for maybe Diana
So this is maybe where Fell is supposed to meet him to protect the Lord's investment?
“Diabolist,” Isadora said. She stood there on the street, in full sphinx mode. I glanced down the length of the side street. Nobody present. “Greetings, Isadora,” I said. It seemed like a safer bet than ‘good evening’, because I wasn’t sure this evening would be. “Hello,” Evan said. “No shitting way,” Ty said. Under his breath, he said, “She’s beautiful.”
I fucking love Ty, and also holy shit this is tense
she probably doesn't want conquest to have a pet diabolist
and also she probably doesn't trust blake's not-plan to work at unseating him
Outside, I could see the sphinx and a number of women with white masks and rings that blazed red. The Drunk stood a distance away, beside a man with a long, crooked stick, who was busy feeding a carrot to a large gray horse. Diana the Astrologer wasn’t here.
Wow, so nobody putting the fun moves on Blake. That might actually be for the best. But hey that's probably the Shepherd so maybe you can ask him for some ghosts!
“I’m Blake Thorburn,” I said. “I’d like to ask your name.” “Names are dangerous to give, and it’s impolite to ask when we’re already taking pains to protect our identities.” “Okay,” I said. “My apologies.” “Apologies taken and accepted. You can call me Elder Sister, or elder for short..”
Did she just take his apologies!?! I don't actually think so but it just reminds me of Padriac.
“He’s apparently vexed with you,” Isadora said. “Any particular reason why?” I saw the connection flicker into being, raised a hand to cut it and Ty off before an answer could be given. I knew the answer, regardless. The Shepherd collected the dead. I’d collected Evan. Stuck one foot in his territory.
Hey, Shepherd wasn't doing shit about the hyena problem so fuck-a-you, dude. Also yeah don't answer the fuckin sphinx
“You have friends,” the sphinx observed. “And a familiar. You’ve been busy.” “I have been,” I said. “You’ve been working behind the scenes. Forming a coalition?”
Well that's good! Now they can all overthrow conquest together
“We already received one appeal to cooperate with you. We said no,” she said. That would have been Priss.
or not
“I wonder if your new helpers know the danger you pose,” Isadora said. “Do you know the dangers of being in a diabolic cabal, strangers?”
um...that's a no from me dude
OH SHIT
I JUST ANSWERED HER
god im so bad at this
“If you aren’t one now, you’ll become one. The forces we’re talking about, they insinuate themselves into the fabric of reality. They forge new connections, to draw themselves to people. I’ve lived a long time, and I’ve seen it happen again and again. The book consigned to vaults finds its way to mortal hands. The beast we hoped to leave alone in deep waters is stirred by a wrecked ship. When you gather in groups, you give them more opportunities. More flaws to reach for and exploit. You reek of it. That wrapped thing you hold reeks of it. Filth.”
Let me tell you about this book I've been reading, I think you'd really like it it's called Black Lamb's Blood. In fact it's right there inside that building, could you go get it for me at around..oh...five past midnight?
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JayManiac 26-Jun-19 07:11 PM
At last, the answer is clear!
“Good thing those guys aren’t diabolists,” I said. “It is a good thing,” Isadora said. “If that changes, we will eagerly do what others have done in recent history. Remove you from the picture before it becomes a problem.” “Irony is, there aren’t many other actions you could undertake that would make me snap and cut loose,” I said. “I won’t threaten you and say ‘Leave them be or else’, because that would be dangerous and crass.” “Yes it would,” Isadora said. “I won’t say it,” I said, emphasizing the ‘say’. I stared up at her.
Oh Blake just said that. And by said that I mean not said that. Yeah I don't know that we know any reason that a circle, cabal, whatever can't be more like a dnd party with a bunch of specialists in differing but related schools of power. Yeah maybe it'd be more efficient to work as a group towards one specific school but ty's not even gonna be working as a person towards one specific shcool
“I want things more or less stable, too,” I said. “But you’re letting the diabolist label lead you to conclusions.” “Do you have any conception of how old I am?” she asked. Her voice was more dangerous now.
You're not defending yourself very well, I hear people are more prone to confirmation bias the older they get and so every time you emphasize your age here is sort of working against you
“That’s fair,” I said. “Alexis, Ty, I need you to do all of us here a favor.” “What’s that?” Ty asked. Alexis didn’t speak, but I saw a puff of smoke to my left. I didn’t turn to look at her, in case i started to lose my balance and wobbled on the spot. “Swear. You won’t tou- you won’t open or read from any of the darkest tomes. None of the demon stuff.”
Hahahahahahahahahahaha that's the best, that's the best. I love this so much
“Then I’ll swear too,” I said. “I’ll take all reasonable measures to keep the contents of those books out of the hands of my, er, disciples.” “You would do better to swear not to touch those texts yourself, Thorburn.” “I can’t make that promise. I have other responsibilities, and other entities leaning over me. Were I to promise, I’d earn the enmity of other forces.”
Yeah you don't want the lawyers against you in addition to everything else, and even swearing your friends off the books probably irks them
“You gave the imp to Conquest,” she said. “Largely because I had no support to draw on, Isadora, daughter of Phix.” Her head moved, and her eyes flashed as the light left them, then caught the surface again. “You blame me?” “Some,” I said.
Blake is just relentless here and I'm laughing in maniacal glee. He's kinda right, that Isadora let Conquest grow more powerful, let Blake become more of a diabolist because she was afraid of what that label could mean. She let her own prejudices reinforce the very thing she's afraid of.
not to absolve blake of blame completely of course, just...he's got a point. It's not all her fault, just...some
“You did a good thing. A right thing, and you recently transferred some of the negative karma from yourself. Three separate events.” I frowned. “Then the reason I’m free to put a circle together-” “That has nothing to do with it,” she said. And her expression went a little cold. “I cannot speak for the particulars. Maybe there was some good in it. But I meant what I said earlier. The cosmos gave you a rope. You have neatly knotted it. I hope you are the only one who hangs, but as I said before, I have been around long enough to see the patterns. I am not so optimistic. I suspect things progressing smoothly there was not karma being kind.” That might have been the cruelest thing she could have said to my face. I was left momentarily breathless.
ohno
The Shepherd barred my path by stepping forward, directly into my way. He didn’t look at me. His eyes were on Evan. He brimmed with negativity. The feeling made me think of the shelters in the dead of winter. The general ambiance, suspicion, loathing, anger without a target, anger with a target, discomfort, pain, hopelessness… he radiated it. When his eyes moved over to me, it became more intense. “You had months,” I told the man. “You didn’t. He needed someone to find him, and I found him. Don’t fucking blame me for your cowardice.”
Blake is taking no shit tonight and I'm here for it, I'm so fucking here for it. You tell him, Blake
“You get to be a shepherd by shepherding,” I said. “Giving shelter and care to your flock. Evan needed that care, and that man didn’t give it. The name doesn’t fit.” “Attacking a man’s name is bad form.” “I don’t hear him complaining,” I said. The Drunk smirked.
Blake I'm here for the snark and all, but I just had a thought: do you think you're becoming a bad influence on your new circabal? What if they think this is just how you're supposed to address people?
“I dunno,” I said, meeting her eyes with a level stare, “I’m getting a pretty good idea of how fucked up things can get.” “You’re a threat,” she said. “No he isn’t,” a voice piped up. Evan. She glanced at him, only briefly breaking eye contact with me. “Blake helped me. And he promised me he would stop the real threats. He cares about his friends, and he’s honest, and he’s smart and he’s cool.”
You know what? I 've decided that if Blake's attitude rubs off on Evan I'm so fucking here for it because this is amazing and I love them all
“I’m not going to argue with a child.” “You’re going to lose, by the sounds of it,” Ty commented. “Did you try to stop the monsters like the one that sort of killed me?” Evan asked.
this is the greatest set of lines I have read in the past year
Ilovethis 1
“The demon in the factory is vulnerable to fire and light. You could have done something.” “It’s not what we do,” she said. I couldn’t see her face past the white mask. “It’s what I do,” I told her. “Tell me again how I’m one of the real monsters.”
fireaxe fireaxe fireaxe
“All I know,” Evan said. “Is he tried. You didn’t.”
Are we sure Evan isn't a fire elemental? Because that was a magic-class burn
“Well,” the Elder Sister replied, “I’m trying now, if it means you don’t deliver that thing to Conquest.” “You’re done trying,” a man said from behind her.
Fell?
Fell.
Fell!!!
sharkhi
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David Hunt 26-Jun-19 07:29 PM
Okay. That was perfect.
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JayManiac 26-Jun-19 07:30 PM
isn't evan the greatest?
You mess with blake you get the beak
“They’re taking sides,” I said. “Isadora and the Sisters opposing Conquest, though Isadora is keeping secrets. The High Drunk and the Shepherd are loosely affiliated with Conquest. The Knights and Astrologer are nebulously affiliated with you and your new circle,” Fell said. The Astrologer is in our camp?
The power of being really good looking prevails?
I mean, I'm sure there are other reasons
but still
there's a reason she's not opposing Conquest behind Isadora instead of you Blake
and one of those reasons is prolly cuz you're hot
A man with rags draped over him from head to toe. Burly, tall, the sort of guy that’d be a top of the line defenseman on a hockey rink. Hair stuck out from the midst of the rags, scorched, standing up in sharp tufts. His skin was blistered and burned where I could see it. I could smell the smoke and ozone from the other side of the broad tower top. He burned away the air merely by being here, and I wasn’t in good enough shape to be breathing properly to begin with. One of his eyes was visible. It burned so bright I couldn’t meet his gaze. The Eye. An unliving, monstrous counterpoint to the notion that fire and energy are man’s tools to be harnessed. A disaster waiting patiently to happen.
Eye already don't like you
But also I like that you exist without wanting anything to do with you at all
Duncan Behaim. Not in uniform. He sat on the wall, slouching a little. Glaring. Laird Behaim. Not in uniform, but he wore a long jacket with a badge on the sleeve. He didn’t slouch. He held his head high, his expression placid, pocket watch in hand.
Fucking Laird showed up!?!?!?!
(edited)
“Eight minutes until the imp frees itself.” “Close enough,” Laird said.
I love this beat, because you can't beat a behaim when it comes to smugness, not even if you're conquest himself
Rose raised her head. I saw her eyes widen in surprise as she saw my friends. “Yeah,” I said. “I do.” I just wished it was a better one.
WHAT A CHAPTER
Nothing Happened but also Everything Happened and we learned about the Thorburn's secret weapon
scald everyone with Evan's burns
it kind of reminds me of (ward)What Scott and Matt were talking about just last night with WGW, when Vicky was using Dot's kind of childlike amorality to get past Amy's bullshit and defences. This is almost the opposite, where Evan's taking advantage of his own childlike morality to get past the sisters' bullshit. "we don't do that" "you could've" "But you didn't though" Like of course it's so simple for a kid, you have more power than Blake and yet you didn't even try to deal with monsters like the one that killed me so fuck you Blake is awesome. And he's also showing that he's smart, he's clever, he remembers that they deal with elementals and connects that to the abstract devil
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David Hunt 26-Jun-19 07:43 PM
I'm only halfway joking when I say that Blake coudn't have done better is if had a god for a familiar. Actually, a god would have been worse because it would likely dominate him. Insert generic very powerful creature into that comparison.
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JayManiac 26-Jun-19 07:44 PM
I think if you'd told me Blake would take a ghost as his familiar like...three arcs into Pact I would've been like "what!? Lame"
which just shows how cool Evan must be, how awesomely it was written and how much it fits
agree 2
it's why I don't spoil myself on things; because I know that the spoiler isn't in the context that the book wants me to understand this narrative beat in
Like you tell me that Taylor dies in arc 8 in a potential version of Worm and I say "Well there's no way that book would be as good as it is now if we'd lost Taylor a third of the way through" but then I remember that I just...trust that whatever Wildbow does he's gonna do it in a way that I love, in a way that's narratively satisfying. He's gonna take the elements he's already introduced and spin them into something cool before my very eyes.
agree 4
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David Hunt 26-Jun-19 07:51 PM
Gotcha. Due to how I found out about Worm, I went into it spoiled as to who the final opponent would be. It did change a few things, but in a well written story, how you get to finish is usually more important than where that finish is. All that middle stuff is there for reason, afterall.
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JayManiac 26-Jun-19 07:53 PM
I went into it spoiled on this and that, nothing that major but just enough setting detail to get me reading it. I'd heard of endbringers and scion and I knew that the Undersiders were Taylor's team at least for part of it because my friend liked describing the power synergies
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JayManiac 27-Jun-19 08:06 AM
I'm glad you asked!
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Fursuit Lightsaber 27-Jun-19 08:06 AM
Ilovethis
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JayManiac 27-Jun-19 08:17 AM
Let's start with Nick, since the chapter focuses a fair amount on him and Blake at the start. In the theme of society, we've seen how economizing relationships and seeing things in the way of the Others can be damaging, especially in Granny Rose's case, having grown up around them. But Nick, who I think we can all agree isn't such a bad guy, explicitly draws the economy connection in the beginning of the chapter, introducing some nuance into the whole "neoliberalism bad" schtick I've been dragging through the story by pointing to his "shitty little store out in the middle of nowhere". But then later, we get a little bit of a crack in that worldview- a bleed over with Blake's stated "artist" worldview when he compares Familiarity with marriage and Blake has him correct it to "business partner", a far more economic and dare I say corporate term that I don't think accurately describes Blake and Evan's relationship at all. I'd personally call it much closer to a marriage in terms of the qualities they choose each other for. They want to work together because they can understand and relate to each other, not because Blake thinks that a ghost will be a significant source of power. Let's talk about Evan and what he means a little, actually, because I've been playing around with this idea of innocence. Evan is what happens when you introduce a child to the way the practitioner world- a stand-in and metaphysical encapsulation of society- works. And what does he do? He roasts the shit out of everyone bludgeons through a little bit of this story that everyone has spun around themselves, because his own personal story is a blunt enough, simple enough instrument to do so. This is especially relevant when it comes to....wait how am I doing on wordcount?
Still sendable
great
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JayManiac 27-Jun-19 08:26 AM
When it comes to the Sisters. The Sisters are really interesting to me as an extension of the sorority/fraternity into the practitioner reality. To themselves the Sisters are an elite society, the only people in their lives who know about magic, about the "real world". They wear awesome masks, they harness elementals- the most magicy magic shit you can find- and yet they're considered fairly small fry when it comes to the local powers. A consideration? Sure. A threat? Not unless you're Blake! More to the point, as Evan points out, they don't fucking do anything. I mean sure, this isn't necessarily true, they could be doing stuff that's important elsewhere, but I think it's a lot more likely that they're more concerned with the rush of being the only magic people around on campus, the secret order that recruits from the shadows and harnesses elemental fury. In the story so far, they act like teens and young twenty year olds- they want none of the responsibility that should come with being a practitioner, but when they see something they don't like and can't ignore they're perfectly happy to stand in the way of people who are actually trying to fix the problem. I don't say this in order to perpetuate the stereotype that college kids are stupid- I think they actually have a lot to say and should be taken seriously (maybe because I'll be one next year) but I also think they should absolutely be called on their bullshit.
Speaking of bullshit, let's talk about Isadora. So Isadora is one of those practitioners who's been an Other for a long-ass time, and what's most interesting to me is seeing how that changes her, the ways it makes her less human- the same way we've done for people like Padriac. In Isadora's case, she is the arbiter of right and wrong, the author-insert of the universe (if the universe is a writer and the universe is an allegory about what it thinks is right and wrong), which in practice (or in Practice) just kind of erodes her sense of nuance. Of course, she could be right about Blake's circabal right now, they could eventually go down the rabbit hole that doesn't lead to wonderland, but I think it's also likely that over the years she's seen more examples of Bad Diabolists than Good ones, and that even a little bit more of the Bad ones can over time lead her to thinking that every time this happens it's a bad thing, conveniently forgetting all the times it was an okay thing, or telling herself that those don't count for some reason
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JayManiac 27-Jun-19 08:40 AM
Speaking of nothing I was supposed to be speaking about I don't have a clever transition for this it's already my bedtime leave me alone. Ahem. The Shepherd. Is who we're talking about next. So we've heard about Valkyries, but I think that's not the most important part of what the Shepherd represents because I'm too tired to come up with things to say about it. Right. What's more interesting to me is the choice not to speak outside of rituals, which is kind of like saying "if I don't get tangible power from our exchange you're not worth talking to". In fact that's literally what it's saying, and I can't imagine that's made this guy very fun at parties. He holds all of his words in so he only speaks when he needs to for power, and thus sacrifices every connection in favor of the ones that serve him directly, which is not only a dick move, but makes him so very difficult to reason with. What would Blake have done if he hadn't stepped aside? Try whittling him down, not knowing what was working or not? I can't help but think that if there's a world where being this much of a dick makes you more powerful no wonder our city is run by literally Conquest. That's what the practitioner world can seem like at times. But also, more importantly, we're getting all the different ways people can see the practitioner world, and thus all the different things it's a metaphor for.
That's my schpeel for tonight, because I feel like I'm a little too tired to talk about this intelligibly and I want to read a chapter tomorrow but don't know if I'll wake up early enough to, so I should probably get to bed in the interest of reading I mean health and well being haha
Interested to see any non-spoilery responses you want to bring up in regards to what I've said. I hope I've made clear my willingness to discuss this kinda thing forever
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JayManiac 28-Jun-19 03:53 AM
As I don't believe I'll have that much time to read this weekend, I'm gonna try to blow through two chapters at once this time...this isn't even close to possible in my timeframe is it?
anyhow,
When we last left off: Blake, his amazing friends and also Rose, and possibly most of toronto was screwed.
“I expected as much,” Conquest said. “Every man is someone’s son, and very few men have been born to fathers without some sanguine humors. To give up without a fight would mean going against thousands of generations of fathers who had the courage, adoration, and aspiration to find a woman, as well as the strength to survive to adulthood.”
That is the most Conquesty way to say a thing sweet scion. Not gonna lie I totally had to go back to the last chapter to make sure Blake's last line was about having a plan to fuck with conquest. But seriously isn't that just a disgusting way to format those particular ideas? What a chapter starter, I love it.
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Fursuit Lightsaber 28-Jun-19 03:55 AM
👀
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A bird 🐦 28-Jun-19 03:58 AM
I always find it interesting how often Wobbles brings up humors
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JayManiac 28-Jun-19 03:59 AM
it's one of those perfect "ick" words with a lot of historical and weird and "ick" context, I get the attraction to it
“Are you planning on filibustering until the time’s out?” I asked. “No,” Conquest said.
Well dang, I was all hells of ready for an eight minute standoff till Pauz is Loose! And for this comment's "not gonna lie" we bring you: I totally had to look up the word filibustering. I've just never seen it used before.
“Good,” I said. “Because I really don’t care all that much.”
And I think this is gonna count as our Blake establishing line since it's the fourth paragraph good gods of gimel I really have pulled every single line in the chapter haven't I? Well, in any case, Blake is taking absolutely NO shit tonight, which is just the best mood for a protagonist to be in. He's tired, he's got his circabal behind him, he's done with all your magically reinforced bullshit conquest it's Time! Well actually I really hope it's not time because then the behaims would have a distinct advantage.
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A bird 🐦 28-Jun-19 04:03 AM
Filibuster comes up a lot in political contexts
agree 1
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JayManiac 28-Jun-19 04:03 AM
That...might be why I'd never heard it
I consider myself politically active but I can't particularly stand all of the politics-language. Doesn't tug at my peevedness as much as business language but sweet scion...
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A bird 🐦 28-Jun-19 04:05 AM
I figured. And to be fair to your pulling every line, Wobbles writes good lines. Especially at the start of chapters
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JayManiac 28-Jun-19 04:05 AM
agree
Speaking of:
He seemed to consider. “I believe you. When the younger Behaim reported that you had bled yourself out, I thought you were trying to make yourself so weak as to be useless,” Conquest said. “I still beat him. I couldn’t have been that useless,” I said.
Like, just look at the cold hearted savagery Blake is pulling here! He's fabulous! If I were the spirits here and I kind of am I'd already be handing Blake this battle on a silver plate! Imagine gathering all this power and ability and then BAM some teenager roasts the shit out of you and it's gone (I know blake is twenty it just sounded better)
“Your concerns matter little to me. You are a diabolist, few would deny that. The diabolist’s circle is traditionally called a cabal.” “Cabals,” Fell commented, “are traditionally exterminated by witch hunters or similar means. There are inquisitors in Montreal who would be very interested to hear about this.” “What?” I heard Ty say. Fuck.
Fell is just..still being himself here, whoop de fuckin do. Here we are, back in Conquest's room, and he just can't help being not helpful. I still love him, but sweet scion dude chill the fuck out.
“My nephew failed to defeat you and ran afoul of the Lord of Toronto,” Laird said. “I’m smoothing things over.” “Clever subversion can be overlooked, as it raises my status further when I triumph regardless,” Conquest said. “To have someone undermine me and fail, they cannot get away with it, or Toronto would seem weaker as a whole in the world’s eyes. The elder Behaim is offering me some assistance for the time being.”
Hahahahahahaha Duncan pissed off conquest by losing to some loser half-bled diabolist instead of conquest himself. This is the best. I love Conquest as a villain (and stfu if anyone's a villain it's the literal incarnation of being a total dick(I might be mincing the definition a little but still)) because of the things that play into his concept and don't. They're never exactly what you'd expect becuase the concept of Conquest isn't super logical like that, I might even say it's primarily experienced by people who are really pissed off.
“It doesn’t matter enough to be worth discussing,” Conquest said. It matters if I can remove two of your allies from the picture. Turning Conquest’s allies against him had been a plan for some time now. “I think Laird wants to steal your throne from under you,” I said. “I know what he wants,” Conquest said. “The elder Behaim, however, will take a sure thing in claiming Jacob’s Bell over the great risk of seizing and attempting to hold Toronto. What he wants and what he will do aren’t the same thing.”
Is this the second time you've tried to sow discord between Laird and his allies and just been brutally shut down? Because it feels like the second time.
“You went and got other people involved?” “Yes.” “Without asking me. Stupid. So many things wrong with that plan.” You’ve been through a lot. I’ll let that slide.
Dammit! I keep not making my jguesses official whenever they turn out to be right!...man I think Blake will probably get a happy ending and all that. just throwin it out there. Unofficially.
But in all seriousness fuckin hell Rose what the dickswizzles was he even supposed to do!? I'm normally pretty evenly between Blake and Rose but this time specifically it just seems like she's being uselessly contrary. Yeah there are a lot of things wrong with that plan, there are a lot of things wrong with the "why don't we just summon a bigass demon!?!" plan too, Rose!
“Four minutes,” Laird said. I was out of time.
I mean I get that this is gonna be the huge conflict moment and everything, but if it actually gets to that I can't imagine it'll be all that climactic. We've got Conquest, Fell, and Both Behaims here to put the kibash on Pauz, he's not actually all that much of a problem for them. I mean the radiation won't be fun, but this is one little imp against a lot more than Blake, without his animals to pose much of a threat.
“Then I should put my plan into action, I guess,” I said. “You might want to try sounding more enthusiastic,” Laird said. “Give the impression of confidence where none exists.”
Is it bad to say I kind of missed Laird?
“Conquest,” I said, ignoring Laird. “Yes?” “The Seventh Seal.” “Hm? Ah, yes,” Conquest said.
What?
We haven't exactly seen Blake prepare anything, or look through a book and find something useful...
Rose hesitated, then lurched to her feet. She moved like she was a puppet, not a person, fumbling through the books, clumsily pushing them aside, her fingers only dextrous when they found a book she could use.
aaaAAAAHH I do not like this. I saw Toy Story Four last night (awesome movie by the way) and it had these super creepy ventriloquist dummies and that's what this reminds me of and I don't like it i don't like it what did he do to her!?
“I’m not familiar with that particular terminology,” Laird said. “The seventh seal?” “It’s not magic. It’s a movie,” I said. “A man challenges Death to a contest. I’m formally challenging Conquest.”
Hahahahahaha this is the greatest. The. Greatest. What if he didn't get the reference!? if Blake beats Conquest using movie references it'll almost be like the greatest anime of all time: Sword Art Online.
Abridged
“For Conquest, however, well, it is the nature of mankind to struggle against bondage. It is also the nature of man to ultimately yield to it. The forces that would control man are more tireless than the individual man.” “You would argue there’s no point? It’s a foregone conclusion?” “Yes,” Conquest said. “Three minutes,” Laird said.
Boom. Conflict of this part of the chapter established: can blake convince Conquest to take the conquest I mean contest before time runs out? Tune in next time to- I'm just kidding..I hope.
I clenched my fists. “You fucking know-” “You would do well to show me respect, Thorburn. I have nothing to lose by saying no.” “But you’re not going to, are you?” I asked. “You’re right. It’s in human nature to wage war against Death. That makes that contest possible. But it’s in your nature to crush people under your heel. Are you going to go against your nature and pass up the opportunity to crush someone? Me in particular?”
Fuck, he's not gonna go for it.
This was the gamble, and I’d lost. Necessitating a riskier gamble.
Welp. We're done! That's the book! I've quoted the entire book right up there, that's the whole thing!
Ilovethis 2
“What if I said you were a coward?” I asked.
No, no, no. The line is: "What's wrong McFly? Chicken!?"
I appreciate the move references but please get em right, Blake, Lords..
“If you did, I would respond by subjecting your Rose to the worst I can offer, then turn my attention to your cabal, then to you,” Conquest said. “You would regret those words.”
Or don't
“Are you calling me a coward, Blake Thorburn?” he asked, stressing the ‘are’. I had to be very, very careful what I said.
Okay, now that I'm thinking about it, SavageMode Blake was not the Blake that Blake needed to get out of this situation alive, perhaps. He needs very very careful about what he says blake
which of course means he has to create a vestige of himself and alter that detail because that blake doesn't exist
“If you don’t accept my offer for a contest, I’ll call you weak,” I said. “Not a coward, since you’ve promised to go after my allies if I call you that. And if you threaten to go after them again, I’ll call you something worse. Because something as strong as you’re supposed to be should be content with doing your worst to me and me alone.”
I-
wh
is that what you settled on after being very very careful!?
sweet incarnation of Christmas, Blake, that's the most brutal thing you've said all night!
“If I accept, I will see this contest through, I will win, free to take my prize. If I refuse, you’ll follow through with the light oath you’ve made, insulting me, and I will be compelled to torment you in retaliation.”
Well, hey, doesn't that kinda count as an oath to win if he accepts? Because that's something that could maybe even forswear him if Blake wins in a way that leaves him an issue
Then again, if conquest has just sworn an oath that'll give him a jolt of Conquest+ a taste you can trust
which is probably notso good for Blake
“I am inevitable, much as Death is. Eternal. You can’t expect to win.” “I don’t,” I said. “Not really.”
Confidence is key. I bet Laird is just shaking his head in disappointment rn.
“We will decide the terms before the time is up,” Conquest said. He was game? He was willing to play ball.
Haha! Yes!
That
is not as feel-good of a victory as I'd hoped it would be
“What form shall this contest take? Chess? A musical duel?”
Wait blake gets to pick? What's Blake super duper good at?
OOOO
A Making Horrible Decisions contest!
Conquest can't hope to beat him at that one!
a who has more bad karma contest!
A lapdance-giving contest!
not because blake would have an advantage but because hey wouldn't that be fun
I hope conquest does it in monster form
Okay I can't come up with any other contests let's keep reading
“Fine. The contest… two sides. One king, five champions. First king to topple the other wins.” “You would go to war against me?” “Neither king can make deliberate use of power while fighting in Toronto. We can’t retreat to our personal realms. This should be a more even contest, more about our leadership and the ability to use our Champions than about the power we wield.”
Woah...that's gonna be really awesome and also what? Blake just thought of all this shit right now? I mean i guess his instincts cooked it up while my back was turned but damn
I really really love this guys
“In a sense,” I said. “This contest is about leadership, using the resources we have available.” “Very well.” That was the gravy. The tidbit I offered to him as bait. I knew full well that he had power he could leverage that was intrinsic. Ambient. He knew it, and he perhaps thought he was getting one over on me. He was Conquest and he used power just by being. I handed him this advantage because it got him on board, and it paved the way for future discussion.
Blake being a pretty great negotiator once again! Pauz wasn't his best trial, but it sure as horrible darkness wasn't his worst, and I think he's learned a lot about how to get people to agree to his terms
“A king must either surrender or be slain by the hand of the opposing king or that king’s champions,” I said. “When it’s done, the contest is won.” “Agreed.” More gravy. Conquest couldn’t die. I could. He had two ways to win, I had the one. He was also very good at getting people to surrender.
Ohokay wait a minute, that means that you can't exhaust all of Conquest's humanity, since it's gonna be the only thing that even lets him surrender in the first place. Your only way to win is to make sure that Conquest stays at least a little human
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JayManiac 28-Jun-19 04:39 AM
“If the champions don’t agree?” Conquest asked. “Then they don’t agree, and you have an uncooperative champion,” I said. “Fair. I will pick first as the challenged.” Damn. “Agreed,” I said. It wasn’t worth fighting over.
I love all of this, I'm so ready for this little game that's gonna go six different ways awry. this is one of the reasons I love pact, you can make so many awesome situations with the whole oath thing, literally an unlimited amount of different sets of rules and limitations
“You forfeit your power over anyone who isn’t one of your champions. You don’t have to announce it, because a mutiny wouldn’t be keeping with the spirit of the contest, but you can’t order the supernatural residents of Toronto either, directly or by proxy. Only your champions can be commanded, and only the champions or you can seize victory, or it’s not your victory. Everyone outside remains in play, and can be convinced to join one side or the other. Neither of us are liked, so it effectively levels the playing field.”
This is when I realized that Fell is going to be one of Blake's champions. He'd be an uncooperative agent in Conquest's camp, and I doubt Conquest will think of him first. Blake, on the other hand, will think that Fell is a valuable asset, and Fell will be at least a little more eager to back him.
He stared down at me. Then lowered his head a fraction. “I’ll accept with a condition. When I’ve won the contest, I can demand what I want of you.” Fuck me. I was expecting that, and it still almost knocked the wind out of me to hear it.
fine
“Time’s up. The imp is free,” Laird said.
Oh, okay...cool?
ohno 1
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Seregraug 28-Jun-19 04:43 AM
Not the real Imp disdain
lol 1
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JayManiac 28-Jun-19 04:44 AM
“The hand was forced to move. It was the Lord’s action,” Rose said. “The mouth was forced to speak. Pauz hopped, turning. It pointed an accusing finger at Rose. “It speaks! I might call you forsworn, Thorburn. Mere excuses.” He looked at me, pointing with his other finger. He screeched, “Are you forsworn!? Defend yourself!”
Well now that you mention it...I didn't think about that, and I'm really a lot more worried about this whole Pauz situation than I was a few seconds ago
Conquest spread massive arms with draping sleeves knit of his own skin, as if embracing his realm, the scene. “This is a tableau. I will use the Thorburn diabolist to summon dark powers to my realm, and I must set the stage accordingly.” “You had me fight those fucking things so they could be props?” I asked. Conquest’s voice was deep, imperious. “I had you fight them for many reasons, diabolist. They will put all visitors into a particular frame of mind. I did it to weaken you, to distract while I made use of your Rose. I did it to better secure my realm from rogue agencies, and for other reasons besides.” “They’re props. The metaphorical equivalent to animal heads mounted on a hunter’s wall. Except you didn’t even do your own hunting.”
I wonder if Blake can use Evan's knife
yknow
the one he uses to cut through everyone's bullshit
Ilovethis 1
"they will put all visitors into a particular frame of mind" stfu conquest that's literally what the props do
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Fursuit Lightsaber 28-Jun-19 04:47 AM
Well... He didn't deny what Blake said
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JayManiac 28-Jun-19 04:48 AM
no, he just wants to seem above it
“I name the Eye as my first champion,” Conquest said. Quite possibly, by all accounts, the most powerful being in the city. If I’d had first pick, I’d feel twice as confident as I did. There were traps here. Ideas that could so very easily fall through. “I name Rose as my first.” Rose perked up at that. “Why me?”
Ilovethis Ilovethis Ilovethis
This just highlights perfectly the difference between Blake and Conquest. What does Conquest make his choice with? Who is the strongest? Who will kill Blake most effectively?
Blake, though, makes his choice because of an instinctive need to reduce suffering when he sees it
he doesn't make this choice in regards to power or maybe even winning
maybe he doesn't even like Rose all that much
But he cares in a way that Conquest never can
So maybe just this once, the power of love trumps the power of incredible violence
I found her hand with mine, and made myself hold it. Physical contact wasn’t comforting to me. Just the opposite, really. I could deal – she needed it more than I did.
Ilovethis bulba
It's one thing to show that one character cares for another by showing how great it feels to hold their hand and make them feel better
it's quite another, more powerful and heart-wrenching way to see them make that small sacrifice instead
“The Shepherd, as my second champion,” Conquest said. Another more powerful figure, and arguably a strategic choice. The Shepherd was a practitioner specializing in ghosts, and, well, many of my assets were ghosts. Evan, Leonard. June, who I didn’t have access to.
I really want to explore The Shepherd more so I'm glad we get him as a part of this contest. Writing that blurb on him at A bird's request really sold me on wanting to see more of him. Also important to note that Blake emphasizes this difference in how the two leaders are picking
I couldn’t delay longer. This would be my first gamble, among my picks. “Fell,” I said, turning my head.
YEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
QUick someone go check if I made that official
nvm ill do it
haha i did
“Damn you, Thorburn. You couldn’t make this simple?” Fell asked. “Is that a yes?” “Yes,” Fell said. “Fuck you, but yes.”
sharkhi Ilovethis ♠
He saw what this was. A chance to fight back against Conquest. He didn’t like it, but with all I knew about who he was, I knew he couldn’t say no.
I'm just really really really happy right now I feel like I've been waiting for them to be on the same side since they met
Conquest’s voice was deep, brimming with latent anger. “For my third, I take the elder Behaim. He owes me a service for my mercy in regards to his nephew.”
Yeah, makes sense. I hope we get to see Laird's ass kicked
Right. My third pick… “I pick the Hyena,” I said.
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha
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The High Paigestess 28-Jun-19 05:01 AM
rooRawr but in a sword
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JayManiac 28-Jun-19 05:01 AM
I mean I would've gone with The Astrologer or even...maybe Isadora? But fine, sure, why not?
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The High Paigestess 28-Jun-19 05:01 AM
isadora's cute
like, confirmed cute
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JayManiac 28-Jun-19 05:02 AM
glad you made that an objective an unquestionable statement
saves a lot of time
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The High Paigestess 28-Jun-19 05:03 AM
confirmed by the national board of cute-appraisal in the field of web serials
the NBCAWS, for short
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JayManiac 28-Jun-19 05:03 AM
is anyone but you on that board, just so we're cle- sweet scion that..is certainly an acronym
“I will take the Astrologer as my fourth,” he said.
Oh fuck.
That's not good
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The High Paigestess 28-Jun-19 05:04 AM
indeed
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JayManiac 28-Jun-19 05:06 AM
“Then I take the imp as my fourth champion,” I said. “I expected as much,” Conquest said. “I’ll take the one in charge of the Sisters of the Torch for my last champion.”
Really!? Really!? Isn't Pauz pissed as whatever hell he comes from at you? Not that there are too many other options unless you wanna get touchy and name Isadora or Meath, who can't move against conquest anyways, but sweet scion Blake I don't know if that was your best move there
He was picking assets that came with forces of their own. The Shepherd had his ghosts, Laird knew other Behaims, and the leader of the Sisters came with a little bit of clout, some manpower. The ones who remained, not yet elected to be champions, were the Sphinx, the Knights, my cabal… Either I didn’t trust them, or I didn’t want to bring them into this fight. “I name Maggie Holt,” I said.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha that's fantastic and I love it. He's like "oh I wonder if I have any allies that come with forces of their own...let's see...Goblin Queens!"
You could've also picked duncan but I'm so, so glad you didn't
“Are you going to play ball, Pauz?” “What?” “I can leave you here. You can spite me. And you might stay here for the remainder of your existence, an immortal prop for an immortal being. Or I can bring you with, and you can give me your obedience.” “Three days of obedience,” Pauz countered.
I mean I get that he knows Pauz's Pauers, kinda has a raport, but Blake is not on Pauz' good side right now
and even swearing some type of obedience doesn't guarantee that he's not gonna be a pain in the ass
I had two assets that I was loathe to use, and one that might not answer the call.
And Rose can't fight, so fell might literally be Blake's best bet here
“Fuck you, Thorburn,” Fell muttered, behind my back.
and as we can see that's already going swimmingly if i do say so myself
“I don’t need a rescue attempt,” Fell said. “You’re getting it anyway,” I told him.
bulba
Blake is such a good dude
“You’re using the Hyena?” Evan asked. “I’m keeping Conquest from using the Hyena,” I said. “But-” “I’m so lost,” Ty said, talking over Evan. “Evan, Ty… All of you. I know you have questions, but… not now.”
Yeah, I don't know that that was the best choice either...you could've snatched up the Astrologer, she was on your side. I didn't even get the impression the Hyena was on the table till you put it there, Blake
And plus y'know it uh
has a not so great history with your familiar
“War,” Fell said. “It’s not unusual for a Lord to do this, to minimize the effects to the real world.” “I would argue which world is ‘real’,” Isadora said.
Of course an other would. I love love love that she does there though because I was gonna argue the exact same thing. I'm not too attached to the idea that the real world is the real world either.
“The mortal world, if you will,” Fell said. “I will. Things will bleed over.” “They will,” Fell said. “Five champions to each side, and the rest of the players may pick their sides or sit this one out. With the kind of muscle he has, I don’t think things are going to be pretty for the residents of Toronto, even with this measure in place.”
I bet that things done to this plane of reality are kind of conceptually done to the mortal one, even if it's not materially there. A building that's destroyed here is probably seen as ruined and crumbling by mortals of toronto
even if it's physically standing
Which is arguably the same thing
which is why it works in the first place
“With all due respect, Isadora, daughter of Phix,” I said. “You didn’t help me before. If you don’t participate, you don’t get to complain when they don’t go the way you wanted.” “I’m participating, Mr. Thorburn, rest assured.” That said, she turned to leave.
Anytime blake starts a sentence with "with all due respect" I brace myself
and also
that's a really vague and ominous sign
I wonder if this won't be three sided: conquest, blake, and "make sure they both destroy each other"
“For five or ten minutes,” I said. “You’ve… A good few of you have been involved in this for a day, for hours. I’ve had day after day of it. There isn’t anyone here, Pauz and the Hyena excepted, who I don’t either deeply respect or feel very fond of. Really. Just give me five or ten minutes. Please.”
😶
I kind of missed the point where I could talk things out with her. We kind of needed to return to that point. Need being the operative word. I wasn’t sure we’d survive if we couldn’t.
Oooof what a chapter end
and by chapter I mean section we're still here
This spirit world was a representation of our world, but the forces that had affected it were very different. I was only just barely beginning to wrap my head around it. In the mortal realm, things were maintained by care, regular cleaning and maintenance. Here, things were maintained, I suspected, by caring. Things that were neglected were neglected, while cherished objects were well looked after. The parts of the road where cars traditionally traveled were in pristine shape. Some of the other parts were so pitted and ruined they might as well have been ditches or chasms.
Ilovethis
Ilovethis
Ilovethis
Evan. Rose. Ty, Alexis, and now Tiff, who’d stayed at the apartment. We also had Nick, his one-footed friend, and Priss, as tertiary allies, Fell as a questionable ally and information source, and the imp and Hyena were… mostly just questionable.
Yeah, I have a feeling I'll be starting the next few reads with 'when we last left off blake was screwed'...actually the entire book but specifically now. You're screwed right now, blake
I searched online. Finding a phone number was hard. Finding an online profile wasn’t. I sent Maggie a message over social media.
Imagine checking ur discord and there's a message there "hey jay, sorry to bug u, im fighting an incarnation in the spirit world rn and I sorta named u one of my champions so anyways call me back toodles"
“Okay,” I said. “We’ll touch base with her later. Who’s next?” “If it’s order of introduction, shouldn’t we be before her?” Ty asked. “You were only introduced to this today. Um. Fell?” “I’m the second person you ask?”
That realization, that he meant that kinda introduction, clued me into that whole "ty is not getting what he expected" thing that we've been getting throughout the chapter
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A bird 🐦 28-Jun-19 05:29 AM
I'm curious how you think Maggie will respond to it
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JayManiac 28-Jun-19 05:29 AM
I think she'll probably come and help, but she might exact a pretty dangerous price from Blake in return
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A bird 🐦 28-Jun-19 05:30 AM
Actually, no, I'm specifically interested in why you think it
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JayManiac 28-Jun-19 05:33 AM
Maggie wants to be a Real Practitioner, wants to stop scrapping for every little piece of knowledge she can get about this world. She's powerful, but she knows almost nothing useful when compared to the heavy hitters like Laird. She knows she needs power and knowledge and this is very likely an opportunity to get both if they all make it out. That, and Blake is sort of an investment, her first actual ally as sure as she was his. If he dies, she can forget her access to anything he might be able to give her- which is of course- everything she wants
also maybe she cares about him who tf knows?
that's more of a Blake reason to do something than a Maggie reason
“We, the people at this table, just have to get past the coven of elementalists, the time travelers, the ghostmonger, the astrologer, and a flaming force of nature that could theoretically bring mortal Toronto to its knees,” Fell said. “Exactly,” I said. “I didn’t say it would be easy. But it’s not unwinnable.” “You also have the Drunk out for your blood, for reasons inexplicable to me and Conquest both,” Fell said. “There’s that,” I admitted.
I love how Fell's like "we're all these types of screwed" and Blake's like yeah but we're good tho and then Fell's like "you're exactly this one type more of screwed" and Blake's like "oh yeah..."
“You don’t see the problem?” Fell asked. “We all know, for the most part. Maybe the Sisters don’t. The Knights don’t know, I know. But it’s common knowledge.” “He’s a figurehead,” Nick said.
Fuck
Fuck
FUCK how did I not see this!?
They've turned the basically-a-monarchy practitioner system of rules into a not-really-a-democracy by enabling and controlling and directing a really weak Lord
and now Blake
oh this is gonna be bad
“When I say things are stable, I’m saying that people are either on board with the figurehead idea, or they’re under Conquest’s thumb, by virtue of being enslaved or being weak. You coming in here, you’ve spoiled that… and that’s why you’re not going to find one more ally in this city.”
Yeah that's not gonna go well
But that said
I am so
gods
damned
ready
to read the next chapter later because this one took even longer than I was expecting
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A bird 🐦 28-Jun-19 05:39 AM
Ilovethis
Though I think the predictability of Conquest is the more salient point than being weak
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JayManiac 28-Jun-19 05:41 AM
I'm sure it helps, though
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A bird 🐦 28-Jun-19 05:42 AM
Stay outside of his milieu, he doesn't care what you do
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JayManiac 28-Jun-19 05:42 AM
a predictable steamroller headed for your head doesn't do you much good
better if it's a toy train
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A bird 🐦 28-Jun-19 05:42 AM
It's good if you're too powerful to be restrained on the tracks
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JayManiac 28-Jun-19 05:43 AM
well, yes.
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A bird 🐦 28-Jun-19 05:43 AM
And if you're not, you don't get a say regardless
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JayManiac 28-Jun-19 05:43 AM
The downside of course, to all this, is that one idiot practitioner who's been at this for two weeks could just waltz in and throw everything the city's worked for into disarray. That's what I call bad urban planning.
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A bird 🐦 28-Jun-19 05:44 AM
Hence why everyone wants to put such people down, hard
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JayManiac 28-Jun-19 05:46 AM
Wildbow makes such great reasons for everyone to hate blake ❤
agree 2
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A bird 🐦 28-Jun-19 05:46 AM
And each have such a distinctly personal flavour of hate
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JayManiac 28-Jun-19 07:15 AM
Okay
screw it im doing another chapter
when we last left off it was like an hour ago and everyone was super duper screwed let's do this
We had no allies. We probably couldn’t even hope for allies.
should've combo'd the screwed line with this for efficiency's sake
(edited)
I’d counted on being more indirect. Fell had demonstrated an ability to avoid notice, some kind of enchantment. Evan was good at escaping. Rose was… well, she existed on level that was one step removed from reality. She might very well be hard to pin down. I had the Knights and my cabal to back me up. I figured we could work around Conquest’s muscle, maybe rally some help, and attack from some oblique angle. That didn’t work if all of the potential help was just as against me as Conquest was.
Fuck. We didn't get Blake's explicit reasons for picking everyone he did, but now that we have, Wildbow gets to hit us again by making them clearly contrasting the revelation we just got last chapter
It was as solid a plan as I think Blake was going to get, and now it's...less solid
“No. The others don’t see the full effect of what it’s done to me and my family, being enslaved, they don’t pay too much attention to it,” Fell said. “Yeah… I had no other choice, not really.” “Sorry,” I said. He shrugged. He stood up and crossed the room, looking out the window.
That's a blow, but I love that it happened, y'know? Fell is going to be so much fun until they all get squashed
“I know. It’s honestly a little scary for me, too. But it beats the alternatives. Make you a deal?” “What?” “I won’t unbind the Hyena without your say so.” “Hmm…” Evan said. “Don’t make that decision too quickly,” A woman’s voice. I turned my head to see Rose in the wall-mounted mirrors.
Hang on I liked that compromise! Setting yourself up with checks and balances in place- especially ones that have a skeptical viewpoint- is how you prevent yourself from making straight up evil choices
“Blake made me a similar offer, before. A few times, really. Promised to take my counsel. To give me a chance to offer my input, to decide before he went ahead with anything big. Do you know how many times he’s actually followed through?” “That’s not fair,” I said. “I agree,” Rose said. “It isn’t fair. You got a familiar, you got your… circle thing.”
She's as pissed as I thought she might be when I was thinking of worst case scenarios...
and to be fair she's got a right to be
I can't let the fact that I personally disagree with her stance on roping in Blake's friends, blind me to the fact that yeah, she's never had a say, she's never really gotten much input apart from when she took it herself with Pauz
“Cabal,” Fell said. “Yeah. Cabal. Adding more fuel to the fire. Inquisitors, even.” “To be fair,” Ty said. “They say nobody expects the Inquisition.”
See I put it before the quote...so you wouldn't expect it. Gods, Ty's gonna be my favorite character really soon if he doesn't die horribly next chapter
I leaned forward, leaning over the table. “If it’s a problem, I’m not going to assert any kind of control over them. Maybe that makes it less of a cabal and more of a circle that has a sort-of-a-diabolist guy as a member.” “Two sort-of-diabolists, if you count me,” Rose said.
But that's the thing! He doesn't!
“Yeah,” I said. “Though you don’t really fit the definition. You haven’t done anything. You sat out for the imp thing.” If I maybe made that a bit of a barb, the fact that she’d been so useless, it was because I felt a little bit cornered and a lot betrayed after the lengths I’d just gone to in order to free her. She was undermining me more than she was helping.
Yo, not cool, Blake. See, he's a good person, but he's never really given Rose the time of day and now it's all boiling over in front of the new practitioners, the Knights, and Fell, who already think we're all screwed and don't need mom and dad at each other's throats because the world is at all of ours
Wow
I've never liveread anything before, so I can't say for sure
but I don't know that I've ever accidentally referred to the protagonists of the media I'm consuming as "we" before
....
Uh
anyways
“I’m more of a Thorburn than you are,” Rose said.
Oh she did not just say that
fuck
fuck
“The diabolist of the Thorburn line is supposed to be a woman, or a girl,” Rose said. “Who got the voice? Who gets the respect, of the two of us? You want to talk more abstract points? I stuck with the family, for better or worse. I don’t even know how much was intentional, but in my recollection of the conversation with Grandmother, talking with her on her deathbed? She pretty heavily implied that she wanted us to fight tooth and nail. But you left.”
she just actually said all of those words in that order
okay if I was ready to blow up at blake a minute ago...
“No. I’m just saying, I’m the girl that’s stuck in the mirrors while Blake’s flesh and blood, but I’m pretty confident when I say that I’m more Thorburn than he is. He left the family, I remained a part of it. But that doesn’t mean, Evan, Alexis, that he didn’t take something away from it. He can apparently be as manipulative as any of them.”
AAAAAAAAAA WHY IS THIS HAPPENING
he said,
in reference to the thing that's been building slowly and very deliberately since 1.1
“Ah,” she said. “Can’t say for sure. I’m going to go get more books and tools, or I won’t be so useful as one of your champions. I only want the rest of you to think twice before you accept an offer like that. What was it he said? Actions matter more than words?” “That wasn’t the context,” I said. But she was already gone.
Does Blake still think that was an actual conversation? Is he that dens- what am I saying!? Of fucking course Blake is that dense why wouldn't he be!?!!!!
“She’s you if you were a girl, huh?” Alexis asked. “Apparently.” “Female you is kind of a bitch,” she said.
Yeesh. I don't know if I'm happy that Alexis is taking Blake's side in all this
I didn’t have a response. I didn’t want to just slap a convenient label on Rose and demonize her. I’d had that done to me often enough, even in the past few days.
Thank you at least someone's speaking sens- oh wait it's still blake. Huh. Well, good for you.
“She already explained,” Fell said. “Conquest made her do what he wanted.” “Which was?” “Which was inconsequential, really. The part you should be focusing on is the fact that the Lord of Toronto made her act what he wished. He bent her will to his and took all volition from her.”
THANK you, okay now two people are speaking sense and one of them's fell and i'm more comfortable taking his side in all this because I hope to the Lord of Literally Anywhere Else that he can make Blake understand just a little bit of why she's pissed off. She was freed from Conquest and she's not even all that freer.
He added, “Conquest prefers short, one-sided fights over long, drawn-out ones.” “Okay. Thanks, that’s useful. Changes it up, then,” I said. “I was going to say Alexis, Ty and Tiff could set up spaces for us to retreat to, places to sleep, acquire food. Novice or not, you guys can still draw defensive circles. But if this is going to be fast… think less about food and sleep, more about the defenses. The knights lent us a book.” “I have it,” Ty said.
The dynamic of this conversation is so clean and smooth here that I deliberated for a good bit on which parts to pull out because it was all working so well. We know each of these people and everyone gets their input and it works in a cool "we're so screwed" kinda way
“Hiding is hard. Costly. It’s a lot of people to protect, and there are a lot of forces arrayed against us. Each one needs different countermeasures, or we take one measure that covers all the bases.” I nodded. “What if we don’t hide?” “What are you thinking?” “Distractions. Misdirection.” “Yeah. I can work on something.”
Like this! i love the flow of it, Fell's efficiency and Blake's adaptiveness brushing up and working out and making slightly less suicidal plans
“It’s too close to the fighting,” Nick said. “I’m sorry. I told you from the beginning that we couldn’t and we wouldn’t. We’ve already pushed it.” I winced. “Can’t really stop you.” “Probably could,” Nick said. He extended a hand. “Thanks for not making a fuss.”
I expected this; it's still a super blow to everything, especially right exactly now
“Your friend just replied to the internet message,” Fell said. “You’ve convinced her. She’s got to get her things, sneak out, and she’ll be here soon.”
On the other hand...
sharkhi
That meant we had a bit of time to prepare, the better part of an hour to endure the hostilities and contest, and then we had Maggie. Maggie wasn’t a big gun, unfortunately. It wouldn’t be a game changer.
I think it'll be a game changer in that it's a good time limit for "once this happens we go" kinda like Pauz's release was in the last chapter. Maybe not such a big deal, but a consideration, and a good bookmark
“Okay,” I said. “Everyone has a weapon?” Nods all around.
Reminds me: the thing stopping Blake from getting an implement is mostly just that he doesn't have the personal power to expend and he hasn't chosen, right?
But Alexis is all powered up and knows what she wants as her implement, so wouldn't that be a good investment of time right about now?
“Burning off nervous energy?” I asked. “No,” he said. He grabbed the hammer and nails. No further explanation. He was helping, but we weren’t buddy-buddy.
What the fuck did you expect?
He still doesn't like you, I don't think that was just him being cute, before
Fell’s back blocked my view of the stick thing. When he was out of my way, I saw a Blake Thorburn sitting inside the powdery pyramid. He was so beaten-down that I almost expected to see fraying around the edges of his clothes. He had circles under his eyes, stubble on his chin, and the lines of his face and neck were more defined than they should have been. His blond hair was almost long enough to cover his eyes, and the only reason it wasn’t was the natural wave, but it was dirty, and it did the same thing my hair did when it was the least bit greasy, twisting away from my head in fat curls. He looked like I imagined myself looking when I thought of the times I’d been homeless. If I’d been walking down the street and I saw him sitting on a flattened cardboard box, I wouldn’t have thought twice about him. Except for the looking like me thing.
Talk about a chance to reflect, finally. Wow. This is just a really beautifully sad third-person description that I think Blake needed
Alexis was writing on the same pad of paper I’d used to write up the contract with the imp. I looked over her shoulder, and saw that she was copying the wording Fell had used for the inscription on the floor. She explained, “He told me it would bind the person to the object on the far end of the ribbon. The snare releases them only so long as they carry the object on the other side. If they put it down, the snare seizes them again.” I considered it. I could imagine Laird lugging a microwave around.
Please. Please. I just want the dramatic confrontation, the climactic battle in the middle of the city, and then one of the Sisters just has a microwave. Please
“Like I said before,” I commented. “I do respect Fell, even if I don’t always like him.” “I might say the same of you,” Fell commented. “Thank you,” I replied. “Might.”
I love them so much, I'm gonna keep saying it ♠
I grabbed three mirror-shards off the wall, pocketed them, then got the goblin-sword and imp-book. The imp-book went in my backpack, along with the bottle and a few of the other stuff.
I wasn't gonna pull this out until I had the thought that "what are they gonna use the bottle for?" and my brain somehow responded "I bet Meath would dig it". I mean, I imagine it has something to do with drinking, whatever it's source of power is
Rose appeared in the reflection of the door. I turned to Ty, who was helping to support me and make sure I didn’t fall down. “Go ahead,” I told him. “You sure?” “Need a private word with Rose, I’ll be right out.”
You two are gonna sit in this stairwell until you make up and apologise, got it? Teamwork makes us all not die, so fuckin listen to each other or I swear I'm gonna break every mirror in a five mile radius
except not actually
ha ha haha ha, I'm not awa-kened
“You okay?” I asked Rose. “Not really.” I nodded. “I’m sorry.” “I need actions, not words. I’m sorry too, but I need reparations.”
Okay well that was a faster apology than I expected but I agree with Rose. We need to see a little evidence that they understand each other
“Why does it feel like you and I aren’t balanced? Like I’m the only person you’re not trying to balance the scales with?” “I don’t know,” I said. “Yeah. I don’t know either. You’re not denying it seems that way?” “No, I guess not.” “Well, keep it in mind, maybe. Weigh it in your head, and if and when you feel you’re sorry enough to act on it, that’d be cool.” I nodded.
I think the nod here is symbolic, at least I hope it is. He responds with an action, not a word, and I think that might mean that he and Rose can make their way to a sort of synthesis
Will it ever be entirely tolerable?
Not Vera likely (edited)
But I think they can learn to live with it, to benefit from it.
“I did, but this only stalled him. If he wins, he gets you, and he gets access to the books all the same.” “Yeah,” I agreed. “Blake, there was more. I told him other things.”
Oh no, oh no, oh no no no nononono
“I told him your weaknesses.” Balls, balls, balls. “You explained how I don’t like physical contact.” “I explained a lot of things, Blake.”
psyduck
👆 That psyduck emoji doesn't even begin to explain how uncomfy this feels to read
“I- I speculated. I told him things that I wasn’t sure on, about why you were the way you were, on a lot of levels. The fact that you don’t like being touched was a part of it.” There they were. The dark, ugly emotions, settled in the pit of my stomach.
hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
But I didn’t blame her that much. I couldn’t say until I experienced it for myself, but a part of me wondered if she could have resisted more. And I knew that was horribly unfair.
Yes?
No, it was that she hadn’t been upfront about it. That she’d felt like she couldn’t tell me. That was the part that really got to me. That she could very well have let me walk into this without my eyes open, for Conquest to hit me with some custom-made flavor of fuckery, all of the horror and madness that an incarnation of Conquest could bring to bear, designed specifically for me.
I freaking knew Blake would find a way to blame Rose for something. And I don't blame him, that's what people do when they're in awful awful situations and they don't know what else to do.
But at the end of the day he's gotta just...stop, just beat conquest and don't let this eventuality happen and Blaming Rose is not going to help right now
I was a flawed person. I knew it. Had someone asked before all this started, I would have admitted it. But one of the places I felt most flawed, one of the least comfortable things for me to admit, was just how weak I was at my core. Some people could turn to the ugly incidents in their past and find a kind of strength there. An anger to drive them forward. When I touched that part of myself, even around the edges, I almost always felt like all the strength went out of me.
I want to compare this to Victoria, the ways she handles her trauma, but I don't know if I have enough to say
With each of them, I feel like I instinctively flinch away from talking or thinking about this, like I'm following their lead. I don't know how I never connected them before, their issues with physical contact, the whole shebang. I know there's a lot to say about the way each of them is written, about how they're similar and how they're different and how they're both heroes and how they don't have similar approaches to that at all....I'm kind of rambling and I should keep reading
She was angry at me, too. She felt betrayed. I kept moving forward without her, and she was there, stuck in reflections. She was struggling to deal, but she was playing ball. Mostly. I could do the same. Or I could try.
I can see all the barbs blake puts in this, in his descriptions of everything, but maybe this really is a good sign.
I don't want to keep coming back to the nod, but I'll probably do it at least one more time
“We’re going to set up a spot we can defend and regroup at, then split up. Are you okay with coordinating?” “Yeah,” she said. “Thank you. You can move faster than any of us, so do what you can to keep an eye on things.” “I can do that.” “Thank you,” I said. We left it at that, by some mutual agreement.
I really wish either of them were in a mental state to talk this out but I know that this is the best we're gonna get and that's heartbreaking but so well written
“Ghosts across the street,” Fell said. “What does that mean?” I asked. “The Shepherd fosters psychic echoes in an area around him. Rouses things that have gone still, for one last action. He’s close.”
Oh I'm gonna love fighting this guy aren't I. Not that I'm the one doing the fighting or anything I won't be...just that..uhh I'm gonna enjoy the dynamic of the fight. Is what I meant.
“Too many of us for one car,” Ty said, “Unless people want to ride in the trunk.” “Knights were our rides,” Alexis said. Losing them sucked. “Does anyone feel brave?” I asked. “You mean suicidal?” Alexis asked. “I know exactly what you’re thinking.” “You should say think you know,” Tiff said, her voice small. She wasn’t so confident in the midst of the group. “Be careful.” “No,” Alexis said, meeting my eyes. “I know.”
OOOO I KNOW I KNOW IT'S FROM THE START OF THE STORY I KNOW THIS ONE
🏍 🏍 🏍
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JayManiac 28-Jun-19 08:23 AM
My friends were one thing, a connection to me. Like ties that bound me to the rest of the world. This was another. When I was miserable, when I wanted escape, or relief, or if I wanted to stop doing something and do something else entirely, this was my go-to.
HELL YES!!!! Oh I didn't know how much we'd needed this it's just so free
I saw not by the light, but by the dark. The road was only a yawning stretch of black speckled by white. My eyes scanned the surface, watching for any dark areas without a faint covering of snow.
The language here is beautiful and we really feel like Blake is the most in his element that we've ever seen him. I feel the same way regular biking, or climbing. If anything reestablishes personal power, it's this, it's this
The big concern, inevitably, was the other drivers. People were stupid, people in winter conditions were stupider, and the guy on the bike was the guy who got the short end of the stick in those cases. Here, at least, there were no other drivers. The roads were empty, the sidewalks mostly clear. No pedestrians running out from in between parked cars. No being cut off.
This isn't something I'd considered, but I love it anyhow! The freedom that would come from being in the more conceptual planes of existence, unbound- or a little less bound- from reality. I also can't help but meta-read into it because yeehaw that's what I'm here for
addendum: I am also here for Evan
Evan, for his part, was tucked into the ‘v’ where my coat’s zipper parted at the collarbone. He periodically screamed something that might have been spelled with a few dozen letter ‘A’s, lost in the rush of wind and noise of my bike, and periodically laughed, a noise that was easier to make out.
I am also here for Evan
He's so adorbz
I love him look at Blake's birdbro he's alive and boy does he feel it
I didn't pull it but we got this part where he talks about how Tiffany can't put her arms around him and it's kinda hhhhhhh considering what we just read but it's also touching to see that Evan is the one person Blake is consistently okay with physical contact with.
Part of it's that he's a bird
but also Blake says he would've given Evan a hug as a ghost if he could
But every second I was on the bike was a second I felt better, recharging my personal batteries, leaving my argument with Rose and the tensions of the night well behind me. I accelerated, and I felt myself feeling better faster. I heard the engine’s volume increase, felt the bike beneath me, reacting.
This is such a beautiful image I'm just blown away by....I can't explain all the reasons I love it
but I'm sure as heck gonna try
I think it's such a relatable feeling, to be moving, to be in control and feel the power in your speed, in your freedom, and it's captured so, so well
I wouldn't put Blake in an Introvert/Extravert category, but I think a large part of what I'd call the introverted parts of myself are all about things like this
Getting closer to the sidewalk, I saw the ghosts. Greater and greater numbers. The Shepherd was closing in. One in the middle of the street, blocking my way.
Oh yeah we're in a story
forgot that for a sec, but we're back and so is the Shepherd
asshat
It lunged for me. Flickered, crossed a distance far greater than it should have. An exaggeration of what the person who’d hit him must have experienced. A misjudgment of distance. A moment later, I heard a loud crash. I slowed, glancing over one shoulder. He’d reversed directions, throwing himself into the car with the others. The windshield was cracked, the hood dented, the ghost gone.
I just realized how dangerous one-shot ghosts all around you would be and it's horrifying
Like even Mr. Leg as a one shot "you feel like your legs are torn apart" would be hugely damaging right now
The way the numbers were increasing, I took it to be a sign. We were moving straight toward the Shepherd.
Whoof, you're going towards him?! I thought the plan was to avoid, stay hidden and protected until Maggie got here?!
I turned. Going the wrong way down a one-way street. Had to lead us further away from the Shepherd.
Okay good that's still the plan
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The High Paigestess 28-Jun-19 08:37 AM
"oh, you're approaching me?"
ohno 1
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JayManiac 28-Jun-19 08:38 AM
It wasn’t the Shepherd that made the first appearance. A dark silhouette, easily six feet tall, broad at the shoulders, dressed in rags. The Eye. Given birth in the 1904 fire of Toronto, a reminder to man that the elements weren’t entirely under our control.
Uh oh
🔥 👁 🔥
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The High Paigestess 28-Jun-19 08:38 AM
🌩 rooOWO firetriumph
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JayManiac 28-Jun-19 08:39 AM
The lights, however, weren’t any natural effect. They were very real city lights. A bright flash lit up the space behind him, showing just how wide the effect was opening. There weren’t many lights on in this spirit world. We weren’t looking at the spirit world.
Is that allowed!?
I mean of course it is
he's on conquest's side
everything's allowed
The aftermath wasn’t much prettier. One car, virtually airborne, followed by chunks big enough to dash my brains in, flipped halfway-over in midair, then hit the road, roof-first. No illusions about what might have happened to the person inside.
FUCK, that's a real dick move. I mean, it's the fire of toronto, but aaaaaaaaaaaaaa
As I got closer, I could see the pedestrians. Evan flew through them, darting left, then right, and pushed them to the side with the weight of a small boy, the speed of an unladen sparrow. I rode onto the sidewalk, shifting to a one-handed grip, letting go of the clutch. No way this would work.
No, no you god damned heroes
The Eye was in the midst of the flame, wading through, using one hand to push at the flaming vehicle, rolling it out of the way. He was coming for me.
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The High Paigestess 28-Jun-19 08:43 AM
who else would he be coming for here, blake? (edited)
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JayManiac 28-Jun-19 08:43 AM
Am I supposed to stop reading there!??! Am I supposed to sleep after that? After any of that!?
Sweet Scion
okay yes I'm going to bed, I can't read another chapter today i don't have time or energy
but
this seems like a good time to talk about the arc title
Subordination: what does it mean?
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The High Paigestess 28-Jun-19 08:45 AM
is that a real word?
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JayManiac 28-Jun-19 08:45 AM
Well obviously, the champions act as Blake and Conquest's Subordinates, for one
uh yes
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The High Paigestess 28-Jun-19 08:45 AM
i know subjugation is a real word
and i know subordinate is a real word
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JayManiac 28-Jun-19 08:45 AM
Insubordination is a real word
and therefore
you'd think
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The High Paigestess 28-Jun-19 08:45 AM
shit
you right
okay continue
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JayManiac 28-Jun-19 08:46 AM
The other meaning of it, is to be inferior, and I think we can agree that Blake is pretty inferior
but I also like the idea of this reality- the spirit world- as being a kind of subordinate to the material world, or the other way around. In a typical framework our conception of the world is based on the material of the world, and the concepts form this world.
If we break down the etymology of subordinate, we get sub- meaning below, and orn- reflecting in this case 'order'. So one of these worlds- I don't particularly know or care which- could be interpreted as the below-order of everything above. I don't know if that was an intentional move in this arc, but I can't help but feel that it is.
the spirit world concept doesn't fit with any of the other arc names besides this one (that we've encountered so far, I didn't look ahead), which kind of confirms for me that this isn't some confirmation bias and it's actually maybe got something to it. After all, it works the other way around to: things that happen in the spirit world tell the material world, the mortal world, what to be; in a similarly subordinate way the mass conceptions tell the spirit world what to be (edited)
This has been Jay's Etymology Corner, I hope you enjoyed. Jay is going to his Sleep Corner now, so he'll see you all soon he hopes because he needs resolution and more conflict and stuff good night.
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JayManiac 28-Jun-19 11:26 PM
I think it's more likely that you get both effects
what part of the conversation am I talking about? Who knows?
See there's a fairly materialistic (although not entirely of course, since this is pact) take on this, where the world was just normal as shit till humans came around and started conceptualizing things, creating the world of concepts- I'd align this viewpoint with Aristotle, for the sake of discussion- then there's another way to look at it that inverts the cause, pegging the spirit world and it's denizens as the cause of human concepts, not the other way around. If there were an even more spirit world above this one (using the School of Athens conceptualization of the contrasting worldviews, with Plato's being 'up' and Aristotle's being 'down') I might compare it to Plato's world of forms.
And in this world, who's to say where human conceptualization came from? When there are all these deities that are demonstrably real- but might have just come from people thinking they're real- then humanity could have any number of origins. I like to tote around the idea that every Other is human-derivative, but really when it comes down to it I don't know that any more than I know that there's no god and humans came about by natural processes, because Wildbow always derives his fantasy from the real world in a way that keeps the two aligned, parallel, and my interpretation is that he wouldn't give us an answer at the end, he'd just explore the ideas and see where that gets us.
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 03:43 AM
Alright, I'm sick! Which is, yknow, awful for the me that has lots of responsibilities and stuff, but fine for the me that just wants to read Pact all day
so Subordination 6.6 let's do this thing
and start actually saying chapter titles at the beginnings of reads I think I've been forgetting to do that
Oh yeah, so when we last left off
My senses were consumed by images of fire, the sound of screaming, and a six-foot-something brute of a man that looked more at home walking through the flames and wreckage than he had outside of it. The rags that bound him together were dark, the rest of him burned like it was made to, skin sizzling and popping like meat in the frying pan, but not being consumed.
Blake was so very very screwed
The big hulking threats in the movies didn’t move fast. When the main characters were up against the three-hundred pound chainsaw-wielding maniacs, they could at least scramble away and outrun the motherfuckers. The Eye didn’t move that slow. Longer legs meant longer strides, he was standing and I was on the ground, and I was a very tired human, while he was some kind of otherworldly abomination.
Oh great, so he's bigger than you, faster than you, stronger than you, has actual magic at his disposal...but at least he's not hotter than you. So you've got tha- oh wait no, he's literally hotter than you he's on fire and throwing fire at everything I dunno what to tell you, man
I could feel the stinging warmth of the Eye on the back of my head and neck as he got closer. Gunshots rang out. I could see the flashes. Fell stood by his car, driver’s door open, gun in hand. He emptied it at the Eye, and all but one shot hit.
sharkhi
This scene is so visceral and efficient and in motion that it's oftentimes a choice between pulling every single line or just leaving it all right there, everything is doing one specific thing and there aren't any extraneous details. Which is a little insane, for a book that's- what- just shy of a million words long?
The Eye had shrugged off the bullets, but wasn’t giving chase. It remained near the flames. Reality continued to distort around it, alternating between showing glimpses of reality and the spirit world. Distant sirens filtered into this world from the other, moving to the scene. The Eye was quick, but not fast enough to follow on foot. He thinned out the border between our world and this one, freeing him to affect both.
I like that the characters can play with the border between realities, it makes for a super dynamic battle and I hope we get to explore that mechanic more; I don't know how you actually manipulate that border but if Isadora, Conquest, and The Eye can do it then I bet we'll keep seeing it.
The Shepherd’s servants. Was he doing something to bring out their more unusual qualities?
I mean maybe psychological blows to the universe are things that can be expanded upon when fed with the right kind of energy, made into more self sustaining sources of power by playing into their worst qualities and exaggerating them through something like illusion or glamour
How many years had the Shepherd been active? How many people had died in Toronto in that span of time? How many of those deaths had been violent or painful enough to make an imprint in reality? Did he have a mechanism to handle it, or did he simply do it full time? Collecting the echoes?
All great questions. And another: how often does the Shepherd expend energy, whether in a fight or as part of a deal, etc. like how much spectral energy does he have at his disposal and how willing is he to drain those resources?
to guess at at least one answer, I'd guess there's a mechanism that they Hyena's realm deactivates
Because there were too many ghosts in the Hyena's forest for The Shepherd not to be tempted if this was his full time thing
I could see why. Ghosts were streaking across the street, more like flashes of light than people. All towards one central point. They congealed into a form. The Shepherd.
Yo what!?
he's just a bunch of ghosts in a trench coat!?!
Ilovethis 1
As the other ghosts had, he watched us, his head turning to track us. He raised his staff- We passed him. He disappeared behind us.
Okay so no, just a more direct manifestation through ghosts
this guy is so creepy, because ghosts are one of the few aspects of the world we feel like we should understand by now, and he just blows all of that out of the water by using them in ways we never would've dreamt of given what we know
I moved away from the point where the ghosts were converging. It wasn’t the Shepherd making another fleeting appearance. It was a ghost. A man, older. I couldn’t make out anything else.
Can he feed one ghost's traumatic death with energy from the others to exaggerate and twist it? Is that how he gets these creepier super-ghosts that are tracking the gang?
An explosion rocked the space behind us. My heart skipped a beat as the shockwave swept past us. I experienced a brief, paralyzing terror, a sense of something unfinished.
Every time we've dealt with ghosts it's been an escalation of the previous time. This is like the Hyena's forest, except fired from a machine gun
I huffed out a breath. I’d had moments where I’d worked so hard I’d been out of breath, and I’d tried to suppress it instead of make a lot of noise panting and recovering. This was like that. It came with a general feeling of unpleasantness, almost but not quite nausea. Throughout my entire body. When I felt it starting to concentrate in my left hand, I fumbled with the clutch and slowed.
Like it's essentially the same kind of emotion/visceral death-feeling based attacks that we were getting with Mr. Legs, but The Shepherd is directing that force, channeling it to its worst possible impact. It's such an amazing expansion on this central idea 'bow seemingly stumbled into early on
if just the ghosts were a magic system in another story I'd be all over it
Fuck me, this hurt. I felt like something heavy was sitting on my chest. Big and dense enough that the force of the crushing was enough to take the strength out of the rest of my body. The limbs couldn’t work if the core didn’t. “Blake,” Tiff said. “The Eye, it’s at the end of the road.”
Oh yknow, in case you thought this couldn't get worse.
I forced my eyes open. I was breaking out in a sweat. All the little things your body did that pointed to something being very, very wrong. Evan was on the headlight, looking up at me. He was lopsided, and his little hop to one side was clumsy, obviously debilitated. Sympathetic pain?
it's also possible that the sympathetic exchange system that the shepherd seems to use with ghosts is affecting Evan more because he kinda is one
“Got Blake most of all,” Evan said. “He’s really hurting.”
Then again, when Evan's neck was broken Blake couldn't stand up, and not just because of having no blood
I was deflating, getting weaker and more numb from moment to moment. My hands, head, and feet felt heavy. I’d bled myself out, but this was my heart giving out. When you died, the doctors used the moment the heart stopped to mark the time of death. This was… kind of backward. The heart had stopped, and now the rest of me was swiftly moving from ‘okay’ to ‘dead’.
I guess that's the shepherd's main whammy: make people follow in whatever ghost's footsteps by channeling all the ghosts at it
I'm really interested in how that works, since experience is qualitative, not quantitative, and you'd think that it'd be a pretty non-transferrable resource
then again, that depends on who The Shepherd is selling these experiences to, since vending machine magic is a no-go
“We need a fast fix. Do you have something to cut yourself with?” “Yeah.” “Do it. Hold Blake’s hand… his right hand. Put the blood in his palm.”
They probably should've done this earlier- also I love that Blake has essentially dropped out of reality here- except not completely because that would be real bad- he's not responding, he's pretty distant, he's only really chiming in with an inner monologue to tell us how fucked up he feels
“Yes, like that. In his palm.” Rose said. “This is my fault,”
Now hold on
I'm not disagreeing entirely, but I'm not sure it is
“I told Conquest that Blake was weak. That he’d been giving up too much blood, and he was tired. I didn’t know he’d bleed himself out in the prison, to get me back.” “I think anyone could look at Blake and tell that he had problems,” Tiff said. I could feel the moisture in my palm. It was surprisingly warm, when my hand felt so cold. “I still hate that he’s using information I gave him against us. Blake’s fragile, and if we lose him, we lose this.” “We lose, period.”
Hmmm, still not on the whole "this is rose's fault" train, but I hope at the very least that Blake hearing Rose say this will help mend things between him?
them, whoops
because undeserved self-blame always solves your problems!
“Don’t worry. They’re more a force of nature than people. It’s like taking shelter from the rain. Or throwing salt on the sidewalk to prevent people from getting hurt later on.” “Okay.”
I don't know if I like Rose being the whole "don't worry, new recruits! it's not like ghosts are people or anything!"
in fact I really really don't like it
As my vision cleared, I could see how close the ghosts were getting. They staggered, left and then right, trying to find patches where the salt wasn’t as thick. When they did stagger through, they visibly weakened, flickering and fraying. Each one radiated a particular emotion or idea. If I didn’t feel one hundred percent yet, it was because they were radiating sickness and malaise, weakness and general pain. Even with the salt as a barrier, it was noticeable.
I'd just thought of The Shepherd as a sort of abstract "oh he ghost things" without ever thinking about what that would be like to fight and I'm so glad that I did because this is just so awesome...ly terrible to read about
A ghost with needles sticking out of it drew closer. I cast salt out. It was weak, crossing the salt already on the road, and the salt I used was enough to banish it. It wasn’t gone, but it was dissolved into its constituent echoes. Wisps, ectoplasm, flickers. Whatever snips and snails went into making a ghost on the fundamental level.
Huh, that's an idea. Sure, experience might be non-transferrable in terms of quantity, but there are ways to get around something like that, by sorting ghosts into general types of pain or even breaking them down and using one pain to reinforce another
I mean, because obviously the feelings are transferrable or else Blake wouldn't be feeling it now
“Why her?” Tiff asked. “Blake’s weak, but Alexis…” “I don’t know,” Rose said. “I do,” I said. “Her dad had a heart problem. She used to always complain about the food she had to eat as a kid, because her mom made super healthy food with zero cholesterol.”
and if the ghosts can find a commonality you're pretty screwed
I threw salt to deal with another ghost. The needle ghost was already starting to reform, complete with transmitted bursts of desperation that was really fucking with my ability to stay calm and assess the situation.
Emotion powers are the worst to fight. It's practically like being drugged, but not in a fun way. Unless you're fighting candy. Then it's in a way too fun way
“You’re okay?” Fell called out. “Fake heart attacks suck balls, but they’re still fake, I’m feeling better every second,” I said. “The Eye is cooking your car.” He looked. “Motherfucker.”
it was implied that the heart attacks could become a little less fake, if unmitigated
Also Sweet Scion I love every scene Fell is in he's the best
“There’s a fuckton of salt on the road,” I said. “It’s not stopping the ghosts like it should.” “Shepherd’s implement is the shepherd’s crook. Guides things,” Fell said. “Normal rules don’t apply for his ghosts.”
Fucking finally we get to interact with an implement!!! I've been so excited I did two thirds of the Exercises for the Novice and I've been waiting too long
I mean Fell gives us the quick breakdown on this one so I dunno if we wanna dive into it right here and right now but maybe we'll get some specifics in a lil bit
“Why is the Eye not approaching?” “I bound it, kind of. It won’t hold.”
Still, that's damn impressive. Fell is easily the most capable- or maybe, the most dangerous- the most usefu- how bout the only real asset this team has?
Like Evan's useful and all but Blake balances that out with his general liability-ness
“Slow them down,” he ordered. “How? No salt.” “Figure it out!”
But see when they get an order like this, and it means Fell is Not Figuring Things Out, it's just fucking terrifying because what the hell they're not equipped to handle this!?
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 04:34 AM
Oh I would adore that
I could go on for pages
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A bird 🐦 29-Jun-19 04:35 AM
Wizard's staff, Shepherd's crook, monk's big stick, king's jewelled rod
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 04:35 AM
and I mean there are two ways you could take it: same general idea, or same exact implement
Like, who else has a Shepherd's Crook, and what do they use it for
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A bird 🐦 29-Jun-19 04:35 AM
Presumably there's someone who uses it for sheep
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 04:36 AM
Beware the power of Lamb-taur
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A bird 🐦 29-Jun-19 04:36 AM
He's a baaaaad guy
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 04:39 AM
or like you were saying glasses vs monocle vs contact lens; Katana vs Flammard vs Kampilan vs Scimitar; headphones vs earbuds vs string and two cups; fedora vs sombrero vs bowler hat vs tophat
I want to see this, give us the breakdown
I don't know if I'm talking to you or future me but I'm talking to one of them
I also really want to meet the practitioner who's chosen a string and two cups as their implement
they just seem like such a fun person
“Give me that powder?” I asked. Fell glanced at me, annoyed, then grabbed a handful from his coat. He slapped it down into my hand.
HA! YES! Blake gets to play with the powder!
I used what remained to bar the path of the nearest group of ghosts. It was weak at best.
Blake is fucking awful with the powder
“Didn’t work!” I called out, as I pulled up to the passenger window. “I know it didn’t work!” Fell shouted.
I love these two so, so much ♠
same 2
“Still concentrating!” Fell said. His rune was now sprawled almost all the way across the dash. Interconnecting images.
Holy shit mr. "i'm not a shaman", that's some awesomely complicated shit. I love the idea that there isn't really any limit to rune magic except the power you expend and the amount of time you have to draw the rune and the knowled- okay so there's a few limits
“He’s got to have a weakness,” Rose said. “You don’t control this many Others this easily, even if they’re weak ghosts.”
How the fuck would you know!? He might've been cultivating this kinda power and control for millenia!
“Uneasy departed!” Rose called out. She spoke from the car and bike mirrors. “In the name of the Thorburn Bloodline, with all the respect and history that name commands, I order you to cease!” The ghosts around us stopped in their tracks, no longer drifting left and right to navigate a path. They were still, and the area was silent. One even disappeared, frayed and worn enough that it couldn’t stand up to simple words.
Wait what the actual fuck that worked!? That's the most awesome solution ever, just realizing that these Others are stupidly easy to control!
But the Shepherd did something, eliciting a loud clack, and the ghosts resumed their movement. “Stop!” Rose commanded. They didn’t listen this time.
Not that it's allowed to work for very long, of course, but I'm betting the Shepherd is expending a bit of extra power to counter Rose's commands now and that's a wi- well it's as close to a win as these guys are probably gonna get
“By the name of the Thorburns, by my ancestors, greater than me, I order to to be still!” Rose cried out. I could see the momentary hesitation, as if the spirits were people who’d stepped out of an air conditioned house into oppressive heat, but they resumed movement all the same.
yep, he's probably gettin real tired kicking your asses into the spirit spirit world
“Four times, I will bid you to throw off the shackles your master has used to bind you!” Rose called out. “Let this be the first, spirits! I, Rose Thorburn, urge you to rebuke him!” The Shepherd wasted no time. He dismissed the spirits. One by one, each ghost that that might have been in earshot disappeared. It only left one.
I love that a fuck ton of the power in this world is reliant upon simple tricks that you can just...find.
Light began to streak towards it. Ghosts all being used to supercharge this one. To get it to explode, and visit us with it’s essence and means of death. “For the second time, I rebuke you! Let my words have more power for the repeating!”
Not that someone who's been around longer than ten days isn't gonna have a lot of those tricks
“Ty,” I said. “Sword.” “That sword?” “Yeah,” I said.
Hoboy. that sword. I mean he did burn his friggin champion card on it, but hhhhhhhhye don't like this one lil bit
I passed the line that Fell had described. Salt plus snow to make something approximating water. Water to oppose the Eye of the Storm, or so I supposed. Salt plus water?
Hey that's pretty friggin clever! See I would've bought it and been fine if we'd just never seen how Fell sort-of-bound the Eye but I'm really glad we do anyways
I shifted the position of the sword with one hand, steered with the other, and sailed within a hair of the Shepherd, blade’s point sticking out. A jouster’s run, in a way.
Let's just take a moment and appreciate that Blake is on a motorcycle charging motherfuckers with a goblin-sword while there's fire and ghosts everywhere: how does Pact not have way more fanart than worm everything just looks so awesome!?
Ilovethis 1
Rose made her third bid, and the ghosts hesitated. The Shepherd struck the wall with his staff, and the ghosts surged forward again. Low quality, high quantity bindings, it seemed.
this fight is so awesome this fight is so awesome this fight is so awesome
He moved his crook, apparently planning something. To catch me around the throat as I passed, possibly. He wasn’t watching for the sword’s pommel. It was only when I stuck it out that he saw what I was doing. I’d focused on the exit only to mislead. There was magic, and there were magic tricks. Sleight of hand.
Hahaahahahahahahhahaahahahah!!!! Some would argue they're more alike than you'd think!!
He turned ghostly. It didn’t help that much. I still had the box of salt over the handle, and even largely empty, there were trace amounts of salt inside. Enough to fuck with a ghost. Enough to fuck with him.
Fucking fuck yes this feels so friggin awesome
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A bird 🐦 29-Jun-19 04:57 AM
I think the lack of Pact art is an actual crime
Though there is a fair bit
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 04:57 AM
I was just drawing some today!
it sucked
so I won't post it
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A bird 🐦 29-Jun-19 04:57 AM
Certainly more than Twig
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 04:58 AM
Twig I sort of get the lack of art for, since the things I'd want to draw from Twig are the ones I don't want to look up any kind of references for
lol 2
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A bird 🐦 29-Jun-19 04:58 AM
My favourite Blake art came out a week or two ago, but you're still a little way from the scene in question
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 04:59 AM
But Pact has sword wielding motorcyclists riding through ghosts on the astral plane, what the fuck guys
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A bird 🐦 29-Jun-19 04:59 AM
Have you seen Wobbles' Twig reference image library?
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 04:59 AM
I have
It's unsettling and awesome
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A bird 🐦 29-Jun-19 04:59 AM
It's so goddamn creepy, right? (edited)
agree 2
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 05:00 AM
No such luck, as far as I could tell. He was dissolving much as the other banished ghosts had. He, too, would reappear somehow. If I’d had more salt, and if the Eye hadn’t been in the immediate area, I might have tried to bind or disrupt him. But I didn’t, and the Eye was close enough to get in the way.
Oh man what if Blake bound one of Conquest's champions!? I kinda want it to happen but I don't know if this story let's Blake have that much of an advantage without just repeatedly punching him in the dick for it
🍆 2
🤛 2
I rode down the empty street, parallel with the others. Evan moved forward to the headlight, perched there, but with his wings spread. Had we been able to hear each other, I might have asked if he was lending his abilities to our escape from the Eye, or if he was just doing it because he enjoyed it. ■
Either way I love and support Evan. He's got his priorities in action and I trust him.
I’d taken extensive classes on maintaining a car or a bike. When I set to work repairing some of the damage, I sensed a grudging respect from him. “You’re an asshole, Thorburn, for dragging me into this,” Fell said, banishing the idea from my head.
Hahahahahahhahahahahaha yeah he grudgingly respects you at this point
thinks you're an idiot
thinks you're an asshole
but respects some nebulous abstract part of you that's still both of those things
“The original plan stands?” Fell asked. “Yeah.” “She should stay here, then. Secure building, I can secure it further, and if we need to fall back to a location, we fall back here.”
This reminds me of a few video games I used to play with matches kinda like this: hideouts, teams, strategies..it's just making me nostalgic and getting me all hells of into the story
To clarify: I've never been cool enough to play very many video games
i'm talking about Minecraft Bridges
and that kinda general vein
“If we run into the Eye and the Shepherd again, we’ll need firepower,” she said. “Yeah,” I agreed. “We could let Pauz loose. I know we couldn’t do it back there, but…”
I've been with Blake when it comes to friendship being magic and just general humanity, but I think I'm pretty solidly on Rose's side here; they just used like all the power at their disposal to escape and maybe deal with the shepherd they gotta get a Feral Fighting Force into action
“It liked the violence, probably,” I said. “I hate it,” he said. “I hate it and I can’t do anything to it. I can’t hurt it or make it stop smiling.”
😦
“If I could crap on it, I would. See if it smiled when I dropped a big white and black blob on its face. But I can’t crap.” “You probably could if you ate something,” I said. “Really?” he said, with a note of hope. Then he changed moods, “That would take too long.”
Even when Evan is in the grips of hatred, he's adorkable and the best and hillarious
“I’m not a strategist,” she said, “But you don’t win fights just by running away and defending.” I saw a motion out of the corner of my eye. Ty, bobbing his head in agreement. Tiff sat on the bumper of Fell’s car, just beside him, watching Alexis and me, listening. “Not normally,” I said. “This fight? I think we can. In fact, I’m more confident than I was.”
Uh, really? If this is Blake's new plan I liked the old one that was stupid a little bit more. That said, they at least temporarily took out Shepherd so that's one step towards victory, all from running away and defending and also rushing him with a sword which maybe doesn't count as either of those things
Yeah, actually
if Blake just runs away hard enough he can maybe deal with each threat one-on-one, slowly but surely taking out Conquest's backup
“Yeah. Well, there’s the present tense too. C-word in progress. So long as we’re defying him, keeping our spirits up, staying focused, we’re winning. We’re making it so he can’t be that. He can’t be C-word in progress if we’re even or if we’re winning. We can ride this out. I’m betting that if we do, it’ll make him hurt, on some fundamental level. He’ll react to it, and he’ll get impatient.”
Exactly!
“It sounds thin,” Fell said. “Too many enemies on the board here.”
Uh yeah, you just need to take out all the sisters, The Astrologer, probably Isadora, maybe Meath and his Satyrs, The Eye, whatever Behaims await your demise...hmmm fell might have a point here
Okay so I've skipped over a lot- not because it wasn't note worthy, but because I felt like it was leading up to something...
“What are you doing?” I asked. She was silent. “Are we still… in a bad place?” “No. Yes. Kind of.” “Aren’t you guaranteed to lie if you answer like that?” “I’m telling the truth. All three are true.”
Well here it is, and I love it
That's such a good start to this conversation
“Blake… you need me strong, and I need me strong.” She moved a book so I could see it through the mirror. A black cover. “I want to summon something.”
Uh.......Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
That's the end of the chapter I guess!?
Holy shit
I mean, I never really considered that they would ever have more to work with than Pauz, the Hyena, and Maggie
but it makes sense in a weird twisted way that this is playing out like it is
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A bird 🐦 29-Jun-19 05:20 AM
They've got Rose as a champion
Really, the only offensive asset she has is her Thorburn Voice
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 05:21 AM
This is the perfect culmination of the Blake/Rose stuff- not that it's the culmination, but it's a culmination- I can tell that it's perfect because I have no fucking clue what my stance on this is.
I agree, yeah, but that's been pretty useful so far
again
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A bird 🐦 29-Jun-19 05:21 AM
Luckily, this is explicitly a contest of commanding forces (edited)
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 05:21 AM
Rose can't do actions, but words speak pretty fucking loudly in this world
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A bird 🐦 29-Jun-19 05:22 AM
Especially if you get to pick who's listening
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 05:22 AM
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A bird 🐦 29-Jun-19 05:23 AM
Question: What do you think Rose wants to summon and why?
Both Doylist and Watsonian why (edited)
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 05:24 AM
I think she wants to summon a big gun that she gets to hold for once, some manifestation of her power on the battlefield that- oooo now we're getting interesting
But bird,
what's the difference?
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A bird 🐦 29-Jun-19 05:26 AM
Why do you think Rose wants to summon what you think she wants to summon, but also why do you think Wildbow would provide her with that tool within his story?
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 05:26 AM
Oh no I get the difference between terms, but the difference in Pact is a slightly more complicated relationship
Ilovethis 1
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A bird 🐦 29-Jun-19 05:29 AM
I'm practically handing you essay homework over here because you seem to enjoy it, but feel free to stick to more conversational analysis (edited)
agree 2
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 05:31 AM
I can only assume that since you've posed this question to me it'd be possible to answer, drawing upon the already-established actors and magic of the story. Of course, Rose would want a physical presence in the world, something that can act and respond to her and won't be quite as...uh...difficult to cooperate with as Blake is. That's almost all I can glean from her end of things, and I'm going to assume she wants to summon a demon, because that's the kind of thing she should have access to
that said, I'm going to try narrowing it down by choir, since I don't think we'll be narrowing it down by actual demon unless it's Barbs or Marquis dude
If you don't want me to think about it in those terms, feel free to stop me
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A bird 🐦 29-Jun-19 05:34 AM
So you think more demons? They have access to Rose's whole library and she's been shown to use other Others (edited)
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 05:37 AM
I'll admit that it could be more nuanced than that; part of the demon prediction is that there isn't a whole lot else we know when it comes to powerful Others that could tip the scales. There are Goblins, but that's Maggie's territory and she's on her way, so why wouldn't they at least wait for her expertise, if not just ask her for one; there are Faeries, but Rose isn't one for Glamour, that's more Blake's deal. There are ghosts, but not so soon after last chapter I'm thinking
plus
uh
the book she's holding is black
I'm no expert on practitioner color coding, buuuuutttt
That looks a lil more like "top ten demons to BLOW YOUR MIND" than "Faerie jokes 101"
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A bird 🐦 29-Jun-19 05:38 AM
It is a touch suggestive
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 05:42 AM
I don't necessarily think that Rose would have a particular inclination towards a particular choir, there aren't any that seem to be strictly geared towards physical damage. She probably wouldn't want an abstract demon, since she wants more strength, more physicality. I'm ruling out the Choir of Unrest straightaway, since that's one of the most subtle choirs. It is the weakest, so Rose could be justifying it that way, proving me wrong, but that's just my inclination. I can't really rule out any of the others, which leaves us with six choirs.
But that being said, I haven't really begun to approach this from the other end, so let's get a little doylist
If I know Wildbow, and I maybe sorta do from a pattern recognition angle at this point, then I know he'll make whatever Rose wants to summon a dart that's precision placed to create interesting conflict
or in other words
give blake and rose the worst possible time
maybe just blake
That said, he's perfectly familiar with Sanderson's Third Law at some level, if not consciously. He expands on what he's introduced more than he throws new elements at us that are immediately really important. There's an argument to be made that the fifth choir would be the one to go with, since it would let him elaborate on the inversion of the natural order that we're already familiar with, but I call it unlikely for two reasons:
1. Pauz is here, that's an element that's going to come into play and it won't be as impactful if there's a more powerful fifth-choir demon running around
of course it could be an intentional contrast, but the second reason it probably won't be fifth is that:
2. That has the potential to put Rose to sleep again
And also while we're at it
3. That's not the one that'll fuck with blake the most
now when it comes to the choir that'll fuck with blake the most, I have it down to two: The sixth and the first
the sixth, because it's the one most personal to humans, the choir of sin. It has the real potential to hit Blake where it hurts by drilling into a particular sin he's not comfortable with, or driving his group in a certain direction (like imagine if they summoned a Lust or Hubris sin? They'd be fucked! it'd be great!)
plus Rose is all hells of ready to summon an envy demon ba dum tsss
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A bird 🐦 29-Jun-19 05:52 AM
Lust -> They'd be fucked suspicious
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 05:53 AM
I didn't intuit that as I was putting together the sentance
but damn if it doesn't make me smile
I say the first as my tentative first choice, because hey how can you go wrong with number one?
ahem
but also because Blake's history with the first choir and general issues that made his battle with Ur so impactful is something that can be elaborated on and expanded here, digging into Blake's discomfort with obscurity
And then there's the final piece of evidence
which, like the duct tape on my bicycle, ties this whole flimsy theory together
........the book is black
it's like...demons of darkness n stuff
But also! Since Rose doesn't want an abstract demon, as I established on page who the fuck knows of this weird theory, that means we get to tackle the same choir from a different angle
yep
that's muh Jguess
Not-so-abstract demon of the first choir
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 07:27 PM
alright, let's go, 6.7!
when we last left off: Blake was screwed and Rose was talking about summoning a demon and did I mention Blake was screwed?
I made my way to a chair and sat. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll hear you out.”
Yes, yes, yes!!
slowly remembers what he's saying yes to
wAIT
“I don’t have agency, Blake. I can make a difference, but it’s always filtered. I can break glass, and I can maybe stall a crowd of ghosts, but I’m… I’m just so frustrated, because I can’t take action A to achieve result B.” “You want to summon something from one of Grandmother’s books, to give yourself that agency? To have hands in this world?”
Interesting, maybe I was a bit misguided in approximating what Rose might summon- she could want something that could give her an avatar in the real- or at least spirit world, or something to that effect
“While Tiff and I were napping, you’ve been… what, pacing? Reading?” “Both. And talking to Evan. I can’t ever sleep, he can’t either, I guess we’ll keep each other company when the rest of the world rests,” Rose said. She touched her head, seemed to notice hair that had pulled free of the braid, and started to unwind it, starting over from scratch. A nervous habit. So she’d been talking to Evan, getting an idea in her head, seeing my familiar, wanting an approximation for herself.
The image of Rose and Evan keeping each other company is really beautiful, and the idea of getting Rose a familiar is really terrifying, since I'm not sure people like Evan come out of books with Black covers, if you know what I'm saying
But if Rose did get her own lil demon servant, would it be her....subordinate?
I love all the arc-title shenanigans to no end
“That’s the idea.” I nodded slowly. “I didn’t expect you to actually hear me out. Thank you.”
I guess that Blake didn't expect it either, which is why he had to
I can understand the thought that if he thinks he's just justifying his resistance to Rose's every suggestion, he has to fight his base instincts if they're ever gonna get along
instincts like "don't summon monstrosities when you're really tired...or at all"
“It’s crazy, but you picked me as a champion. You’ve got two champions you’re afraid to let loose, and probably with good reason.” “Leery of, not so much afraid, and I’m leery with definite good reason,” I said.
Yeah, Blake essentially has three useless champions, three useless friends, one useful champion who doesn't like him, and one potentially useful champion who isn't here yet. And Evan. We can't forget Evan.
Still
not a good place to be in
“Grandmother wrote some stuff saying that back in the day, before studies in diabolism had come so far, people had a bad habit of chalking up any particularly nasty Other as a demon or something infernal. There was a whole period of history where almost every bad Other was thought to be a demon or demonic, and the classification was harder for some to shake than others. So I’ve been researching, and looking at the criteria.” “What criteria?” “For what I need, for what we need. The summoning would need to have a physical form.
interesting
I didn't think of it exactly like that, but fringe demons is a great pull that really makes a lot of sense
also gonna give myself a point for physical form, we'll see how I do when it comes to the rest
Mary Frances Troxler. Origin unknown, but she may have been a wraith, a ghost that took on other qualities. Mediums used to call on her to help women find their husband to be. The ritual was tainted, too much negativity, maybe it got blamed when the marriages didn’t work out. Calling her a demon or a thing of darkness, and the label starts to become true, in a roundabout way. She started showing up when she wasn’t called, was eventually bound, and she remained a minor tool of diabolists for some time.” “What kind of tool? Finding husbands?” “The ritual used a mirror. She’s been summoned in ways since before zero A.D., and she only went bad recently, a hundred and twenty years ago, about. When she did go bad, she started crawling out of mirrors and carving up the women who inadvertently summoned her.”
You literally want to summon bloody mary to be your manservant in the real world. That is...uh...not the direction I thought about going here, but I'm super duper game for it. I like the idea of something being condemned enough that it becomes a minor tool of diabolists because it kind of counts as a demon, it's the perfect little setting detail
“Don’t think I don’t hear the tone there. No, I don’t know if I’d want to have her around long-term, but she has uses. Pros: she’s tied to the mirror thing, and if there’s a complex answer to be had with my… I guess current predicament, maybe we learn something from her. She’s dangerous, a killer, capable of striking at our opponents from an unexpected place.”
Certainly if she is a ghost or wraith- and thus a kind of vestige- then the fact that she's existed so long and can take corporeal form is interesting- but it might very well be due to factors and forces you can't really command. Apart from that, I'm thinking I don't know if I want this lady around short term either. As funny as it would be to hack Duncan into a million pieces...
“I know,” I said. “I’m… I guess I’m okay with going after the Eye, or the demons, or any of that. But when you think that it might be the Sisters of the Torch?” “What about Laird?” Rose asked. “I… I don’t understand Laird, I don’t even remotely like him. I even hate him, because he’s every inch the kind of holier than thou motherfucker that’s made my life miserable since day one. But no, I don’t want to kill him.”
My first thought when I read that was also "what about Laird?". I don't know that Mary'd do a whole lot against the Eye or Conquest, and as for The Astrologer, Laird, and the Sisters, I don't think Blake is gonna justify carving them up. I can see him justifying not saving Laird's life, but that's about as far as I can personally see Blake going. There's a reason he didn't just send Barbatorem.
“Yeah,” Rose said. I heard a book close. “I won’t say you’re completely wrong. I was about to get to the cons, and it’s a longer list.
oh thank unholy fuck
“Tallowman. Originally thought to be possessed, modern thought points to him being a revenant. Died, or suffered some gruesome injury, but didn’t go down. Soul couldn’t rest, too hungry for revenge, basically a serial killer zombie. The spirit didn’t leave the body, and the body came back for unfinished business.”
I mean this guy sounds awesome, but also I don't know if I want him around much more. The advantage is that he seems to be much more physical than Mary, and could probably sustain the kind of beating that conquest is sending their way. The disadgantage being that he's a serial killer
then again
I don't know if you're gonna find much more pleasant entities in that book o yours
“Loner, as the story goes, a talented candlemaker who scrimped and saved to buy a woman’s love. He was betrayed by greedy brothers and their families who wanted the savings. Multiple stab wounds, left to die, he filled them all with candle wax, then lurched to his feet and kept going. He got a few of the peripheral family members, others severed his head, then left it be. His body kept going, as the story says, driven by hate, it separated the body fat of the ones he’d killed to make more wax, stuck his head back in place and patched the other wounds.”
Okay this is the kind of badass serial killer zombie I'd want on our side, if we've gotta get something of that ilk
Just look at how metal that would be
“Weak to fire as the big con?” “Something like that.” I nodded. “That’s a problem, when we’re talking about the Eye.
Yeah..Blake's probably right
“I’m not entirely sold. If we’re going to dig into the sketchy stuff, I’d rather get something of value. Again, presuming we even do this.” “Sure,” Rose said. She smiled. “Next option… well, you like your birds. What does it mean to you if I say James Corvidae?”
Okay, but the Tallowman is such a cool name!! Also I don't know what a corvidae is but I'm guessing it's a bird
“Corvidae… crows, mockingbirds, ravens, rooks. Do I want to know?”
Okay well hold on it's not a huge stretch to call this guy Jim Crow and that's not someone I want on my side but also it's their third option so maybe that means that this is the guy
“Long thought to be a member of the seventh choir, chances are good he perpetuated the myth himself, to make himself scary even to the practitioners who had some idea what was up.”
Okay you're making me like him a little bit more, and plus a demon of the seventh choir was my second pick option, so I'm gonna give myself a B- on my jguess if this guy gets picked, bird.
wait no I'm not talking about this bird
or evan bird
I'm talking to bird
“Yeah. Aside from deciding what he isn’t, nobody’s really stepped forward to say what he is. I guess, if you had to stick a label on this one, I’d say ‘Bogeyman’. Which seems to be a convenient practitioner label for ‘loner Other with a penchant for terror or murder’.”
Hey we know a bogeyman! Joseph's Familiar, face stealin dude! Oh no.
“Peripheral. Names tend to find him. James Crow, Jamie the Rook, Jay Chough, and so on.” “I’m seeing the theme.”
(cups hands over mouth) Jim Crow!? Was he ever called Jim Crow!? IS THIS GUY HELLA RACIST OR NOT!?
There’s been theorizing that he was a curse bestowed on us from the First Nations, over some slight.”
Of course a curse would be personified
that's actually an idea that's been bouncing around in my head for a while, that of a sentient curse
lemme see if I can find where it originated from in my memory
this is the only image i can find of it but that crow is referred to as a 'curse' and acts as a henchman/secondary antagonist of the movie
I watched the care bears movie like...an alarming amount of times when I was eight
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Ishamoridin 29-Jun-19 08:03 PM
Also most horror movie tropes are some form of incarnated curse
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 08:03 PM
well see, I didn't know that
because my area of expertise when it comes to movie watching is the care bears movie
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Ishamoridin 29-Jun-19 08:04 PM
Zombies, vampires, Freddie Krueger
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 08:04 PM
okay, zombies and vampires are cursed people, and I don't know the deal with Freddie Krueger, but that's a little different from just a curse that's a person
freddie might be tho, no idea
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Ishamoridin 29-Jun-19 08:06 PM
Vampires are cursed people, traditionally zombies stem from a curse laid on an area/people that sends their dead against them
Freddie's basically a last-breath curse that took the form of the curser
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 08:06 PM
so that's a little more similar to this/the care bears movie
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Ishamoridin 29-Jun-19 08:07 PM
Yeah
This is a distilled form of it, definitely, but my point was that there's a large spectrum of what can be called a curse
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 08:08 PM
you are absotutely right about that
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Ishamoridin 29-Jun-19 08:08 PM
Pretty much anything that's bad and persistent really
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 08:08 PM
Kinda like how they refer to demons!
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Ishamoridin 29-Jun-19 08:08 PM
:V
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 08:08 PM
plus "cursed" and "haunted" are usually thrown around interchangably
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Ishamoridin 29-Jun-19 08:09 PM
Yeah exactly, a ghost could very well be considered a human-shaped curse cast by a dying soul
embodying various forms of the command "Remember me"
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 08:09 PM
an odd way to look at it, but I could see it applying to a death via betrayal or what practitioners might call a wraith, yeah
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Ishamoridin 29-Jun-19 08:10 PM
I reckon this kinda stuff is why Gramma Rose was so down on the idea of categorising
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 08:10 PM
And really I am too, but it's an easy trap to fall into
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Ishamoridin 29-Jun-19 08:10 PM
Beyond being impossible to do completely, just trying to do it will lead you to bend your knowledge to fit the pattern
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 08:11 PM
Like I'm against categorising on principle, but I find myself doing it all the time to an unhealthy degree
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Ishamoridin 29-Jun-19 08:11 PM
And in this world assumptions are literally handicaps
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 08:11 PM
agree
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Ishamoridin 29-Jun-19 08:11 PM
Yeah we all do, it's just fun 😛
I've got a pet theory that the only reason there even appears to be different 'types' of Other is because humans like to group them
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 08:12 PM
Oh, I think that's fairly evident if you take my kind of position, that Others are derivative of humans
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Ishamoridin 29-Jun-19 08:13 PM
I think most extant and interactive Others came from humans, but I also think they just out-competed less human versions of what they came to be
Because that's kinda our thing
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 08:13 PM
or "shaped by" them, or something. Insert Bast and Glastig's Faerie quotes here
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Ishamoridin 29-Jun-19 08:14 PM
But I also reckon there was a long period between humans arising and things settling the way they are now, where Others went from being a combination of infinite varieties of one fundamental thing to become the pseudo Kingdom of kinds we see now
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 08:15 PM
I disagree, in that I don't think it takes that much time for humans to start categorizing things
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Ishamoridin 29-Jun-19 08:16 PM
Depends when they started Practising, this could well have been a world only barely glimpsed
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 08:16 PM
I mean sure, history plays a part, and the connections were probably a bit more turbulent without centuries of tradition holding them there
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Ishamoridin 29-Jun-19 08:16 PM
It could've only become comprehensible enough for Practise to begin after a long while of subtle influence from unwitting humanity, even
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 08:17 PM
I'd also argue that percentage wise, the world of Others was way more glimpsed in the early stages of humanity
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Ishamoridin 29-Jun-19 08:17 PM
I'd say the minimum awareness was higher, but the maximum was lower
at least until people started Awakening
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 08:18 PM
Maybe, maybe, but what if the worlds weren't different at all to start with, the need to cross them straight up not there?
I mean Awakening is nothing but its own agreed upon tradition, nothing fundamental about the world
it only becomes a necessity when you close this world to everyone else
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Ishamoridin 29-Jun-19 08:19 PM
The form of an Awakening is like you say, but the fact of it feels more significant I think
It could well be that it's only a thing because the two worlds were forcibly separated
Seal of Solomon style
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 08:21 PM
I take a far-idealistic stance on the world of pact, that there is no Fact of it, only the agreed upon Form of it. A philosophy pushed a lot by William Blake, who extended it to the very essence of reality, good, evil, etc. In fact, i kind of take a similar stance on reality itself, but I think it's extra-true in the world of Pact, since....well the name of the book would be an indicator
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Ishamoridin 29-Jun-19 08:22 PM
I meant the fact of being awakened or not awakened, as opposed to what form of awakening you perform. The second is tradition, like the trinity of familiar/demesne/implement, while the former is something the spirits actively distinguish by
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 08:23 PM
But the spirits only actively distinguish by because the world does, because Others and Practitioners do
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Ishamoridin 29-Jun-19 08:23 PM
And vice versa 😛
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 08:24 PM
Right, so I wouldn't call it a "fact" of the world that there has always been that dualistic state of awakened vs not awakened, I'm willing to believe that was instantiated at one point- or more likely over a long period of time.
more of a pact of the world than a fact of it so to speak
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Ishamoridin 29-Jun-19 08:27 PM
I thought I specified that it hadn't always been the case? Though personally I'd argue there's an element of it that has always been there, since we don't see animals using magical mechanisms for anything or being aware of Others more than the unawakened. Until someone first Awakened, it seems to me that all humans were probably on the animal side of things. Maybe more influence over spirits than most animals, but not fundamentally different in the way that Others are.
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 08:27 PM
Hmmmmm, that's an interesting thought
but I think it depends on what you think of as humanity, since that's a helluva sliding scale
I mean if you define humanity by the capacity to Awaken, then of course there have been Awakenings from the start. But if they only figured that part out in the past 6000 years then you've got 4000 years of genetically similar beings you don't call human for some reason. If we believe in the timeline at all, that is
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Ishamoridin 29-Jun-19 08:30 PM
(also random note but I suspect the first human!Others occured a while before the first Awakenings, as examples of what happens when the process isn't properly guarded/limited)
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 08:30 PM
I'd even call that an unofficial awakening
meaning the process is an already agreed upon thing
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Ishamoridin 29-Jun-19 08:30 PM
I think being able to awaken isn't genetic so much as cultural
As in, you must be capable of a certain level of sophisticated reasoning
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 08:31 PM
Quite a teleological take on reason, but I suppose it can be reverse justified without too much trouble
Though I don't know if it's reason that governs the universe of Pact
some other quality that defines humanity, perhaps, seperate from the concept of reason
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Ishamoridin 29-Jun-19 08:32 PM
Oh it's not, any more than it's saws that govern the universe of wood
That's just the tool we have to apply to it
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 08:33 PM
it's a pretty shoddy tool, if you ask me
for one thing, it derives things like language, which has failed me this entire conversation
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Ishamoridin 29-Jun-19 08:34 PM
Well yeah, do any practitioners seem to really have a handle on things? They're all just surfing the wave that'll kill them
And I always say, if your conversation isn't hitting the limits of the language you're using for it, then it's not that good a conversation 😛
agree 1
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 08:36 PM
oh sure, but it'll probably sweep up blake and kill him first. I cannot help but agree wholeheartedly
my philosophy teacher'd get a kick out of that one
anyways, what was I doing? reading a book or something?
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Ishamoridin 29-Jun-19 08:37 PM
Lol yeah, I'll stop derailing you now ¬_¬
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JayManiac 29-Jun-19 08:37 PM
well, if you must
“He forges connections between things. Very inconvenient connections.”
Okay so this guy, who I'm beginning to suspect Rose has danced around calling "Jim Crow" this whole time, might have significant power synergy with Fell, but I don't know that a curse is gonna be very physical, Rose. I mean sure, it'll help your status as a champion, but it won't help you move a book from here to there.
“He takes that which people most love, then gives it to another. Your favorite possession finds its way irrevocably to the hands of your best friend. You can’t fault him for having it, but resentment builds. In a year or two, you’re mortal enemies, and you’ve lost both your favorite thing in the world and your friend. Except it’s not always an object. It could be your soulmate. Your mother or child.”
Are we sure this guy hasn't been around since the greek days? Because that sounds like a whole load of greek myths. Maybe crow is in a long line of connection manipulators that have been fucking with reality for a long-ass time. Maybe if you ask him he can almost kind of remember that time he threw those golden apples and a whole ass shitstorm occured, or that time Poseidon summoned him like "hey so this odysseus dude really pisses me off, you wanna connect him to a bunch of random shit on his voyage?" But in practice, or in Practice, this could be just the kind of guy Blake wants on his side- I mean he's been trying to pull the "turn all my enemies against each other" card this whole dang story. But this seems like it would take time to work, and Conquest likes the short and brutal skirmish, so I dunno if that's really gonna help in the here and now. That said, maybe Rose is thinking ahead of the here and now.
“We talked about setting our enemies against one another. Corvidae is a tool we could use.”
Rose and I we think alike...except for the part where we don't at all and I usually agree with Blake and find her lack of humanity...disturbing
lol 1
She came into view. Jeans under a skirt, mismatched top under a long navy blue coat, a checkered scarf and wind-tousled black hair. Tiffany was behind her, holding a set of bolt cutters like a club, two-handed. “Maggie,” I said. She grinned wide enough to show her teeth.
sharkhi bulba spoop
“Oh boo on you, Blake. You do not want to hear the trouble I went through to be here. Yes, I am Maggie Holt.”
I missed her so much and I didn't know it till right exactly now
“No and yes. I’m dressed up in my finery, so to speak. Ready to fight in your war.” “I honestly didn’t expect you to come fight,” I said. “I though maybe a phone call, you could share your expertise on goblins, and if you felt particularly adventurous, you might do something to force Laird to head back to Jacob’s Bell.”
What? WHAT?!
Blake
if you were gonna blow your champion choice on that expectation, then I don't know what the fuck you expected
“You’ve been big on the recruitment drive since I last saw you. Some underlings, a familiar, even…” “Hi,” Evan said. “I’m Evan.” “Not a very imposing name. I was hoping for Blake’s familiar to have a name like Melmoth the Skull-Fu-” She stopped short, then frowned. “Melmoth.”
Honestly me too, a little bit. But that was before I met Evan!! You're gonna love this guy
not that I'd be opposed to Ḿ̞͞E̸͜͠L̶̨̛M̕͏͈O̵̟͝T̢͢͡҉͈͕͚H̷̕͝ ̵̷̸T̶̡̘H̶̴͙E̷͘̕҉̤̟͈ ̡̡͢S̶̨͡K̨̪͞U҉͚̬͡L͘͢͝L҉̵̨̛F̶̹͜U҉̧͏̯C̶͜͠K̵̶̀E͢͝͞R̷̕͠
mgihta zalgo'd that a little too much there
but you get the picture
“He pointed me this way. He told me to tell you they’ve set up in two more locations, and we should distribute our firepower, emphasizing escape routes. He’s going to go check on the others, then try to steal some rest before things get hairy.” I nodded. “Right now, we’re using guerrilla tactics. We’ve got the entire spirit-world version of the city to hide inside, and our opponent gets weaker so long as he’s being opposed by equal or superior opponents. Rose and I were just discussing additional options.”
That's a nice breakdown, and really sells the video-game-esque-ness of it
I don't know if that's a bell that this hits for everyone, but it's certainly ringin for me
“Well,” Maggie said. She grinned. “Speaking as the resident expert in the nast-” She stopped short. “Really!?” she asked. “I did not mean anything rude! Not even close! And how does that count!?”
Good thing Maggie has a voice in her head reminding her of the swearing thing because I would not be able to keep track
someone cut us off while I was driving with my mom and I rattled off "fuck fuck fuck fuck *fuck fuck fuck*" in quick succession my filter is not this good
“Fell, right. He said he was Fell. He described the situation. We’re outnumbered and outgunned? You got me, your enemy got Mister Behaim?” “That’s the gist of it,” I said. “Then we need raw power.”
I'd hazard to agree, especially since Laird isn't even what I'd call Conquest's third-heaviest hitter
I mean maybe now that the Shepherd's down
“It wouldn’t hurt,” I said. “But I’m leaning towards a more defensive strategy. It means my friends don’t get killed. You included.” “Aw,” she said. She reached up toward my cheek. I flinched. “Oh, oops?” Maggie said, her hand still in the air. I shook my head. “You were calling me a friend? That makes me feel things. I don’t have many flesh and blood buddies, you know.”
sharkhi 💜 CharmanderHi
I mean she still has a lot to learn when it comes to blake but I can still feel warm fuzzy friendlies about it
“What you get when a collection of feral children grow up and breed for a few generations, or when you have that small branch of the population that lives off in the middle of nowhere or on some mountaintop, left with nobody but their own family. Less human trappings to tie them down to reality, a lot of energy, lust, or bloodlust to stir up the spirits, and you wind up with whole families of inbred, messed up almost-humans.”
I can't help but think that this ties into our conversation before, Ish. Less beholden to the rules that come with humanity, almost certainly far from the Awakening ritual...
“Some ghost, an inbred human-turned Other, and a candle man. Sounds like a way of evening the odds, if we’re clever,” Maggie said. “Someone recently accused me of being the equivalent of playing with fire,” I said. “This sounds more dangerous than fire.” “Have to be dangerous if we’re going to win,” Maggie said.
Maybe bringing Maggie into the conversation was not Blake's best move...then again she kind of just showed up and became part of the conversation and I don't know if Blake can hold his own against both of them
“You’re excited,” I said. “For this? Yeah,” she said, smiling. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. “Why?” “Because this? The contest? Predefined rules, boundaries, minimized damage, a lot to gain? I’ve been hoping for something like this for a long time now.”
Basically what I surmised when I figured she'd show
And I'm glad at least someone's having fun besides me!
“Right now, with the possibility that something could kick the door in and come after us? I think we should get ready. Help me help you,” she said.
Yep, can't help but sort of agree with Mags here, she drives a hard bargain
“Alright,” I said. “You two handle it on your own. Better if I’m not directly involved, since I swore not to use any magic for the duration of this contest.” “Alright!” Maggie said.
Okay, and the result is...Blake removes himself from the decision and the ritual? Not what I expected, but makes a huge amount of sense, letting Rose do her thing with Maggie
then again, i'd feel a little better if he was present for the decision, just to internalize a few of those cons we were talking about
“Quickly then. Now, my dear mirror-dweller-” “Rose.” “Yeah. Let’s talk methodology.
“I need fresh air,” I said. “Or… whatever we have in this version of Toronto.” “Alone?” Tiff asked. She looked fidgety.
Oh yeah, we should probably check in with Tiffany; she didn't seem to take Maggie's arrival and Rose's demonizing too well
“That doesn’t make a lot of sense,” he said. “Would make less sense if I felt like I should and I didn’t.” “Yeah, but it would make more sense if you had a good reason,” Evan said.
Welcome to Blake, this is him!
The street was dark. It was technically nighttime, but time passed in a funny way here. The sky overhead was dark, hard to make out with the falling snow. The only light from the sky came from above Conquest’s tower. Pale light, as if the moon were only feet above the tower, hidden by the clouds. It made the contours of the clouds stand out, and it illuminated the tower, as if it were declaring Conquest the ruler of the city. There was other light. Red-orange flames, elsewhere in the city. The Eye was doing what it could to root us out.
Beautiful
It bothered me a lot that people had died. That Conquest had let the Eye loose specifically because of my challenge, and I hadn’t been able to save those people. Alexis was naturally heroic. I wasn’t. I wanted to be a good person, but being a hero wasn’t really in my makeup. At the end of the day, I was more focused on just trying to repay the debts I owed and make sure that I left the world better than it was when I’d come into it. Even before the whole magic thing had come up, that had been my philosophy. Nothing grandiose, but if everyone could keep to that idea, then maybe we’d all be in a better spot.
I've called Blake heroic before, but I can understand the distinction Blake makes here all the same, even if I kind of do think of him as a hero, still.
“I thought you were going to give the sword to Maggie,” Evan said. “Didn’t Fell say something like that? She’s a goblin wizard or something?” “We were,” I told him. “Fell did suggest that, and yeah, Maggie is the sort of practitioner who deals with goblins, and who, if she were very good, would deal with goblins like the Hyena.”
That would be a horrible horrible idea, but maybe I'm here for it who knows?
“Why? What changed?” “She did,” I said. “Maggie did. Something’s happened since I left Jacob’s Bell.”
I've noticed that a little bit, but not to the degree I think Blake has here. I think that Maggie would still be excited for this kind of situation...but as much as I hate to admit it she's never been all that moved by the prospect of friends, before. I want to believe it's her coming around on Blake a little, but I can't shake the thought that this isn't the Maggie we met in her interlude
“Right now, I’m focusing on preserving my relationship with Rose,” I answered. “I don’t think she’d forgive me if I shot her down now.” “I know I shouldn’t say stuff like this, but that’s really not a very good reason,” Tiff said. “It really isn’t,” I agreed.
I disagree. I think that Blake's relationship with Rose is arguably as important as his relationship with himself. I'd question whether this is the thing to do to preserve it, but...I think it's a good enough reason
The Sisters had mobilized, making a play. In retrospect, we maybe should have moved earlier, before they had time to prepare. They’d built an army. Dolls, lifesize models, and a variety of mannequins, staggered through the streets. Some had faces, others were blank. Many were undressed. Ten or so were gathered around Fell’s car en-masse, hugging it, standing on it, or steadily bashing it with hard plastic hands.
Holy fucking hellions this is the creepiest friggin thing, especially since I think a majority of Pact readers have an...interesting history with Mannequins.
But I love it
I love it so much, I've been wondering what the Sisters were gonna get up to with their elementals deallio and I'm not sure how this fits in but I've been waiting for them to make a move
“I’ve seen something like this,” I murmured. “Dead bodies, infused with those who’d died to the elements.”
that gives us a good frame of reference, and makes this a little more of an expansion on the magic than an entirely new element, which is always good
Sure enough, though, the runes differed here and there. Each was outlined in the same way; they were drawn inside a circle with rays extending outward. What was in the middle fell into four or five different sub-groups. “The one in the red dress, that looks like it walked out of a display case? The rune in the center of its face is a variant of the fire rune. I would not be surprised if it happened to violently blow up if you got too close to it. There are a lot of them around the car. There are others with breeze runes… they move a little faster in general.”
And the way it ties into the Sisters' nature as elementalists is fantastic too, adding an awesome bit of variation to the battle and the dynamics
Air-imbued vessels to pursue us by a half-step for every breath we took, two or three steps for every word we spoke. Fire imbued vessels to steadily seek out our warmth. Slow, inexorable, and Fell suspected they would blow up if they got too close. Earth-imbued vessels to track us by our footsteps.
I don't know if I'll have as much to pull but that's more because I'm just in the battle
then again the last time I said this there were enough twists and turns to the battle that I ended up having plenty to say anyways
“How hard can you cut?” he asked. “Pretty fucking hard,” Rose said. “Ready?” Each word was another three feet of lost ground. It sucked, but this was the closest thing we had to training wheels, to see just what she and Maggie had put together.
Oh I'm so fucking down
let's see
Rose went. She released Midge with a loud cracking sound. A breaking window. Three hundred pounds of inbred muscle and fat appeared on the street, amid the shower of shards. And with the act of magic, the water vessels woke, closing the distance to us in heartbeats
hhhhhhhh what a great chapter
I don't know how long it'll be until I read the next one, but I'm really really rearin to
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JayManiac 30-Jun-19 06:35 AM
Water
Earth
Fire
Air
Long ago, by which I mean ten days, Blake lived in occasionally turbulent harmony. But everything changed when the Mirror nation attacked.
Only Blake, could attract the wrath of all four elements, for when the world needed him screwed most, they were happy to oblige
A hundred years passed and it became steadily harder and harder for Jay to keep this joke running okay Subordination 6.8 we're just gonna start reading let's do it
My gut told me that Evan was a good fit for me. We meshed, we worked together, we complimented one another’s strengths. Even on an aesthetic level, maybe, we didn’t look out of place, Evan perched on my hand. Maybe that was vanity, my self-image, my liking of birds and Evan’s given form.
Okay, that's what I do when water-elementalized-mannequins attack me too: go into an aesthetic rumination. Hey I'm not complaining; I think Evan and Blake are a great fit. And maybe part of that is that I've been seeing them on the parahumans banner for years, but part of it is that they're just so cool looking and compliment each other really well. Of course Blake's familiar is a little bird; I couldn't imagine it any other way
Maggie, too. I could picture her with goblins standing in a small group around her. It was like the way pets came to resemble their owners. Maggie’s hair stuck up in places, her clothes were slightly mismatched, and her forward attitude was one that could leverage goblins.
I love when Maggie walked in with that wardrobe because it fits her pretty well, in a weird and disjointed and overly-affectionate way. Hey have I told you all the good news about my Favorite Artist?
So I found her through her worm stuff, but then when I was looking through fantasy music compilations and saw some awesome art I followed the link in the description and there she was again and that's when I knew I'd found someone to admire and aspire to and it's Sandara and here's her Maggie:
It's one of her less-developed pieces, compared to, for instance, her iconic endbringers,
but I love it all the same
anyways, there's my Sandara admiration out of the way
where was I?
oh yeah, on the third paragraph of this chapter I'm reading
I could see Rose, reflected in a cracked window, and I could see Midge, meeting the water-runed dolls head on. Whatever it was, that same gut feeling told me that Midge wasn’t a good fit for Rose.
Huh, I didn't predict that this was where the aesthetic ruminations were going but it really makes sense. I think Blake's kinda right, I couldn't visualize an art piece that pairs Midge and Rose very well, very thematically. It would just be weird and disjointed and not in a fun, Maggie-ie way
I had a suspicion as to why Rose had gravitated towards Midge as a summoning, but it wasn’t a suspicion I was free to think through. We had more pressing problems.
Uh....because she's physically the strongest, it seemed?
Tiff and Fell did what they could to stop the two that reached us. Fell kicked the one, while Tiff swung her bag like a flail at one that was only waist high. All things considered, the dolls went down easy. Fell planted his foot on the neck of the one he’d kicked over, stomping hard enough to sever head from body. No more avenues for the mystic energies to flow through the thing’s body.
Well that's a fairly good sign, so long as you don't get caught in an explosion or whatever the other ones can do
Midge was easily a few hundred pounds, more reminiscent of a Neanderthal than Homo Erectus. She smelled, she had bad teeth, and her dress was some old fashioned thing that dated to an era when very few people had been obese, or nourished enough to grow above six feet in height, a draping of cloth with a too-small flower print that looked like bargain bin curtain material, her large, misshapen nipples standing out like golf balls beneath the thin fabric. She walked through snow on dirty, bare feet.
I love how close to human Wildbow always keeps things- it's close in an uncanny valley type way sometimes coughtwigspoilers Helen cough- but it's always just right on that cusp. Everything that's a character- even Others that Wildbow didn't have to portray with human forms, like The Eye or Goblins in general- gets a description that ties it back to something understandable, which really just makes the emotional beats hit harder, whether they're heartwarming, horrifying, or- most likely- both.
She was big, red in the face, and her blood had been practically boiling from the moment she’d arrived. She grunted with every swing of meaty fists, breathing hard, roaring wordlessly. She didn’t walk, but stomped. She was magical by virtue of the fact that she’d been summoned here. She was hitting all the marks to draw the attention of the dolls and mannequins.
I love how this threat that was looking so menacing at the end of last chapter is kind of getting overwhelmed by Midge, she's asserting herself as the conflict of the chapter by dealing with the other conflict and rubbing Blake what seems like all the wrong ways. Actually, well, any way you rub Blake is wrong- he doesn't really like rubbing all that much
Fire had scorched her, leaving the skin discolored and split, angry black-red scorch marks visible on the flesh, even from a short distance away. Two meaty fingers dangled backward, waggling from the thin bits of tissue that attached them to her hand. She used the damaged hand to cave in one hard plastic head. A finger came loose as she did.
Okay dealing with might be stretching, but I definitely feel a lot better about the threat of mannequins and a lot worse about the threat of Midge, in a less punchy-stabby sense and a more "rose you gotta get rid of her" sense
“Experience tells me you gotta wait for the right moment” Maggie said. “Blake said you were a novice,” Fell said. “I’m a firm believer in making up for a lack of quantity in experience with quality. Quality experience says that you either get the bad Others who-” She stopped as the next batch of dolls arrived.
Wait I wanted to hear that! I wonder if this has anything to do with how Blake said Maggie is 'different'. Maybe it's been longer than four days for her somehow? I mean, it's certainly possible, given the kindsa threats she faces in Jacob's Bell, but idk. In any case, I like how this sort of ties in with Blake's lack of knowledge/wealth of experience that Nick was talking about. They might be 'novices' but Maggie and Blake have been through the damned ringer (literally in Blake's case) (okay not a literal ringer unless this arena counts, but at least literally damned)
“This is how the sisters operate?” I asked. “No,” Fell said.
hmmm
“The Lord of a City often imposes rules of conduct. In Toronto, as you’ll find in many places, the very first time you go to ask the Lord of the City for something, you’ll be asked to agree to certain terms. One of those terms is that you need to be ready to stand in defense of the city. These vessels would be the token offering from the Sisters of the Torch.”
Dammit! I mean, it's good that they're fighting Conquest's reserve forces now, and it's maybe good that the Sisters haven't attacked yet- might suggest some dissent in the ranks of the enemy- but if these are the Sisters' token offerings, then what kinda threat are they actually gonna bring to the table?
At Rose. The doll was flying toward the same building where Midge had thrown the doll through the window. I looked at Rose. “Move!”
Oh Rose, you really fucked up here
How much time did they have to bind Midge!? How'd they manage to piss her off and make it possible for her to try to hurt Rose!? Aren't they supposed to be better at this? Maybe not Maggie, I doubt goblins are all that linguistically challenging to bind, but where the fuck was the pRose!? Has it gone purple already?
Had it been us in the thick of that, even as a group, I didn’t think we would have been standing. But as far as Midge was concerned, the vessels hadn’t served any purpose except to help her demonstrate just how good she was at hurting and killing human-shaped things. And now, with the vessels taken care of, the only human-shaped things around were us.
so maybe the midge conflict is gonna be a little more of the punchy stabby sort after all
Sweet Scion, Rose, you weren't supposed to make more enemies for Blake! He has enough!
“I talked Rose through a basic release. Rose didn’t think she’d be able to leverage any power, so I drew out the diagrams, she used the Thorburn voice, I did the physical side of the binding, and then passed ownership of it to Rose. Rose says the word, Midge gets released, Midge goes after the target, then she comes back and is either bound again or banished.” Fell nodded, as if that made all the sense in the world to him.
Well that sounds just fine and dandy except for the part where you clearly fucked up somehow! I love this beat of Fell and Maggie knowing what the fuck is happening while Blake and Rose are clueless. Mostly I just love Fell, I admit
“How do we get her to come back, then?” “Rose has to order it.” “Midge doesn’t seem interested in giving her the chance,” I said. “Nope.”
On one hand, that's a mistake I would make
on the other, my life doesn't friggin depend on it
Was this Rose as she was when pushed to her limit? Reckless? Just as indiscriminate as I’d been described?
Well fuck, if that's your read on it, I'd say the Thorburns are well and truly screwed, since you were each able to be the only one talking sense at some point! I also wonder if this is the case...I could see Rose getting desperate and rushing, but I could also see her leaning into the planning side of things in the 'pushed to the limit' situation. I guess we'll see
She bent down to pick up an inert vessel, then grabbed another. Both mannequins, the heavier sort, damaged from the beating Midge had delivered. She held them under one arm, then started striding towards us. Somewhere between an approaching rhino and an infant girl absently carrying a toy around with her.
Hahahahahahaha Red Lords of Radham please don't come any closer
“A few kinks to iron out in this whole ‘mirror-girl summons stuff’ concept,” Maggie commented.
Thanks Maggie, I can always count on you to make witty comments over the problems you cause
Fell seemed to have the same impression. He raised his gun, aiming. “I don’t think that’s going to do much,” I said. “I’m open to ideas, Thorburn,” Fell said, a mite testily.
just gonna drop my obligatory ♠ here this chapter, don't mind me
Not quite how the idea was meant to be applied. Not every Other fell into neat categories, and Midge was hardly some incarnation of aggression, but it was a starting point when I needed to brainstorm, and the train of thought led me straight to one option. “Evan,” I said, touching my hand to my shoulder. Evan made the two-inch hop to my finger.
Counter the inhuman, rampaging Other with the most human, passive, run-away-and-avoid one
brilliant
I flung out my hand. Evan flew in the direction I’d cast him. I was secretly happy that had worked. Theatrics. Good kid.
Evan just is the opposite of Midge in every way I can think of: short//tall, strong//weak, confrontational//avoiding conflict, male//female, driven by anger//driven by hope. It's really awesome and beautiful and also hell yes they have instinctive coordinated aesthetic attack strategies
Midge turned on the spot, flinging the hand. Another shattered window. It was a really good thing that Rose wasn’t a real person. If the inbred monster from the back-country was something I’d summoned, I wasn’t sure I’d be dodging these chucked objects so well.
Well that's one bright side, at least
“They fall into categories. Natural, they get twisted by their environment. Built for cold, desert, for living in ravines or deep caves, inhospitable places. Social, they form tribes. Cannibal families or that sort of thing. Then there’s the loners. Break from the pack, their pack dies, or they’re exceptional members of a family unit, too crazy or brutal to be allowed to mingle.”
I feel like each and every system in Pact could be the subject of a book unto itself- such that I kind of created a similar magic system to this a couple months ago and that's like that world's...whole thing. The creativity here is just astounding. I love this as a concept tangentially related to demons, because it has the potential to raise a lot of questions about literal demonization.
I bet that's a beat we're gonna hit again with each of the other almost-demons, even as we explore things from their respective angles
“Midge was part of a family,” I said. “She might have been on her way to becoming a special one, but vigilantes came after them all before things progressed. Whoever claims the dead didn’t want her. Rose said, what was it? They think Midge dwells in the darker patches of limbo. The hands that catch the fallen have gaps between the fingers, and nothing caught her. Those who know the name can haul her up for a time, before the depths claim her again.”
And here we get Limbo again, this concept that seems to underlie everything in the Pact world, constantly coming up in the most disturbing of contexts. The idea that all that stuff isn't really gone, and it can be recovered to wreak havoc once again.
something I'm just noticing about this passage is "the darker patches" of Limbo, which reminds us of the nuance of it- not just this one monochrome realm of bad, but a variably twisted awfulness
Rose was being strategic in the surfaces she moved between. Except I felt my connection to Rose shift and break. Something had happened.
What? What!?
that's not- that's never really happened before, except when she's broken windows or mirrors
It wasn’t just that she was big, six feet tall and four feet wide. It was how she was constructed. If the bus stop was any indication, it’d tear past us like a cannonball. Fell shot her. When Midge didn’t fall down, he shot her three more times. The brutish woman took a step back.
Taking bullets here is so much more impactful than it would be if Midge just had Alexandria-like invulnerability. Her resistance is terrifyingly human-derivative
it reminds me of Mirakuru, or JDATE zombies
“You could spell up that gun,” Maggie said. “I’ve been working under the Lord of the City since I was twelve,” Fell said. “If he needs a practitioner taken care of, a bullet works. If he needs something bigger taken care of, he doesn’t send the illusionist-enchanter.”
this is actually kind of a sour note, now that I'm thinking about it because i've pulled yet another Fell beat and have barely anything to say about it. But see now that I'm here I can infer that Fell would only have spelled up his gun if he thought there was a chance he'd ever be free of Conquest. He didn't.
“Subhumans aren’t stupid, they’re socially backward,” Maggie said. She thought for a second. “Really socially backward. And they’re good with improvised tools and weapons. Supernaturally good.”
Because of course, the social aspect is what governs the soul in the world of Pact, it's what decides- ultimately- whether you're going to heaven or dreamland or just falling through the cracks
“Your friends are nervous. There’s activity near them. Either our opposition tracked down the effigies I secreted around the city, and they just happen to be in the neighborhood, or the very temporary protections I put down are faltering. The Astrologer is very good at navigating and finding things, and that could include your friends.”
And then there's this beat of uhoh in the background, as if they needed something else to worry about while being pounded by Midge
Fell’s car. Battered, with one broken window. “No,” Fell said. She stalked toward it, slipping briefly on ice. “No, no, no!” Fell said.
Maybe not that socially backwards, if this was an intentional move, then
We had our differences. If it came down to saving my friends and the lengths I would go, I suspected he would be caught off guard. He was a loner, by all appearances. He’d mentioned family, but he functioned alone. I didn’t. But the car? I had my bike. I could understand his attachment to the car. We’d fucking rescue that car.
Ilovethis bulba ♠
It's so quintessentially Blake
“That part before, where you stuck your arm out and I took off?” he asked. “That was great!”
big
agree
“Evan!” I called out, looking over Midge’s shoulder “Now!” Midge turned, faster than I might have expected, arm drawn back. I raised one hand, gesturing ‘stop’.
Yeah! That was really clever!
Fell, just to my right, raised his gun. She caught his hand and crushed it, gun and all. Then she pulled. One arm came free of the socket.
` AAAAAUUGHHHHHHHHHEEAAAAGH
Leaving him to bleed out, she reached for the car. The real Fell threw out a handful of powder, directly at her maimed reaching hand.
Oh thank fuck, I keep forgetting that Attwells can do this kinda thing; when we were in Joseph's head I could catch it, but not now that we're in Blake's
We’d tried to fix one problem and we’d created a bigger one. “I’m back,” Rose said. Speaking of.
Yeah, you know staying back, not shooting down her idea, really helped you two and your relationship, good on ya blake!
I'm not a practitioner I get to do this
A dark red line crossed her white blouse, and blood had spread from it, seeping into the cloth around it. It forked like a lightning bolt might. Or a crack in glass. From one shoulder to the other.
Ouch, well at least Rose is paying for her mistake in pretty much the most direct way possible, not too difficult for her mirror-brain to make that connection there. Plus that's gonna make a super gnarly scar. As someone with less-gnarly scars criss-crossin their torso, that'll be a good one
Maggie had the flute in hand, and Dickswizzle was dancing circles around Midge. We had a second.
The return of the true hero of Pact: Dickswizzle himself
Midge caught the goblin and tore it in half.
Alas, fare thee well, sir Dickswizzle. You were...pretty disgusting..but you helped...more than once, a little bit.
(edited)
Rose intoned, “Midge, daughter of Rackham Thin, daughter of Fat Mam, drinker of blood…” Midge found her footing, grabbed at the road where there was a pothole, and tore a chunk out. Fell shot her until she dropped it. “…Bound by the sixth seal, the second point of the star, marked Gula, marked Forente…”
This is a pretty disturbing rebinding and it's super dramatic and theatrical and awesome. I wonder what all of it means, but maybe the sixth seal is in reference to the Choir of Sin?
A trick of the light, like a shadow passing over the sun, and the darkness was molasses thick as it collected her. When it passed, she was gone.
Thank the Lords of Fuck that's over, Midge was just the most awful misstep you could'v- well actually if you'd fucked up some of the other summonings it could've been worse
Tiff had gone silent. She was hugging herself, as much as she could while keeping one hand on my bike, as if it might tip over if she let go of it. I didn’t ask if she was okay. At moments like this, when we were least okay, the compulsion to go with automatic responses was a dangerous one for a person who couldn’t lie.
Hhhhhhhhhhhhh Tiffany's been doing surprisingly well under the circumstances and I think Blake probably regrets bringing her into all this the most, because I feel like I regret bringing her into all this the most
We were down one ally, for all intents and purposes. Tiff was gone. But we had Alexis, and we had Ty. We also had Maggie. I wasn’t sure why, but when I took a headcount, trying to weigh the options and assets we had on hand, I had trouble counting her among our assets.
Is it just because she brought a subdemon to bear on everyone indirectly, orrr...something to do with her...differentness?
I looked through the window at a city that was burning. No less than six fires or glows of fire that I could make out from the balcony.
How the hell is Toronto gonna deal with this contest!? Are the locals gonna affect the spirit world in any meaningful way as it goes on and more and more is fucked with?
I could see the whole tone of the place becoming darker, angrier
as people hear about fires and car accidents and feel unsettled when they walk into stores and feel unsheltered by bus stations
“I thought, since I only had to ask to bind her and banish her, that it’d be a cinch. But it was hard, and by interrupting me, she took the power out of my words, forcing me to find stronger wording.” I wanted more than anything to ask her just how much involvement Maggie had had in the choice of wording, but I couldn’t with Maggie present. Forcing me to make a mental note of the possible sabotage and move on.
Oh fuck, that's an angle I hadn't even considered. I mean, I really really want to trust Maggie, because I like her and Blake really needs allies, but it's a good point
I nodded. “That’s all you’ve got?” “All I can use, yeah.” “Okay,” I said. “What about the goblin sword?” Fell asked. “The what now?” Maggie asked. I hadn’t had a chance to tell him to keep it on the down-low. Fuck.
Which somehow makes Maggie finding out about one asset that could maybe turn the tables in terms of power- a potentially really really bad thing.
That said, I'm so hype for goblin swords
“Geeeeez. I’ve heard about this sort of thing. Faerie used to enslave and bind goblins, during an era when the courts were changing over. Mixed up relationship between the two. Many powerful goblins agreed to take up certain forms, as part of treaties. This thing isn’t small potatoes.”
Have..you been talking to very many faeries? Or is this something you learned from Goblins? I didn't imagine them giving you history lessons, but hey.
kind of a strange pairing too, such a crude weapon for such a...fair kind of Other?
Then again; might be why they used them
wield crudeness without being crude and affecting your own glamour
“If we can hold out two days,” Fell said, “The weekend will be over. The Sisters will either have or want to return to work. Conquest will lose that resource, on a morale front or in manpower.” I nodded. “I didn’t even consider that.”
Me neither, but that's a note of hope, since Blake and company certainly won't survive a whole damn week
“Defensively, we can set up walls and wards,” Fell said. “We can misdirect, and we can cross our fingers. Problem is, I’m not confident it’ll work long-term. They’re going to change things up, and the Lord of the City has generations of experience dealing with my family and our magic. He’ll know how to deal with me.” “We need another way to duck out of sight,” I said.
I mean now that we're thinking of Faeries I'm wondering if there's a good way to get more Glamour? Maybe by feeding power into the remains of the locket or something, hiding away behind walls of the stuff for a little bit to bide time
just a thought, considering their underutilized resources in the form of Ty, Alexis, and the locket
“Is there anything saying we have to stay here?” “In this building?” “In the spirit world.”
OOOOOooooooOOoo good point, maybe by striking from the mortal world you can tip the scales or at least stay out of sight. Plus you can...go back to the police station for questioning like you promised to do I haven't forgotten and neither have the spirits!
granted I'm not sure at the wording Blake used to agree to be back there, but I think it was probably binding?
Not an oath or anything, but a pretty inconvenient thing to fuck with
“But Conquest picked this battlefield because it keeps his subjects out of the line of fire,” Fell said. “And because it probably gives him an advantage,” Rose cut in.
The spirit world is a really fun environment to be in, and removes a lot of immediate consequence, but I'm kinda itching to be back in the material world, surprisingly. It'd certainly be a lot harder for the Eye to pose a direct threat without burning down half the- oh he could burn down half the city maybe this isn't such a great idea
My friend piped up for the first time since we’d entered the apartment and recapped him on what was going on. “Why not both?” Ty asked. Why not both?
But maybe it's an awesome idea!
My friends would stay on the other side, keeping the defenses up and tend to the gates. At least for now. If they needed sleep, we could take shifts. We would roam the free world.
Hell yeah, Ty is the best. Plus I wanna see what The Eye does to the material world, if he starts fires in the Spirit one
Back in the city. Among the regular civilians, who were oblivious to what was going on. Or so I thought.
If the citizens aren't oblivious, though, then the way they see the city might start to change
As a group, Fell, Rose, Maggie and I stopped by a store display. Televisions played, showing surveillance camera footage and cell phone video. A crazy obese woman in the middle of a city street, flinging glass at fleeing shoppers. The news caption on the bottom read ‘Drug-fueled rampage?’ The pattern was the same, the path she took, amid cars that had stopped in the middle of the street.
Fuck. Fuck, I didn't expect that specific level of connection, but it really sells the kind of actual stakes that they're dealing with here. Yes they can use magic unfiltered, but at no less of a cost to the surrounding area. This is a good explanation for where magic was during every conflict the human race has had; it was being fought equally on the spirit plane, by Others and Practitioners who didn't want to risk assuming Karmic Responsibility for everyone they revealed magic to.
We watched as the screen changed over. Changing topics. Arson, fires throughout the city. Car accidents. Property damage. Deaths.
This is one of my favorite parts of the magic so far, which is crazy to say since Pact became my favorite magic system at what? Arc three?
And I think it's important to note the conversation we've been having in this channel about causality as it relates to the spirit world, because it seems obvious that these events didn't happen on their own, that the spirit world is far more capable of affecting its subordinate than the other way around
Conquest was applying his own pressure to us, in his own particular way. He didn’t actually care about the residents of Toronto. He knew this would bother us more than it bothered him and his people, with the possible exception of the Astrologer and the Sisters.
I guess that blows the whole waiting idea out of the water
But seriously, I think this could start a bit of a causal loop between worlds that drags everything into despair, if the parties involved aren't careful- which they aren't
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JayManiac 30-Jun-19 08:31 AM
I meant directly affecting it, more like
You can't make changes on the material plane and have them directly affect the spirit world- you have to convince the populous that it matters before the change starts to take effect
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A bird 🐦 30-Jun-19 08:33 AM
Do you think the cars and buildings in the spirit world are where they are because it matters?
Or because they simply are?
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JayManiac 30-Jun-19 08:34 AM
I suppose it's causally linked with the fact that they're thought of that way, and in that sense yes, it's |because| they matter
I like the idea of an absolute value of because, that doesn't suggest direction exactly
since we know that the direction merely dictates in what way each world is affected
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A bird 🐦 30-Jun-19 08:36 AM
Not to mention that these spirit world events involve some serious magical might being used
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JayManiac 30-Jun-19 08:37 AM
I dunno, I bet that Blake's gonna find his chair falls apart pretty easily
unless people very quickly start thinking of it as whole again
but when I talk about a causal loop, that's exactly what I'm talking about. When the california fires were raging last year, it was the whole state that felt depressed, unsafe, turbulent. We were breathing smoke and ash and we could feel it in our throats and see it in the sky. Stuff like that's gonna make the Spirit world a more chaotic environment, which may in turn cause more disaster to occur in the Spirit World so long as people are there and being affected by the changes and fighting. It's only when they leave the spirit plane and stop the contest that the loop ends and there's a return to a kind of equilibrium, with no more entities to force the spirit plane into affecting the material one
because that's the real cause here
it's not about which is the real world and which is the fake, it's a causal thru-line that acts both ways
the reason the material world is the real one, is because there aren't any entities on the spirit world pushing things around and using the causal effect "backwards" as it were
now that there are entities acting up there, it's a toss up.
You could refer to spirits as the omnipresent "entities" that are always in the spirit world and could be consistently affecting the mortal world and pulling mortal thought in certain directions, but at the end of the day the causal relationship there doesn't particularly matter; that gets into this whole discussion about free will that I just don't feel right having without Matt here, and he's not awake!
But I think it's fairly obvious that free will is a sham when it comes to entities affecting the spirit world. Free will is free will or its illusion, whatever so long as everyone stays on their side of the planar existence. As soon as Laird draws a rune and the spirits guide your thought away from their booth, free will and the spirits' response to you is over in that respect
Oh look I'm having the discussion with myself anyways
And of course there are other ways to guide people's thought and runes are just the direct way of doing that
Because that's what runes do holy shit
they affect the spirit world, they tell the rifle that on the spirit plane it's made of wind, and they tell the spirit plane that this booth is destitute and not worth looking at
which means there's maybe a way to affect the spirit world from the material one, striking from there
If you know where the Eye is and you pepper the ground with water runes, you might not destroy the eye but you might slow him down
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A bird 🐦 30-Jun-19 08:49 AM
The Eye was kind of doing that in reverse
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JayManiac 30-Jun-19 08:49 AM
Well sure, but Blake and his party want to hide on the material plane and strike from their hiding places, right? So runes are the bridge they can use without crossing over completely
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A bird 🐦 30-Jun-19 08:49 AM
Opening holes in the veil so that the physical world could affect the spiritual in the ways that he wanted
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JayManiac 30-Jun-19 08:50 AM
Right!
Now I'm even more excited for the next chapter
which I'm not gonna read rn because it's quite late
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A bird 🐦 30-Jun-19 08:50 AM
I think the Eye is less vulnerable to that approach than our team
Leaking through a strong aspect of "water here" into the spirit world against an extremely strong entity of "elemental disaster" compared to leaking a shepherded aspect of "heart attack" into a chain smoking anti health nut
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JayManiac 30-Jun-19 08:54 AM
Yeah, plus The Eye can tear the veil at will, so
automatically not the best target
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A bird 🐦 30-Jun-19 08:54 AM
Yeah good luck outdoing the Eye on his home field
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JayManiac 30-Jun-19 08:56 AM
then again, you could draw water runes in a circle in the physical world and create a kind of barrier in the spirit one, a protection circle
if you could prepare it somehow without him already being there
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A bird 🐦 30-Jun-19 08:57 AM
I think we're getting both off track and steering towards vending machine magic
Practitioner: How do I defeat the Eye? Spirits: I dunno, you tell us and we'll see
Spirits: And also fuck you specifically, Blake
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JayManiac 30-Jun-19 09:01 AM
that's a fair assertion and I think you're probably right and I'm so damn happy you read my phrase enough that you're using it with no qualifiers or quotations!
Karma's a bitch. Well, some might call her a Hellhound. Blake, I'm telling you there's a Hellhound behind you watch the fuck out
🐶 1
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A bird 🐦 30-Jun-19 09:02 AM
I'd ordinarily use Vancian-esque magic in this context, but your term fits better
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JayManiac 30-Jun-19 09:06 AM
I think Vancian refers to a specific subset of vending machine magic, that's actually better described by the term vending machine
Like Mistborn magic isn't vancian, you can use an ironpull at a nuanced rate of low to high, but it's still vending machine in that there's an associated cost, but no arbiter of that cost
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JayManiac 30-Jun-19 06:44 PM
I'm gonna tentatively try to knock out a chapter today but I gotta stop reading at ten so who knows how this'll go!?
Oh yeah
6.9
when we last left off,
The television that Joel had brought into my apartment showed an endless series of reports on what was going on around the city. Blackouts, fires, raised tensions and overcrowded hospital rooms. Looking at it from a distance, ignorant, I might assume it was just another night of typical sensationalist news reporting. Worse than most nights, but there was a natural ebb and flow, right? Some nights, you’d have more stories and more ugliness than there’d been in the past two weeks. Unusual but not alarming. Nothing that would shift the average Joe out of his comfort zone.
Toronto was screwed
Except I had outside knowledge. I could place many of the events and deduce more. The Eye, and ghosts were active, which was influencing people in subtle ways. Maybe, just like Alexis and I had experienced our own simulated heart attacks, a few people who were in line to have one experienced some. How many ghosts were active, and how many negative emotions, diseases or other issues were being triggered prematurely? Magic has a price, but it’s not always the practitioner that pays it.
Yeah, having the shepherd loose in the spirit world was probably causing all hells of inconvenience and general discomfort. Maybe no one big event, but quite possibly a crowley on the phone lines situation
Fell patrolled the perimeter of my apartment, his attention on the taped-down diagram that protected the edge. “This is a mess,” I said. “I agree,” Fell said. “As perimeter defenses go, this is pretty sad.”
This is one of those comedy beats that you just want to laugh at but can't because it's just such a pathetic situation. They can't even be happy about their perimeter defences.
“He is,” Fell said. “An omission to protect the city from his underlings isn’t the same thing as targeting the city. If that tests the truth, the power he gleans from the ambient misery makes up for it.” “Fuck,” I said.
Phrasing is key, the devils are in the details, and hey maybe on the bright side meath is pissed off enough about it that you can get some indirect help!
“I do not want to become a Lord,” I said. “No way, no how. I already have enough people gunning for me as it stands.” “If they’re already gunning for you, what does it change?” Maggie asked.
Hahahahahahaha I had the same thought before realizing that two dozen threats Blake has never even heard of might descend upon him for his insolence
Fell went on, “Getting back to my original point, outside of mundane or common sense reasons, there’s something to be said for the fact that the city is yours. When you own something, it’s a one-sided relationship, and that means an uneven exchange of power. One way or another, you influence that which you possess. If you are the Lord of a city, then your substance runs through that city. This isn’t something you control, but is more incidental. When Conquest is passive, biding his time and building his strength, then the city is too. When he is at war, then so is the city.”
Blake! They straight up said that the city was gonna suffer for your contest! I mean sure, I didn't connect the dots either, so I'm not sure why I'm so on your case here actually....
“I wish you had too. I thought you might have some idea, and the plan to bide our time was with the knowledge that the city might suffer in the meantime. I’m of two minds, now.” “Two minds?” “I’m glad you’re not heartless, Thorburn. It helps when I have to work alongside you. But at the same time… it’s obvious you’re bothered by what you’re seeing in the news, and the effects your contest are having on the public. You’re wringing your hands-”
I'm sort of of two minds over all this too, and I'm glad Fell is; I never got the impression that he cared about the general residents of the city, certainly not in the way Blake does. It's nice to see that he appreciates Blake's...heartfulness, at least a little. Considering this is the same guy who double parks, no enchantment, just because of how little of a shit he gives. I mean, is it a worse crime than starting fires, crashes, and drunk rampages? No, but it's up there.
“-and I’d be able to tell if it weren’t just that. It’s not bad that you care, but strategy-wise? From a purely rational perspective? You being heartless would help.” “Not too heartless,” Maggie said. “That would mean demons, and I don’t think anyone here wants demons.”
fuck. This is a difficult choice, especially since it's kind of a selfish one. There's no guarantee that deposing conquest would actually help the city in the long run, what with the instability that might cause, so Blake has to rely on the fact that he is helping Fell, Rose, and himself. That's...sorta selfish. But I don't know if I can stand to see conquest win, because of what that'll mean for Blake, so maybe...win at most costs? Try to minimize the damage while you've already got your hands full? This seems like a pretty diabolist situation here.
“That sort of runs against my personal philosophy,” I said. “I want to leave the world in better shape than it was when I arrived.” “Says the diabolist,” Fell said. “Yeah,” I said, dead serious, “Says the diabolist.”
Ilovethis
With experience and the various ups and downs we’d faced, I was becoming aware of just how much my personal strength, power, and vulnerability was linked to my existence as Blake Thorburn. Having my bike had done wonders. Having my friends was nourishing on a spiritual level. Was there a flip side to that? Was I weakening myself if I thrust myself into unfamiliar situations? Was I weakened by the fact that Maggie was here, in my apartment, making me distinctly uncomfortable?
So I listened to DiP, and they pointed out that Maggie is probably hiding the whole prophesy thing, which might be why she's feeling a little bit off to Blake. It makes a lot of sense, I'd just forgotten that Blake didn't know about that. I mean yeah, with The Eye around fire and ruin seems pretty applicable. She might benefit from the city's turmoil, in that it might check one of her boxes for "you'll experience this again". I mean the stuff Blake was talking about on the news sounds like the beginnings of what we saw in Maggie's interlude. Let's just hope it doesn't progress much further.
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Ishamoridin 30-Jun-19 07:07 PM
Oh yeah, I'm sure it'll all be done by teatime and everyone can relax and get on with things
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JayManiac 30-Jun-19 07:07 PM
fine
Eye don't know about that
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Ishamoridin 30-Jun-19 07:08 PM
Oh gods, the puns!
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JayManiac 30-Jun-19 07:09 PM
She shrugged. “My parents and I don’t always see eye to eye when it comes to what I’m doing here. It’s been worse since the change of location, coming to Jacob’s Bell.” “Please tell me you told them you were coming. I don’t want to get arrested for kidnapping a minor. I was just in jail for being accused of murdering one.” “For murdering me,” Evan clarified, sagely.
Gods, I love Evan. So Maggie confirms she probably just ran away from home and Blake's probably gonna get blamed, and the cops are probably under Laird's thumb so better kill him during this contest haha
Ilovethis 2
“I took measures. There shouldn’t be trouble,” Maggie said. “If there is, it shouldn’t inconvenience you. But if I explain now, it will inconvenience you.”
suspicious
“You’re here, you’re helping. It’s… it’s great. Really. But I think it’s a dumb move to let our guard slip, so I gotta ask. Are you doing anything nefarious here?” “There’s no real malice or hostility in my heart, honest. I’m here because it’s a way to improve my personal situation, because I don’t like guys like the Lord of the City, or even the idea of Lords in general. Besides, it’s a heck of a lot more interesting than sitting in podunk nowhereville and going to high school.”
That's a lot of things that are true in an order that certainly suggests one thing that might not be. Noted.
Joel latched on to the first part of her statement. “Stuff that makes this seem tame? I’m not sure I want to know.” “You don’t. You want to know why I can stand beside your buddy right now, when most won’t? I’ve seen things that might rate an eight on the cosmic scale of bad.” “You might be overestimating that,” Fell commented.
Yeah, but maybe ask your brother, Atwell. In all seriousness I think that Maggie is 1000% overestimating that, unless something horrible happened in Jacob's Bell in the last week, which I'm still not ruling out.
Also I didn't intuit that Maggie and Fell are now occupying the same space since the possibility of that was so far from my mind when we learned about Fell's brother in relation to Maggie but now I really hope it comes up somehow
I mean he was willing to mention it to Blake, so maybe when they do a whole "get to know you" circle or something
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Ishamoridin 30-Jun-19 07:15 PM
Don't read Jay Man I love watching people read through this part and what issues they take with 'Maggie' (edited)
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JayManiac 30-Jun-19 07:15 PM
Fuckin hell why do you do this to me!?
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Ishamoridin 30-Jun-19 07:15 PM
When you're done with these events you can come back and relish it 😛
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JayManiac 30-Jun-19 07:15 PM
I'm not gonna click but that's because of my last scrap of willpower
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Brent C, Ardent of Dark Souls 30-Jun-19 07:16 PM
Agreed @Ishamoridin , agreed
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JayManiac 30-Jun-19 07:16 PM
Brent, if you are under any impression that you're helping my self-control situation here, let's just dispell that right now
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Ishamoridin 30-Jun-19 07:16 PM
xD
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JayManiac 30-Jun-19 07:17 PM
“I’ve seen an eight,” Maggie said, a little firmer, “I’ve seen a lot of stuff. Take my word for it. A lot more suffered, and a lot more didn’t make it out.”
Just realized she never said an eight out of what. Could be an eight out of twenty, by Practitioner Terms, and she's just using that language to get cred. Which makes sense, now that I'm thinking about it.
I'd call the goblintown stuff an eight out of twenty
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Ishamoridin 30-Jun-19 07:18 PM
Really makes me wonder what Padraic calls an 8
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JayManiac 30-Jun-19 07:18 PM
well actually, it was a little worse than the abstract demon, so maybe an eight out of thirte- dammit guys *every time*
Fell said, “I’m going to leave you guys when I’m done, so I can look after my family.” “I wasn’t aware you had one,” Rose said.
Oh my Lords
we are so close
we're so close to having Maggie and Fell talk about him
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Ishamoridin 30-Jun-19 07:19 PM
Think of it as me having a conversation with future!Jaymaniac
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JayManiac 30-Jun-19 07:20 PM
Hi future jaymaniac! Did you finish this before dying a gruesome death? Also fuck you for being able to click on things!!!
Ilovethis 1
(in all seriousness I love these tidbits that you guys are leaving along the way I'm gonna reverse search the spoiler tag "|" when this is all over and systematically go through everything I missed so keep leavin em and we'll have a great big party and look back on this and laugh)
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Ishamoridin 30-Jun-19 07:21 PM
You've got yourself a deal
Honestly there's so much to unpack and recontextualise in these arcs that you'd probably wanna revist anyway
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JayManiac 30-Jun-19 07:23 PM
if I wanted to liveread my liveread could we put it in a pact_livereads_livereads channel?
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Ishamoridin 30-Jun-19 07:23 PM
I'm happy to follow that rabbit all the way down tbh
same 2
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JayManiac 30-Jun-19 07:23 PM
The niece couldn’t be another ally. A shame.”Not going to stop you,” I said. “You’ve helped me protect people close to me, it’d be hypocritical to deny you the chance to do the same for yourself.” “Thank you,” Fell said. “Frankly, you can’t stop me if I do want to leave, I don’t need your permission.”
Oh Fell, you were almost, almost not a dick there, but it's okay I get you and we adore you anyways
“The plan,” I said, “Is to sleep, eat, and then I visit the police station. If I don’t, they might start thinking I look a little guiltier. Besides, I need to collect June.”
Oh good, I was super worried blake forgot about this
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Ishamoridin 30-Jun-19 07:24 PM
Gods I love Fell, he's so much fun. Does reasonable thing "Also fuck you"
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JayManiac 30-Jun-19 07:25 PM
I know I'm living for it
♠
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Ishamoridin 30-Jun-19 07:25 PM
Fell and Evan buddy adventure when?
bulba 1
Ilovethis 1
It'd be like Happy but a hundred times better
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JayManiac 30-Jun-19 07:26 PM
I've seen the trailer for that? Is it good? I feel like it has a lot of potential
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Ishamoridin 30-Jun-19 07:26 PM
It's gritty yet ridiculous, I love it
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JayManiac 30-Jun-19 07:26 PM
Amazing
gonna share a small headcanon with you guys, real exclusive stuff:
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Ishamoridin 30-Jun-19 07:27 PM
Pulls up a chair and steeples fingers ...Go on.
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JayManiac 30-Jun-19 07:27 PM
to me, Fell just looks like that one guy from The Expanse but with a white suit and fedora instead of a grey one
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Ishamoridin 30-Jun-19 07:27 PM
Huh, I picture Gregory House without the limp
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JayManiac 30-Jun-19 07:28 PM
I kind of get that vibe too!
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Ishamoridin 30-Jun-19 07:29 PM
I think it's the combination of being a prick for real, but also using that natural prickishness to hide their virtues from the world
agree 1
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JayManiac 30-Jun-19 07:29 PM
but seriously, I mean I think he's a little younger and I don't picture the exact same facial expressions, but this is the closest I can get to Fell
Also I'm pretty sure fell's younger but shhhhh
“I mean I’m thinking of going after Laird. I’ve had three wins against him, I’m not sure what that means in the grand scheme of things, but I can’t help but feel I’ve got the advantage and I should use it.” “He’ll have help,” Maggie said. “Yes,” I said. “Almost definitely. But I don’t think that help will include the heaviest hitters. Not the Eye, probably not the Shepherd.”
Laird and The Astrologer are the two champions we haven't heard a peep from, so I'm kind of excited for this new twist on the police station extravaganza.
“Walking right into the lion’s den?” Maggie asked. “If I’m going to walk into the den,” I said, “I might as well go in prepared to deal with the motherfucking lion, so to speak.”
But I'm also worried you're gonna literally have to deal with the actual Lion in the room (by which I mean in toronto), so to speak
I mean the champions are one thing, but i'm almost more worried about Meath and Isadora. I mean at the start of arc 4 they were two of the biggest guns in Toronto and now they're just off the board? But more importantly, Wildbow won't let this go as we expect, with the whole police station thing, and Isadora's the card that could make it all the more difficult
“If I’m going to help, I’ll need to know more about the Behaims,” Fell said. “Alright. Well, they’re arrogant and well-learned,” I said. “They tend to prefer big, devastating effects, and the entire circle is supporting whoever they’ve got in play. Laird had the entire circle helping to power his ritual, back in Jacob’s Bell. Duncan had trinkets infused with power.”
Love the rundown of the Behaims, because firstly it's one of the few things Fell has to rely on blake for information on, and secondly his description is perfectly barbed.
Fell shrugged. He resumed working on the powder diagram. It looked like a strong wind would muss it up, but it was remaining in place. “Look. If that’s the case, then how come Duncan didn’t get bitten by karma when he took June, my hatchet?” “Ah,” Fell said. “If he did, then it’s only fair if you took something of his in return.”
Oh excellent. I've been waiting for the stonehenge charm to come back in some meaningful way; isn't it supposed to be attached to one of the Others Duncan used for the ritual? I think it's an underestimated resource that hasn't even really been brought up as such.
I mean maybe best not to use it against the behaims, when they know more about how it works
but still...a source of power is a potential source of power
“Fell,” I said. “I need to know about the Astrologer. I know she was an apprentice, her master passed the buck to her. She was apparently sympathetic to us, but Conquest tapped her as his champion. I know she apparently summons things, but I don’t know much else.” “She does summon things. Those things are more manufactured than produced. Drawing spirits from the area, then cobbling them together under an impression. If a ghost is a psychic imprint on the fabric of the world, then the Astrologer makes the imprints and then fills them in with the available resources.”
that makes pretty good sense with the name, the parallel of her strength to confirmation bias is something I really like.
“Power has a price. She and her predecessors have paid a literal price for their power. To make her impressions, she uses machines at the outer rim of the city. Lights, lasers, and properties she controls throughout Toronto. Not as organized as you might imagine. They’re points of light on a dark canvas, and she uses them to draw pictures.”
Wow that's so fucking awesome but...seems like it would be a weakness if someone were to go and deactivate her machines while she was distracted. I mean if her summonings don't last very long, then she can't exactly leave a guard for them...
“Or she could find our location, use a computer to turn certain lights on and off, and align her metaphorical ‘stars’ to drop something minor in our midst,” Fell said. “As a practitioner, she’s no particular threat to Conquest. Too conditional. As a strategic asset, she’s a problem.”
Drat. So maybe my harping on Blake not picking her instead of Hyena was misplaced. I still think he could've swept up her, gotten the Hyena on the next pick, and then left Conquest Pauz, but picky picky and she might've been not that much help anyways
“If you want to make it up to me, let’s not make this contest of yours a complete disaster. Suck it up, turn off the news, and focus on the steps we need to take to win the challenge and stop Conquest.” “I think I can do that,” I said. “Good,” he said. “Because there’s a loophole in this contest of yours. Nothing says I have to be loyal or obedient, and as far as I’m concerned, the best way to stop Conquest or his champions from killing you or forcing your surrender is to kill you myself.”
See Fell was almost nice again, and that clued me into something less-nice maybe happening, but sweet scion that's not what I expected. The contest would never end, Conquest wouldn't win, but he also wouldn't lose, and that means Fell would be free. I don't actually blame him for that choice, considering what he has to lose.
“You agree, then?” Fell asked. “Yeah. Can you keep my soul or whatever it is out of his grasp? Killing my mortal body won’t be enough.”
I think Blake is also on the same page, especially since death is probably a whole lot better than what Conquest has planned for him once this is over
My hands were paralyzed, one wrapped around the handle of the Hyena’s sword, spikes sticking through the flesh and out the back of hand, thumb and fingers, too painful for me to let go of it. The other hand was tangled by the locket and the cord that surrounded the imp’s book, fingers bent back out of position. When I moved, it had been a jerky, frustrated movement, the length of the sword, the pain, and the weight of the sword and book all frustrating my attempts to interact with the world.
We're doing a dream sequence
not sure if I'll have much to pull here, but I'm really enjoying it
There was nothing to do but stand there, too tired to move, arms spread like I was crucified, or a bird in mid-flight, staring at Rose and her gathered summonings, with Pauz perched on her shoulder.
"enjoying" might be the wrong word. It's kind of creepy to see that this is Blake's fear for Rose. We know about his fear for himself, but this is the first time we've really had confirmation that he thinks Rose is going down this path, on some level
A small sound escaped my lips as I lay there, panting, trying to convince myself that the infinite space that lurked just outside my field of view wasn’t some vast residence for the sliver of abstract demon that had found its way into my eye.
Oh
stare
“Are you okay?” Rose asked. Her voice, quiet, was eerie, in this time and place. I could see her as she’d been in the nightmare.
But also...she's asking whether you're okay? I think- maybe it's hope, but maybe you two aren't supposed to be enemies?
I was the doer of our pair, the warrior even, by necessity more than because I was suited to it. Rose was the thinker, the scholar with access to the books. Midge… Midge would maybe have been be Rose’s warrior in my place. Making her less reliant on me. Supplanting me.
Becoming less reliant upon you, maybe...I don't know that you two have to function as this pair, there can be multiple warriors, I'm sure you guys can work out a polyammurderous situation here that benefits everyone.
^that's my new term for today I hope everyone was taking notes
“You were watching me sleep?” I asked. I’d tried to sound like I wasn’t suspicious, but I was pretty sure I’d failed. “Evan said you were having a bad dream. I came to make sure you were okay.”
😦 Ilovethis spoop
hug
but not actually
just a metaphorical display of your family cares about you without any physical touching or anythign
“Do you want a hug?” Evan asked. Evan was one of the only people who didn’t make me feel slightly panicky when he touched me. But then again… “I don’t think you can hug me, can you?”
oR MAYBE NOT I'M GONNA CRY
He reached his wings forward to touch the front and back of my neck. “This doesn’t work,” he said, sounding a little frustrated. “Sorry,” I murmured. He hopped down with a brief flutter, then resumed ghost form. He hugged me with arms that couldn’t touch, just putting his arms in the right place.
aaaa
I keep looking for emojis that can properly express what I'm feeling now and they don't exist
it's just so...I love Blake and his weird dysfunctional family where nobody fits into any preconceived familial roles all that well but it doesn't matter because it's gonna be okay and they care about each other and I'm sure someone's gonna ruin this and it's also a little tragic that the one person Blake might be okay with physical contact from is either a bird or incorporeal but I'm still happy about this dammit!
“I don’t know what else to say or do,” he said. “It doesn’t seem right that you don’t get a hug or reassurance when you’ve had bad dreams.” “Part of being an adult, I guess,” I said. “It shouldn’t be.”
You're right about that, Evan. It absolutely shouldn't be.
“Mom and dad never hugged me much,” Rose said. “No,” I said. “I’m kind of angry at them. Or at fake-them, if you will. That they didn’t prepare us better for the world.” “There’s hardship that leaves you stronger, and there’s hardship that leaves you weaker.”
And there's hardship that just makes you a different shape. Better at fitting into some places, much worse at others, and not necessarily stronger or weaker just...different.
“There are good things too,” Evan said. “Good things that make you weaker, and good things that make you stronger.”
Well said. I think this is a really important note of hope among the Thorburns'...general depressingness
“Um. So maybe instead of standing here in the dark, we could do one of the good things that make you stronger?” “Evan’s bored,” Rose said.
Pfft oh yeah also it's just that too get moving Blake
“Rose…” I started. “What?” “Have you noticed anything about Maggie?” “Noticed? No. Why, have you?” “Gut feeling. Something’s off.”
I hate to be immediately suspicious of Rose, but she says she hasn't noticed anything, not that Maggie never told her anything or the information was revealed in a different way
“You think she sabotaged us?” “I don’t know,” I said. “There’s nothing I can put my finger on. But maybe… be wary? In case?”
Or trust her because there's no other choi- yeah probably be careful..
How could I say I didn’t want to take the risk again, without essentially telling Rose that I wanted to strip her of one of the only resources she had in the midst of all this. How could I describe what I’d seen in the nightmare?
Oh easy, you bottle it up and never talk about it until she's casting you into limbo herself!
Maggie had pulled on her jeans while I’d washed my face. She said, “Evan’s saying he wants to go for a motorcycle ride.” Oh. When he’d wanted to do something good and healthy, that’s what he meant.
spoop 🏍 🐦
“Aw.” “Aw,” Rose echoed him. “Maybe you are heartless after all, Blake Thorburn.”
But see she's just being so...familial and cool that I can't read malice or betrayal in it
I ignored her. “Evan, why are you so into the motorcycle when you can fly?” “Because it’s a motorcycle?” “Hard to argue with that kind of reasoning,” Rose commented.
Uh, duh blake
if you could fly you'd still be hyped about your motorcycle don't lie, practitionerism and all that
All forces assembled. We’d collected Ty, Alexis, and Tiff from their camps in the spirit world, Tiff taking watch near the real-world side of the gateway in the garage, stopped for donuts, breakfast sandwiches, and coffee, and got ourselves sorted out before we split up again. Maggie and Fell headed out for a brief visit to the junkyard, in the hopes of catching goblins.
hell yes, preparations are being made, laird is gonna be screwed, fell totally brings up his brother offscreen in a casual conversation about goblins and I don't have to see it I just know that it happened
A figure landed on the next balcony over. So massive she might have knocked it to the ground, if she hadn’t become human in the process of landing.
ohno 🦁
“Hello, Isadora,” I said. “Thorburn. You look better than you did last night.” “Thank you,” I said. “Is there a particular reason for the visit?” “I’m thinking of the trick that circus performers do, spinning plates balanced on fingers and sticks.”
Oh I know where this disturbing metaphor is going
“I’m a mortal man,” I said. “Isn’t it our prerogative to screw with the status quo?” “Just as it’s your prerogative to establish it?” she asked. “I’m not making that a riddle either. It’s a rhetorical question. I will say that in the myths of my time and birthplace, it was traditionally those with divine blood who had the power to affect change. All were at least somewhat Other.” “I was under the impression that all practitioners were at least a little bit Other,” I said. “You’re not entirely wrong.”
But I suspect that the Others affecting change were also kind of cultural zeitgeists that personified themselves in a half-divine fashion- i doubt there's all that much difference anyhow
“Two reasons. One hostile, that may inadvertently help, one helpful reason that may lead to disaster for you.”
Oh goodie!
“Hostile: I’m making a formal declaration of war, in fairness. I will attack you in the next day.” I exhaled slowly. “You couldn’t put it off?” “No. Not really.”
So, So helpful, isa
But I can get how it might be, in the sense that they can stick by conquest's guys and have a little more chaos working in their favor when Isadora shows up and attacks everyone
“The helpful. You should know that when you perish, Rose will be the next Thorburn heir.” “Wait, what? Really?” “Really, Mr. Thorburn. It’s fated.”
Fuck
I mean we knew this
but Blake didn't
and I really didn't want him to find out, and Fell seemed to be keeping a lid on it for all the same reasons, and why the hell and heavens does Isadora tell him!?
okay I really gotta go but this was a great chapter, even if it was just a kind of mellow, setup chapter
see y'all maybe tonight byeeee
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JayManiac 30-Jun-19 09:55 PM
Thanks so much! I'm still a little under, trying to rest up and everything, but it's better than it was yesterday and that's progress.
hug 1
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JayManiac 01-Jul-19 05:56 AM
Alrighty! I'm gonna start tonight's readthrough a little earlier than usual, limit myself to a single chapter, and try not to get yanked around by super off topic threads until midnight! Sounds like a foolproof plan in which nothing could go wrong
🤐 1
speaking of things going wrong:
Pact!
Subordination 6.10, and we're kinda nearing the end of the arc here a little; only three chapters left after this! Are we gonna finish the contest in that amount of pagespace? Maybe? Who knows!?
Besides uh...all of you
Ahem
when we last left off, Isadora had just shown up and helpfully laid out how screwed Blake is
I stopped, and Isadora was content to let the words sink in. I glanced inside. Inside the vacant apartment, Alexis and Ty were drawing on the floor in chalk. Deadly serious. Rose appeared here and there, her distorted reflection appearing in the door of the oven and the glass light fixture. She was no doubt giving directions, and I was pretty sure she had a book held in her hands.
Yeah, I can't imagine that dream + this revelation is gonna go over two well in Blakespace. It's kind of their worst fear, that not only do they not get along or like each other all the time, but now Rose stands to greatly benefit from Blake's demise. Great. And they were just getting along last chapter too! I knew something was fishy with that!
I literally said this morning:
A frown creased Rose’s face, but she left. I saw her rejoin the others. She must have said something, because they all tensed a bit. I held up a hand, telling them to stay back.
I mean I'm not normally on the keep secrets from Rose train but dear Lords of Denmark keep this a secret from Rose.
“You are not long for this world. When you are gone, your partner will take your place. Things will reorder themselves in the aftermath, and she will adopt the ties that you have abandoned. Depending on her nature and the internal logic of things, it’s very possible that minor people in your life will become major people in hers, in the transition. It will be disorienting, for her, for those you two know, and for your enemies. There’s a kind of strategy to it. Rose will be able to dispatch whoever killed you in the chaos that follows. In the days, weeks and months that follow, things will reach an equilibrium.”
This...is awful. I can't imagine being told this, that not only are you gonna die real soon- think blake's been told that enough- but your alternate self just takes over your material life? Will Blake's family members suddenly all remember the reality where they grew up with Rose? Does it just depend on which one of them is corporeal, which version of reality is perceived to have happened?
“She’s murdering me. And Rose is… what, Rose was made, unknowingly complicit? Set up to take advantage of my passing?” “It may be that you two already sense it on an instinctual level, that there is only place for one of you in the world.”
It would explain why Rose and Blake haven't gotten along like I figured they would; if I met an alternate version of me I feel like we'd work pretty well together, but Blake has never really known what to make of Rose being in his life...
“Practitioners and Others can see the ways of things, the ties that bind, and just as a mortal might learn to intuit the weather, we learn to intuit other things. Some of us have a background that lends itself to seeing these things, as the farmer’s attention falls on the weather. Some only have a small sense of things, only when the prevailing winds are especially strong.” “And the prevailing winds are suggesting I’m going to bite it?” “Yes.”
Fuck. Fuck. That's so much worse than what we already knew, so much worse. No wonder he can't catch a break, he's not even supposed to be here, by the universe's decree, in more ways than one! I doubt Blake can fight all that hard against fate, but maybe he can work out a situation where he survives?
What if Blake decides that the only way his fated death can come around is if the death happens to him....or something that counts as him.
I would maybe rather Blake be blissfully ignorant of this too
and me, while we're at it
“Yes. I’m as sensitive to changes in the balance of things as a common man might be to changes in the light or to noise. I’d struggle to explain this to you as much as I would struggle to explain color to the absolutely blind, but I would say that power touched across a great many individuals and places, like a vast stroke of lightning, followed by a thunderclap forceful enough to shift each of those things from their positions.”
Hmmm, I'm quite interested in her role as an Other of balance, of the universe's natural way. If the universe is a writer, she's the paragon...sort of. She's a sentry, she's a defense mechanism for when things aren't happening the way the universe intuits. Unless there are some unseen avenues where her goals and the universe's don't align, but we haven't seen that so far
“I know. It was the younger Behaim that was at fault, who earned my ire here. Time distorted, and everyone that you and the younger Behaim had talked with moved backwards. Reality wobbled quite a bit until you each caught up with the rest of the world. The metaphorical plates fell, and my rest was disturbed.”
This is another weird facet. It didn't feel like Duncan disturbed the natural order in a practitioner-like way or earned Bad Karma because of it, but clearly order was wibbled and wobbled. I also love that we get clarification on what exactly was affected: everything that Blake and Duncan interacted with, and nothing more. It makes sense and makes the Behaim Circle Shenanigans a lot more...shall I say, balanced than they could've been.
She was grouchy because of the little time reversal that Duncan had pulled, and she was giving me a free shot at them first. Was this what it was like being on the other side of the fence? Duncan and Laird had lost the three times, and they’d broken their word, and now other people and things were conspiring to help me screw them over. I wasn’t about to complain.
Are you telling me that the universe is maybe a teensy bit on Blake's side because it's pissed at the Behaims? This may be the greatest day of my livereading life
“Wait, please,” I said. “Two things, if that’s alright?” “Perfectly alright, Mr. Thorburn. I declared war, I’m obligated to hear you out.”
I love this. It's so professorly with just an immediate subversion of "oh yeah I declared war on this twenty year old, I kill him by fourth period"
“Is the figurehead thing why you’re coming after me?” “Yes. We can’t have you unseating the Lord of the City. Your background makes things worse. You’re upsetting things, and while it isn’t so dramatic as what the Behaims did, it’s a problem across the board. You can see what’s happening in the city.”
Well when you put it that way, eye don't see a good way I can argue.
“Things aren’t that binary,” I said. “Existence isn’t black and white.” “Existence is very much binary,” she said. “You exist, or you do not.”
Are you trying to play the grey game with Isadora!?
sorry Blake, but I think that's a bit of a stupid plan
on one side of things, you are certainly not the smartest twenty year old who's tried to debate this particular subject with her
and on the Other side of things she's the Universe's Sage, and thus predisposed to not think you're right here
and thus, to think you're wrong
“I would argue that everything can be broken down to right and wrong,” Isadora said. “Case in point, I can ask, ‘Do you disagree?'” I stayed silent. She smiled a touch. “You don’t give me an answer, because you’re afraid of giving the wrong answer. I just condensed a great many possible answers into two. Right, wrong. You can do the same with all of existence, if you wish.”
I believe in right and wrong, just not Right and Wrong
like, the wrong answer is the one that is counter to blake's goal of "do not die", so he's not going to give that answer to the lady who'll kill him
but that doesn't mean that there's a right goal to have, just right things to do to get to that goal
at no point is there an objective end, only a means
“Look at the very fact that we are alive in the here and now. How likely are we as individuals, how likely are we in this exact state at this exact time? Right is being a point of light in an infinite darkness, and that holds power, because it brings vast complexities into being. Even small decisions or changes in wording might lead you to different courses in life, to meet different people.
Then again, like I said, she's a compelling argumentator, and this is not the first time she's had this conversation with a college age student. I've heard this very philosophy from people who don't live in the world of Pact
One thing I love about Pact's universe, is that your worldview is right
Like, my worldview has to undergo zero changes if it turns out the pact universe is true- and not just because it's a worldview with a strong basis in the ideals of fantasy
Christians, Nihilists, Atheists, Agnostics, Pagans- they all have exactly as much relative evidence that their belief system is true now as before, it's just a matter of which is the most true. Of course, a religion or belief system that says "and every other worldview is wrong" needs that part cut out because there's now evidence of it all, but whatever you believe can easily be justified as more real than the rest
“Then I’ll give you the sort of answer I might have given when I was young, instead. Everything is reducible.” “Even your argument, apparently.” She smiled.
psyduck
Well you know what they say:
The only problem in the world is reductionism
no one?
okay, tough crowd
“There’s a problem with that, though,” I said. “When you asked me if I disagreed, I stayed silent. You reduced it to two possible answers, but I took a third option.” “Silence.”
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha this is the perfect counterargument and she probably has a countercounterargument but right now I'm just happy Blake held his own one more step
“You’re proposing a third option?” “Would I be offending your intrinsic nature if I said I’m proposing a third, fourth and maybe fifth option?” She smiled, “Not at all. My favorite answers to riddles are the ones I could never anticipate.”
But as much as she thinks she's Right about all this, she still has a socratic streak in her when it comes to this kinda thing. I would love to have her as a professor...except for the whole "maybe kick your ass with bad karma" deallio I suppose
“Thorburn. There’s no need to justify why I should leave your friends alone. If they remain out of it, I will leave them be.”
sharkhi
So now if anyone brutally kicks Blake's ass I'm rooting for Isadora
“I wish you luck, diabolist. I will try to find you later in the day.”
You could just...give him luck? 'I wish you luck' coming from an arbiter of luck seems almost condescending
I sighed. I’m going to die. The realization was a heavy one.
If only someone had warned you
The circle closest to me held a woman. She was dressed in brown homespun clothes that were spattered with dark brown patches that I suspected were dried blood, holding a kitchen knife that seemed disproportionately large, all things considered. Her facial features seemed slightly offset, as if they weren’t quite anchored in place, and the longer I stared, the more the eyes, cheekbones, eye brows, nose and mouth seemed to drift from their starting point.
OoooOOoo, I like this description of a more abstract urban legend that everyone sees a little bit differently and doesn't really hold a shape; it's a different method of representing abstraction than, say, barbatorem was. I wonder what object they'll bind her into, or if they're even doing that
A man with an apron and vest, wild orange hair, and slashes of dull ashy yellow wax crusting his skin here and there. One of his eyes was missing, and the orb within was more wax, set with a tiny black dot in the middle, slipped into place.
Shorter description for....tallowman, was it? Yeah, I was pretty excited to see this guy set on...anyone but The Eye
The other circle was empty. I wasn’t an expert, but there was only one Other we had discussed summoning. I’d vetoed the choice.
Am I just...like...crazy for thinking he's totally named Jim Crow? Like that can't be a coincidence. I do love his methodology of fucking with people, and his status as a curse, so I hope he gets summoned
Fuck that. Fuck the hostility, fuck the arguments wasting time, fuck the game of musical chairs.
I've always been one for your pidgeon strategies, blake
I tried to keep my voice level, but a kind of hoarseness found its way in despite my efforts. “In the interest of full disclosure, the Sphinx has informed me I’m fated to die. It won’t be too long. It’s… sounding pretty damn certain, and it fits with what some others have been telling me. Fated, was the word she used.” Evan spoke up, “There’s gotta be a way to stop it.”
If I were Evan, I'd be jumping straight to stopping it too. I mean, he did promise to move on once Blake did, for one, and plus, in the mind of a kid, nothing's really for sure. Or everything is, depending on what they want at the time.
I saw Tiffany’s hands go to her mouth in shock, as she took it in. She was the first to react, oddly enough. Our relationship was the newest, the shallowest. Was that why? did it take longer for others to grasp the full import?
Oh no, oh no no no. We get to watch everyone's reactions to this!? I'm a mixture of excited and full of a sense of impending tears
Alexis’ expression was one of shock, but it kept going, distorting, until it hit some breaking point. Her face crumpled a little, and tears appeared in her eyes. She reached up, as if to hug me, then thought again about it a moment later. I felt like an utter asshole for not just hugging her anyway. That was what happened in the movies, right?
Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I just kind of sat here being sad and looking at this part of the story a lot; don't have much to say now on the other side, so I'm just gonna move on
“I’m sorry Rose,” I told her, and my voice was a little hoarser than before. I didn’t tell her why I was sorry. I’d lie to let her keep worrying. If we were caught up in some dance we weren’t aware of, then maybe mutual self preservation would push her to cooperate where she wouldn’t otherwise.
So immediately after Blake learned about this, my reaction was "keep it a secret", and I think that's what I was supposed to think, because this moment is forcing me to rethink it, recontextualize. The way blake phrases it makes it clear how...ugly it is, revealing this part but not the next. She's here, probably feeling the worry about her own existence that Blake references, but probably just also feeling...well, like Blake did when he found out how long vestiges last. I think it's impossible that Rose doesn't at least kind of really care for Blake on some level, and that's an emotion that I feel should be repaid with honesty. I don't actually like manipulating people's emotions with lies, it's just...disgusting and sometimes I hate even watching it happen; I had to cover my face with my program when I went to see DEH, this is not something I handle well from any end, including bystander. Which is of course, what I am in this story.
“I’m sorry Evan,” I said. “We made a deal, though, and I’m going to try to make the most of the time we have left, to follow through.” He didn’t respond, but he hopped over a bit and settled closer to my neck, leaning on me. Ty hugged Alexis in my place.
Doofscord doesn't have any emojis for unrelenting sadness and that's something that I feel is missing from a proper livereading-wildbow-stories environment
okay I'm ready to keep reading now, box of tissues a little closer on hand this time. I think we're done with that part of the chapter but hey you never know
Rose still seemed to be in denial. But she’d dropped the pretense of a fight and she seemed to be in my court, now.
HhhHHhhHHHHHHhhh I hate that Blake is immediately being rewarded by this choice I'm so uncomfortable with because I know it's gonna come back and bite him later; these things always, always do
well sometimes they don't
but not when karma hates you this much that's for damn sure
I wished it hadn’t affected Alexis as much as it had. Ty, too, seemed to have switched to a very introspective mode.
I actually was waiting for Ty's reaction, because I'm interested in how various guys in stories deal with and process emotion. I've found it a somewhat limiting factor in my own life, and I relate heavily with Ty so far, so I was on the lookout; it seems like this is what we're gonna get. That by his understanding of what's best, he's keeping it inside.
We’d agreed not to tell Fell and Maggie, when we heard them at the door and realized our time for mourning was over. Not telling them meant putting on our best game faces. Some of us were doing better than others.
That's uh....helluva way to psych yourselves up
I wonder how they'd react
I doubt Maggie would be comfortable, but she'd probably affect a kind of "been there done that" attitude about her friends dying.
And Fell did offer to kill blake, who took him partially up on that offer- it was more of a statement really- just a chapter or two ago
I drummed my fingers on the kitchen counter that divided the kitchen from the living room. “We hit them from multiple directions, and we hit them hard. I’m inside the building with Evan and Rose.”
Okay, heist movie planning, got it. Fuck yes. Except nothing's gonna go to plan, because these are the behaims they're probably gonna shunt a dinosaur through a portal to eat Blake
But people worked to leave legacies, and while my ambitions were pretty damn low, merely on leaving the world a better place than I’d left it, Alexis was having to face the fact that the legacy she was leaving was in jeopardy. One of the people she’d saved and helped rehabilitate was potentially going to die.
Yeah, I don't know if she sees it that way blake
it might be a little less "oh no all my hard work gone to waste"
and a little more "oh no my FRIEND BLAKE IS GONNA BE DEAD"
you could sit there and pretend like they're the same, if you were matt really wanted to, but the way it's framed in the person's mind is important
here more than anywhere
“No idea,” I said. “But Rose has the firepower, Evan can hopefully help me work around the traps. We have Alexis and Ty as eyes on the scene, and Fell guarding the perimeter to distract further trouble. In an ideal world, this is our chance to take out one of Conquest’s champions.”
An ideal world, you say?
it's fun because 1. this world is not the ideal one for blake haha
and 2. the spirit world is a world of ideas, ideals
“The goblin catching expedition was a wash,” she said. “I have my gremlins, and some Faerie tricks I’ve picked up, but that’s it.” “Faerie and Goblins are usually opposing,” Fell said. “Allying or borrowing the help of one usually scares off the other. A feud dating back thousands of years, even. It’s surprising you’re able to balance the two.” “I know,” Maggie said. “But I hate goblins, and that counts for something for at least one Faerie.”
I went back and checked, and yes Maggie's the one that was dealing with Padriac at the start of the story. I really love the idea of her Faerie tricks and Goblin tricks interacting and playing off of each other, it's like you could make a whole series out of thi- ohhhhh
Rose spoke up. “Saying ‘we’re going to do this fast’ feels like you’re tempting fate when we’re talking about chronomancers.”
🐰
“Definitely,” she said. “But since we know who we’re up against, I did some reading. Time is a fundamental force. It’s hard to find a valid counterpoint to it. But it’s a heavier thing to manipulate. The restrictions are bigger, and the costs are stricter. Physical space is one of the big restrictions. You mess with time, you have to work within certain boundaries. The house is a pretty clear example of that.”
Ilovethis
I like the idea of Time and Space working as each others' limits, you can only affect a large space for a short time and vice versa, and plus it's something I like specifically when Wildbow plays with it. Ties in pretty well with the Homestuck conception of Time and Space too, as the most nebulous and fundamental pairing among the twelve aspects. Have I mentioned that Homestuck's Aspects are the greatest non-pact magic system ever?
“Turning back the clock, if the sphinx was right, is probably limited to degrees of separation and connections. Only people that are three degrees of separation from the target, you, and from Duncan, or something like that. If there were ripples that extended beyond that third degree of separation, then there would be incongruities.”
Like I said, I was confused about Duncan's time bubbles before, wondering what the limit of them was, if he was looping the police station, the whole world, why Blake had to be aware of what was happening, etc. I knew there was an explanation for it, I just didn't know if we'd get it and I'm really happy we did because it slots in perfectly.
How was I supposed to process this? On the shallow level, we were talking about employing monsters to stop Laird and Duncan, very dangerous creatures. On the other hand, I was hearing about those penalties, and my knee-jerk reaction was to think that I wouldn’t make my worst enemy face something like that.
Laird knew the risks and also is literally your worst enemy blake
“That’s essentially it,” I said. “If ghosts or vessels start to show up, Ty and Alexis do what they can to warn us so we can clear out, or Fell and Maggie go after the Shepherd. If we end up facing the Astrologer, Fell tries to bend the paths the light is following and distort the picture.” “She’s stronger at night,” Fell said. “Less of a concern.”
Sounds like a plan that won't go wrong and has no chance at doing so. Just like all my plans!
Fell, Maggie, Rose and Alexis used the gate to cross over, and they became vague silhouettes, pale. Rose was even harder to make out than usual, but she was brighter than the rest. Two overlapping realities. I had to wonder if this kind of vague form was what Others made out when they looked at us.
👀 stare
I focused on them until I could make them out, as if I were adjusting the dial on a microscope. Alexis stared back at me, her eyes lacking irises or pupils. As it had after the awakening ritual, her hair shifted as if in a breeze.
If not using the gate, then is Blake even crossing over? He's just going material, right? What's he doing right now, then? Am I supposed to know all this yet? My best guess is that he's still in the material world, he's just trying to be able to see his friends on the other side™
Fell was also wearing an astral body, and his clothing had changed in a way that left me no doubt he’d inscribed it like I had my suit. I could still peer through it, seeing the holster of his gun and the powder that now stirred as if it were alive. I deliberately avoided looking below the belt.
did you now? ♠
yeah, probably
Interesting detail, that the powder is stirring. We never really got what exactly illusion magic is or what Others and principles it's based on, but it makes sense for it to be alive, in any case
Maggie – Maggie was just as problematic, but for different reasons. A touch too young for my conscience. What I could see of her without looking right at her was surprising.
I keep forgetting that the age difference between Blake and Maggie matters since I'm right between their ages. Maggie doesn't seem all that young to me, Blake doesn't seem that old, and I forget.
Maggie was the most intense to look at. She was something wild and restless, her hair tangled and bristled like a briar bush, eyes dark, slightly thinner than she was in reality, her fingertips and ear tips were pointed.
Just what kind of fairie tricks have you been using!? Gods Damn!
Remind me to tie the Faerie and Goblins to Homestuck's Hope and Rage aspects in the future, either in an essay or random piece of fanart
Or, maybe, was she right? Had she really dealt with an ‘eight’ on a scale of one to ten?
Again, maybe something happened in the past few days that even we're not aware of.
Fundamentals had warned about using the sight too much, going too deep. I was starting to understand how that worked. When we crossed over, our sight had adjusted. If I peered hard enough or long enough, I suspected, I might not be able to readjust my vision to view the normal world at all. Go too deep, exploring permutations and distant perspectives of things, and perhaps you couldn’t resurface.
Hahhahahahahahahaha the metanarrative of this is fabulous, and I think I'm beginning to understand what's going on. He's making sure he can see his friends with the Sight even if he's in the real world
I think
Fuck, that's also the first time i've screwed up the whole "real world, material world" thing! I've been trying to be careful about that, but Fell refers to the material world as the real one and I think he messed me up.
I adjusted my vision until they were blurry enough that I could look at them without being embarrassed, and signaled the go-ahead, carrying the posterboard.
I just instinctively blurred my eyes in response, defocused my vision, and now i think I understand exactly how this works
Interesting, to see how some pedestrians walked through Fell and Alexis, while others stepped around him, as if unconsciously acknowledging his presence.
Just what frequency you're ooonn, maaaaaaaan............
“Old man,” Rose whispered. “Over the staircase. Crucified by gold chains. Sand leaking from the areas where the chains bite into the walls.” I nodded. They were here. I turned, heading off to find another, less direct route to the chief’s office.
Oh that's awesome, I'm ready
“Four?” “Four Behaims. Very close. Younger.”
What!? I didn't expect to be dealing with anyone but Duncan and Laird, but I guess Laird called in more competent cousins
Two to my right. A teenage girl and a younger boy who was maybe just on the cusp of teenhood. The boy had what looked like a pad of yellow sticky notes held between index and middle finger, and was periodically flipping through it with his thumb, a practiced gesture. There was something drawn on the top one, and it looked complicated.
If that's an implement that's awesome; a flipbook, maybe? I could imagine that being used for some awesome chronomancy
I wouldn’t be slipping by. It was a shame Fell wasn’t willing to teach me his illusion, because I’d really like having it.
Teach you basic!? Might as well teach you latin and french, while I'm at it
For now, the number of people in our immediate proximity was an advantage. Cover, and they couldn’t do anything obvious without drawing attention. “You wanted me to be your firepower, Blake,” Rose interrupted my thoughts. “Not against kids,” I muttered.
Yeah, I admit the image of tallowdude wrecking Laird was a lot easier to swallow
“I need you to stall them. Going to duck into the spirit world. With luck, their sight isn’t that good, I can slip by.”
Guess this is what he meant by escape hatch. But if the younger behaims are on this side, then it only stands to reason Duncan and Laird could be on the Other
I dug through my backpack, pulling out the posterboard. “They didn’t see the connections as well as I did. Their sight isn’t that well trained.”
Which is crazy, right? I mean it kind of suggests Nick might've been on the money when it comes to Blake having a lot more experience than your average week-2 practitioner
The boy with the sticky notes, the girl I assumed to be his sister. “Laird uses children to fight on his behalf?” I asked. “We volunteered,” the girl said. “Those books you ruined? Those were valuable. That was fucked up.”
Oh yeah! I remember that! Don't you have a promise to keep to a certain little girl, too?
“You shit on them?” the boy asked. “In our aunt’s house?” “To be fair, I only let a goblin loose,” I said. “It wasn’t fair at all,” he said. He held up the stickies so I could see the inscription. It looked like a complex piece of clockwork more than a magic circle. “You probably deserve this.”
1. No it wasn't probably all that fair at all.
2. holy shit that's awesome I love sticky note magic
3. ahahahhahahahahahhah Dickswizzle shit on the books
4. you could tell them that something you summoned avenged their books recently, maybe that'd calm em down
“Your family killed my cousin, and tried to get me killed. I’m not supposed to fight back?”
Was that a technical lie? I mean, Maggie killed your cousin...
it's picky, but so is the universe, when it comes to you
Mary staggered to her feet. I could see the fear on the girl’s face as she remained within her small circle, arms tight against her side, chin raised.
Yeah, wowie, do not like that one bit
The girl reached into her pocket, careful not to let her elbow move beyond the boundary of the circle. She unrolled a small scroll. “I hereby bespell you, Blake Thorburn, by the-”
These guys kinda seem...lame
like compared to blake, the eye, the shepherd, everyone who's used to dealing with this kinda conflict- even duncan as a cop, they're just not up to speed
It's not like they couldn't pull of a win on Blake here if they play their cards right, don't get me wrong, but these are not your practitioner elite
Gav stumbled back, his fear visible even with the sunglasses hiding his eyes. The door swung shut. He didn’t know that Mary only attacked women.
Like take our buddy gav for instance; just noped the fuck out of there
The girl’s fear was palpable. She shrieked as Evan flew by again, and the scroll tumbled to the ground. “My uncle-” “-can come,” Rose said. “We’re dealing with him anyway.”
This is the first time the Thorburns have felt like, yknow, a threat. They would've dealt with kicking the asses of themselves from a week ago like child's play, it's so cool to see their growth as practitioners!
I pushed her to one side on my way to the door. I kicked the chain under the nearest stall. Mary swung her knife. “Scare, no permanent damage,” Rose ordered, stressing permanent. Which was probably scary enough when you were disarmed and had a knife-wielding Other on you.
This is so fucking badass,
while still being really really disturbing!
horrawesome, I believe it's called
The officer turned my way. “There’s a girl in there with slashed wrists,” I told him. His reaction was immediate, calling for help, shoving his way inside. More officers came running, and the area was chaotic. Blocking the young Behaims from their sister or cousin.
He moves with the efficiency of...of Laird
oh no....
oooohhhhh nooooooo
I mean he doesn't brutalize these kids or anything, but they've just been put in this situation where they're being taken out by brutally efficient people who were mad at the person right above them in the family line and have kinda turned their family name into a curse
sound familiar?
I'm not saying that they're becoming Laird or anything
just that I can see how Laird becomes Laird
As I passed the pictures mounted on the wall, Rose walked in step with me, and the Bloody Mary walked in step with her.
Horrawesome indeed
well, that's the chapter! My tears have all dried in subordination to my feeling's of "fuck yeah" and "oh fuck" respectively, and I'm gonna go to bed before I talk too much.
👋
Avatar
JayManiac 02-Jul-19 03:13 AM
Okay! I'm gonna try to knock out two chapters, wrapping up the arc minus the histories because those are usually longer and also I'd be here for 6 hours
6.11! When we last left off...Blake was actually being pretty badass but he was still pretty screwed
Avatar
JayManiac 02-Jul-19 03:23 AM
Okay, so I futzed with the website for far too long before realizing what was happening
Duh, duh this is already so fucking awesome and clever and I haven't read a damn word
I don't really have any guesses as to what it means just yet so let's get straight into it: 6.12
maybe I will be reading the histories today
Almost like I suddenly had enough
time
I’d faced more than a few situations that left me bewildered, scrabbling for mental footing before I could be killed or caught in a trap. This situation, as it turned out, was more bewildering than most, the imminent death or trap a little more questionable. The Behaim kids had caught me, I realized. They’d surrounded me.
Okay, okay we're playing major catchup here and we gotta figure out why; When we last left off he seemed to have them on the ropes which should've been the first clue
but is blake missing time, or are we missing time?
I was also in a foreign place. The far end of the spirit world version of the police station’s parking lot. Everything was fenced in, except for the dilapidated gate at the end, where an old Father Time figure was lurking, bearded, old, and robed, with golden chains draped over the ground around him like a squid’s limp tentacles. Three on the side of me closest to the building, sunglasses and Father time on the other side.
Father Time's description is quite awesome, yes. Are the golden chains his bindings, or...something else? I can't really think of what chains would have to do with time, except for being tied to a pocketwatch or something
I just dealt with you.
Okay, so we're actually more aware of what's going on than Blake is; we can intuit that the behaim kids skipped over time because we're missing a chapter here, while Blake is left to wonder what the fuck is happening
I’d seen the Behaim ritual and the aftermath of accelerated time around the house, I’d seen Duncan turn back time, and now this. Had they rewound themselves? How did that explain my being here? Had they stopped time and moved things in the interim?
Rewind time? Sounds a little far fetched, but I suppose it could happen...life is strange, after all
“Are you as confused as I am?” I muttered. “We’re not where we’re supposed to be,” Evan commented.
Ah, good. I didn't really expect Evan to remember, but it's good to know he suffers whatever time effect blake does
No sign of our resident girl in the mirror or her knife wielding Other.
We are not the champions
Man, Blake is super screwed; he has Evan, but he can't use any of his own magic during the contest, so how the hell is he gonna get out of this one?
I suppose the behaim kids can't kill him, because if I remember correctly Blake has to be killed by one of the Champions for it to count, but if they've been put on biding time duty...we may as well consider it already bided
“Gut feeling on an escape route?” I murmured, a little quieter than before. Evan turned his head. I glanced without turning my head. He was looking at a police van, fairly nondescript, but for a red and blue stripe at the side and a coat of arms on the side. The nose pointed at me, rear bumper facing the chain-link fence.
Yup, makes sense. Just fuckin...steal a cop car
i mean they're in the spirit world, so not fair, but also I wonder how that works exactly
One of them was doing something, because my legs were moving more sluggishly than my upper body, as if I were wading through water. My shoulder ached something fierce, and I couldn’t think back to any incident that might have caused it.
Ah yes, just that thing, that happened in 6.11......
So they've put blake's mind of a chapter ago...into his current body?
Because I'm sure Blake would've narrated everything for us in the chapter, so they didn't just Hiro Nakamura him, or else he probably wouldn't have whatever that injury is
Evan’s passing flight helped me shift my legs into position, and helped dismiss whatever effect was accumulating there.
Does Evan dispel magical effects with his presence? I feel like we've seen him maybe do it a couple times and he seems awfully good at avoiding things like the Abstract Demon
maybe that's also just cuz he's...like...a really small bird and that comes as an advantage of being a bird
The top of the van was slick with wet snow, but I managed to find my balance. The top of the chain-link fence was just about level with my collarbone. A short jump, easy enough to make, even with me in a less than stellar physical state. I didn’t make it. Evan was the reason. He flew past me, and he altered my trajectory.
I'm sure it wasn't his fault he's been through a lot you can't blame him for what happened it was an accident
(if this situation happens with any other character prepare for me to go on a 6 page rant about how irresponsible they are)
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Ishamoridin 02-Jul-19 03:43 AM
YBUTE(eE) (edited)
Avatar
JayManiac 02-Jul-19 03:43 AM
I know
I'm Being Unfair To Everyone (except Evan)
I'm being unfair in Evan's favor
The older girl Mary had attacked spoke up. “We volunteered. We take you out, the family fortunes improve, and because we had a hand in it, our fortunes improve too.” I had to bite off the urge to make a sarcastic retort.
Blake you've had eleven- maybe even twelve or thirteen at this point who knows how long it's been- days to purge your sarcasm from your being what gives
“I see,” I said. “Where does this go? Killing me?” “Binding you,” Sunglasses told me. He looked at the younger boy. “Craig?” Craig tore off a sticky note. The one on top that I’d seen earlier. Like a piece of clockwork.
Yep, they can't kill him...but they can bind him? I mean maybe he'll just start experiencing things way too fast to keep up with until things return to normal just in time to be stabbed by Laird
“Again, Ainsley,” Sunglasses said, speaking to the girl that Mary had sliced. Ainsley drew a striped candle from her purse with one hand, and it lit itself. She already had needles in her other hand. I couldn’t imagine many situations where one of my enemies using needles was a good thing.
HahahahaNopenopenopenopenope
are those needles to resew the fabric of time or something?
I pointed. Evan darted straight for Ainsley and the candle.
I love how they have this system now, but I can't help but wonder if the behaims have maybe caught on to their patt-
He stopped a foot in front of Ainsley, and I felt as though I’d been hit by a car. I tumbled, landing with my back to the fence.
oh
“That never gets old,” Craig said, still holding his sticky notes. “Shh,” Sunglasses told him.
Wow I already hate you with a burning fuckin passion. I might end up hating you less than the last craig that was in this story...
but I dowght it
Ansley slid a needle into the candle, right at the base. “Zero hour,” she murmured, “Let us begin.”
Yeah I was relieved for like four words and then-
“Hour one,” Ainsley said, sliding a needle in at the first stripe. “I bind your legs, Blake Thorburn. I bind the pigeontoed that first held you up. I bind the legs you wear as a man, now, and the crooked weary hips that will be yours when you’re old.” I could feel my legs getting heavier again. “I reject your binding,” I spat the words, “Because I have sources telling me I won’t fucking make it to old age. Your third point doesn’t stick.” “Doesn’t matter,” Sunglasses said. Ainsley nodded, grave.
Fuck! That's gotta be the worst: you can't even use the fact that you're dying to your advantage! Well then what the fuck was the point of dying in the first place!?
Evan fluttered, trying to put distance between himself and the kids. Sunglasses kicked him.
Wow hello, new least favorite Behaim
and that is fuckin saying something
Duncan was nicer to Ev- okay no Duncan broke Evan's neck but still
“Hour three,” Ainsley said, “I bind you in place, the cradle with its bars. The career with its trappings. The cage of the body, the deathbed, the coffin.” “I reject your binding,” I gasped, as I slumped down. “I rejected it once, I reject it again. I was never going to be able to hold a career, I can’t now, as a diabolist and a target for just about fucking everyone. I’m probably not going to die an old man, either. I reject it, I reject it, I reject it!” “This isn’t about you,” Sunglasses said. “It’s about saying things that other forces understand. But by all means, please keep going.”
Yeah but i'd think that maybe this would work a little bit, I think Blake has the right idea, just not enough umph to back it up, not to mention no way to get that umph
and Lords, Sunglasses is insufferable
“Hour five…” she said. “You skipped one,” I said, as she worked a needle into the soft wax. She didn’t flinch as hot wax dripped past her fingertips, catching on the needles.
Fascinating. Not that we've seen that anywhere else though, so I guess it must not mean much
“Then I want to fly,” I said. “Evan, I name you. We’re kin in our desire for freedom, our desire to keep moving. You and me are bound, what’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine. Lend me your power, give me your wings.”
Yes, yes! Now that Blake has rejected three bindings the power is-
Evan started to move, but a tap of someone’s boot sent him sprawling, and left me on my hands and knees on the ground, grunting at the pain in between gasps for air.
welp
that didn't do anything. Fuck.
Evan, having faked how hurt he was, took off, flying under the nearest car before he could be kicked again. I caught him.
sharkhi
The effect didn’t break.
pika
“Lay it on thicker, Ains. Craig? Go get your dad. Watch the barrier at the doors, we don’t want the others coming through to rescue him.”
Is this Laird's kid? would explain all the being-an-asshole
“Hour eight,” Ainsley said. Another needle in the candle. She held it in such a way that the needles stuck out through the gaps between her fingers, wax running over the backs of her hands. “I take the freedom you cherish, Blake Thorburn. I take your wings, I take your claws, I take your ability to crawl, to slither, to leap and trawl. I take this freedom from you as time takes all things.” The pressure that had weighed me down before now pressed in from all directions. “Rhymes,” I said, in an effort to fight past my frustration. “Cute.” “I try,” she said.
It is kinda cute. But also really disturbing considering well..what blake's freedom means to him. This is just the worst of it all. Also she skipped more.
I flung him, back and away from the others. Sunglasses stepped forward, disc raised, but Evan was already gone, up and over the fence, then down, so he could take cover behind it, flying around the building. Sunglasses relaxed.
I mean Blake tells him to get help, but how far away can Evan and blake get? I don't know if it's as intense as Lyra and Pantelimon or anything, but Evan seemed to say he couldn't go all that far.
“One,” I said, “Two, three, four, five…” “Hour-” Ainsley started. “…six, seven, eight…”
Hahahhahahahahahahahahahaha Blake is the best
after Evan of course
It was childish, but I was going to disrupt her concentration any way I could. The numbers were important, no doubt, I had no idea why or how, and I was going to throw as many numbers out there as I could. When kids did it, they did it with random numbers. Ty had shown me the truth, once upon a time, when I was measuring things for a display. Count in order, and you could more effectively disrupt someone’s ability to recall numbers. Their minds would get caught up in the flow of numbers, and they’d lose track.
See, Blake's circle's helping him even now! Now if only they'd come fucking help him! I love that Blake is constantly going back to his pidgeon strategies and seeing if they work
Sunglasses and the youngest girl turned their heads at the same moment. “Trouble,” Sunglasses said. “Someone stepped into the snare,” the youngest of the two girls said. “They won’t make it much further.”
I don't know, I bench press microwaves
I didn’t know enough to free myself, and I didn’t know enough to bind them faster or better than they were binding me. Attacks? I had no weapons. The practice? No.
Yeah, I think Blake is just super screwed here, and Laird has official conquest License To Kill, so...
“Kind of sheltered, aren’t you? That wasn’t even remotely diabolic.” “It was barbaric. Using something like that on me?”
Now I could see how you'd be mad....
lords, Blake is so hard boiled after like two weeks he's just done with everyone's shit
these kids have know about practitionering their whole lives and Blake presumably handed their asses to them before they...uh handed their asses back? I'm not sure how the metaphor works here
“Taken down by a sticky note?” I asked. My supposed savior was stuck, trapped in one place, and Evan was stuck with them. I could only stall.
You know who's great at killing time....🐰
I heard a loud crash. The car closest to the door moved. It didn’t move fast, but it still moved, rolling between Tandie and the door. “No, please, no,” Tandie said. “No horror movie stuff please, no.”
Like look at this! Blake would just be like "ah fuck, someone's just fuckin with me again. His life has moved far past horror movie. Even if these guys think Craig is good I can't shake this feeling that I have...that they're all so lame
(edited)
I mean I feel bad for them too, don't get me wrong
but mostly I feel as frustrated as Blake probably does
Her screams turned more frantic as she got a look under the car. She began to crawl away on three limbs. “Come, Tandy!” Sunglasses called out. He wasn’t looking as a small figure crawled over the open car door. It was the size of a chimp, roughly as hairy, but less consistently hairy, with a receding hairline and thick body hair. Its feet and hands were clawed, and it had no tail. The macabre overbite showed off an uneven row of fangs.
Um...Pauz? that you?
What was eerie was how it had decorated itself. It wore a makeshift monocle that wasn’t round, but held in place by points of glass that punctured its eye socket. Its genitalia was decorated, pushed through a series of washers and wound up by wires that bent it into some grotesque art piece.
Not Pauz, one of Maggie's, then
At least I don't think Rose ever planned on summoning something this....uh...unique?
“I bind you, Blake Thorburn, as I mark the twenty-first hour. I bind you for the eighth time, I fix you in place by the cardinal and intercardinal directions…” The car behind her, the one with the male goblin within, started up, rear lights glowing.
What are the intercardinal directions? And also, you're gonna get hit by the car
“Ainsley,” I said. “I bind myself, until you’ve released me. Get out of the fucking way!” The car’s wheels spun before it got traction. That bought Ainsley enough time to look at me, eyes wide, then to move.
Wait that actually means he just swore some kind of oath. I mean he could fanagle the language, but not helpin his case. Le sigh...I suppose it's good she got out of the way
Untouched by the crash, almost invigorated, if sheer excitement and activity were any suggestion, the male gremlin crawled up onto the roof of the police car. The female was currently dancing circles around Sunglasses, who was kicking at it while hugging Tandy close with one arm. He had the golden disc in one hand, and was periodically angling it at the gremlin, trying to catch it with a reflected beam of light.
This is such a comedic moment, these two gremlins dancing literal circles around the behaim kids and just giving them a little bit of horror and eugh
I glanced at Ainsley. She still held the candle. She looked down at the candle, then back at me. She shook her head. I deflated a little.
You stupid...urghhhh this is the most frustrating "battle" Blake has had to sit through so far
He dismantled his makeshift weapon, shook a shell out, then reached behind him, digging for something. I took note of the fact that he wasn’t digging in his satchel… and he wasn’t wearing pants.
Hammerspace is not for the faint of heart...or colon
Craig squeezed through the gap. He took in the scene. A parking lot thrown into disarray, his cousins in peril. “What the hell?” “Gremlins!” Ainsley shouted from the far end of the lot.
This is just fucking hilarious. I mean don't get me wrong goblins are fuckin terrifying sometimes, but they're just so funny on the crudest levels, I love it
“I forbid you from biting or harming me,” I growled. “Nuh, we’re lovey-dovey,” he growled the words with a distinct English accent. “Bugger me, diabolist, and bugger me well. I’ve got sharp stuff stowed back there. I’ll bite you all I want.”
I almost, almost thought it wouldn't get funnier, but then he had an English accent
billiant
just brilliant
“Owen’s going to get hurt if that engine explodes. I bound myself to save your life. You-” “You were bound,” she said, still responding too fast. She was shaking her head, as if trying to deny the situation. “You didn’t have to.” “I saved your life!” I shouted. “Are you willing to trade away his for some better fortune in the family!?”
he did in fact save your life. Ugh, spoiled rich magic kids are so frustrating
“Because if you are, then I’m fucking better than you!” I shouted. “You’re never going to be better than me!” she said, a note of hysteria in her voice. “I could let a hundred people die and I still wouldn’t be as bad as you are when you’re just existing!"
jkjnhjjvhjcghbjkbjknklbnlblbkjblbbk.b,bk.hjnbggvxcvxcxddfgfcxdxdfgf
I could've just typed <hits keyboard in furious rage and frustration> but that was more satisfying
also, she's being a total dick here, but you maybe have let a hundred people die, blake
probably not a hundred actually, but more than one
“You morons! You’re willing to die for this?” “To stop you?” he asked. The car started up. “Yeah,” he finished. Fucking kids drank Laird’s kool aid.
They're idiots. Blake is the smartest entity in a hundred yard radius and that's not a situation you want to be in
okay father time might beat him
but not if he signed up with these fuckers
“I’ll let you go if you go after Laird Behaim. I can sense the connection on the other side of the door.”
I wanna see screwloose vs Laird, the final showdown
he's just so smug and calm and collected all the time that I gotta see him react to the interference of a gremlin
“Free, but you leave humanity alone.” I saw indecision on his face. “Yeah!” I might have been missing something, but my gut said this little bastard was just a short-term thinker.
You just made life heck for this poor little penis-artist
One shin was caught between the bumper of the car and the side of another. He screamed.
Listen, I'm not gonna say he deserved that
but he really really did tho
“Evan, we’re connected. Nothing can keep us apart. Let’s use that.” I felt something click. Thirty seconds later, Evan descended from the sky.
sharkhi
Screwloose was lurking under a vehicle. I had no idea what he was doing. Utter chaos.
And I love it. When the best part of the scene is the goblins, you know you're doing something wrong, behaims
“Rose is inside, and I think her monsters are too. She can’t get out.” What the fuck was going on? Did I miss something?
I don't know, blake! Where's my god damn six dot eleven blake!!?
“Either the imp or the sword. Fell has both?”
I mean, you chose them as your champions....for...probably worse
“You want the imp, then?” Evan asked, with a note of hope. “The imp… it’s dangerous. It’s a bad precedent.” “You want the Hyena,” he said, with a note of disappointment. Disappointment in me?
Yes disappointment in you, dumbass! Did you miss the part where he fuckin hates that thing!?
He wanted to shit on it, Blake!
shit on it
“People might die if we do.” “No,” I said. “No, I don’t think so. Not if we’re careful.” “You can’t be careful with something like that.”
Dammit Blake you're making the same arguments Rose was making a chapter or two ago stoppit!!!
“We can try,” I said. “Listen. Find the sword. Tell it… fuck me, I’m guessing again. But it bound itself as much as I bound it. It surrendered to my will, and you’re an extension of my will. Tell it that it’s free for ten minutes, provided it accepts the conditions and it agrees to be thoroughly and equally bound after those ten minutes are up, no matter what happens to me or to it. Tell it that it can’t hurt anyone or anything without our express permission. Tell it that it has to do everything I- no, everything you say.”
This is 20x worse than what I thought Blake was gonna do with it. Just use Pauz! He'll blend it great with the gremlins, it'll be a grand ol' time!!
“Will you remember all that?” I asked. “Yes.” “Will you forgive me, Evan?” “Yes,” he said, decisively. “Because your heart’s in the right place, even if this is stupid.”
Awwww!
bulba
But you're gonna have to try a little harder with me, blake buddy.
Your heart's in the right place but your head is a little bit....ahead of where it's supposed to be haha
Ainsley had four needles in her second candle, but the wax was melting in streams and rivulets that were running down to her elbow, inside and outside her sleeve. It was apparently hot and intense enough that she was flinching, even as she fought to recite her words and stick more needles into it.
This is...super disturbing. That they've been so thoroughly convinced Blake is no better than a literal demon
Laird, followed by the two younger kids. My sense of the connection had been accurate. He glanced over the situation. He drew and fired his gun into the door of the police car with spinning wheels. The acceleration stopped.
Dammit I thought that'd be funnier
but also
now I'm a little more in line with the whole Hyena plan, seeing as maybe with some luck it takes Laird's head off
Something tripped, and a device launched out from under the car. Like a hockey puck, it skidded out beneath Laird’s outstretched foot. Laird stopped, foot suspended in mid-step. He moved it out of the way, bent down, and carefully picked up the object. It looked like some sort of small bear trap. “Maggie, I presume,” Laird said.
yeah...
he's just so brutally efficient, like an adult coming in to see his kids have wrecked the house
I'm just reminded of that one kid who doesn't get that the party's over and throws something, which the parent just catches
and they're like "oh im fuck'd aren't I"
“You’re far from being my favorite person in the world, you know that?” “I do. I’ll live, basking in the irony that I’m really doing you a service.” “A service.” “Most of the others want to see you dead. I want to see you live, ideally as a non-threat, for at least a little while longer.”
Uh...well that's...good? Maybe? I dunno, most of Conquest's other champions would've just killed 'im and been done with...but Laird? What's his game!?
Taking the reins from Conquest after all?
“I may be your biggest ally here,” Laird said. “Conquest wants you dead, I want you bound. The sooner you offer your surrender, the better off we all are.”
Wonder what all your kids are gonna say to that. "but dad, doesn't that mean that you're trying to use the demon for your own benefit!?"
“Some consider that kind of accusation a grave insult,” he said. “Good,” I said. “Add ‘fuck you sideways‘ to the insults you’re due. You’re not my biggest ally. He is.” Laird turned. The Hyena prowled forward. Evan was perched on one tattered ear, wings spread.
Hahahahahahahahahhahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
“Ah, we expected that one,” Laird said. “Craig, take Owen and Tandy inside!”
You FUCKING ASSHOLE WHAT THE FUCK
“Go, whelp!” Evan ordered. “Obey me, mutt!”
Hahahaha This is delightful, though
“I don’t know whether to respect your integrity for leaving the imp be, or to pity your lack of foresight.”
Oh good, that decision that lost you respect with Evan won you respect with Laird. I'm sure it was a good choice.
“Hurghf and burgfh!” I managed, one finger extended. “What?” Laird asked. “Huff and puff!” Evan shouted. “Do it, ugly! Huff and puff, there!” The Hyena blew.
Please, please. All I want is for Laird to be caught off guard one single time
She, however, wasn’t prepared for the other effect of the Hyena’s breath. I could smell it from halfway down the parking lot. She staggered, doubled over, and vomited.
hahahahahahahahahaha the power of bad breath saves the day!
“Don’t move,” Laird said. I heard the cock of a gun.
he's free
yay?
🎊
“I’m not taking my gun off the diabolist. Bind it.” “Okay,” Ainsley said. She drew out a candle.
Did he just...refer to Blake as an 'it'?!
(also hey Reuben! I don't see you very often in these livereads but I listen to DiP between each chapter and I'm loving what you guys bring to the book!)
The goblin extinguished it with a stream of foul smelling urine. Much as one might hold one thumb over the end of a tap or garden hose to concentrate the stream, the workings of wire and more made for a surprising long-distance spray. Laird shifted position, turning sideways, raising his coat with his free hand to block the stream. “I hate goblins.” “If they keep this up, I may start to like them,” I said.
Goblins 👏 are 👏 the 👏 be- remembers how they destroyed that entire town and also that they're very literally the worst
Goblins 👏 are 👏 occasionally 👏 tolerable
but only when they're pissing on Laird
that's what you gotta do to get in my goodbooks: be nice to Evan and pee on the Behaims
The gremlin let go of the fence. It raised one hand. I saw what it held. “…and this will all be settled.” A sticky note with a rune on it. The goblin managed to activate it. This time there was an arc of electricity. Ainsley shrieked and Laird wobbled before dropping like a rock. The gremlin dropped from the fence like a stone.
A gremlin defeating Laird- it's just the most satisfying thing in the universe
I was just hit with a wave of utter joy
Ainsle went for the gun. I beat her to it. I pointed it at her. “All things considered, I think I played pretty fair,” I said.
As fair as they did, anyhow. Which is the bare minimum.
“You’re going to let Rose out of the building now,” I said. “Or I may do something to your Uncle Laird that you’ll regret.”
Oh. Oh. They had that whole conversation about maybe killing Laird earlier, and Rose said that she would, but...
(edited)
I mean surely it's not good karma to shoot someone who's already down
“You don’t care what happens to them?” I asked. “That kind of makes sense to me. I’m not very fond of your family either.”
😏
I checked Laird’s pulse. It was there. “You won’t hurt him?” she asked. “If I was going to hurt one of you, I would have let that car hit you.
Oh thank the Lords, Blake is still a good per-
wait
screw that!
I'm a bad person, just shoot him already!
Things picked up a moment later when the door opened and the Tallowman came striding out with Bloody Mary a step behind.
Yay! Monstrosities!
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JayManiac 02-Jul-19 05:05 AM
“You’re certain we came out ahead?” “We got Laird,” I said, pointing to Laird’s limp body, dangling from the Hyena’s mouth. There was a white smear drooping from the side of the Hyena’s nose to Laird’s shoulder. “And I think I’ve figured out the trick.” “Trick? To?” “The Behaim’s power.”
Okay so the next histories is Laird, or the Behaims in general if I know these books
Unless 6.11 is hidden riiiiight
haha nope
worth a shot
Avatar
Seregraug 02-Jul-19 05:05 AM
Still trying to find 6.11? 🙃
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JayManiac 02-Jul-19 05:06 AM
It'd be possible to switch em and make 6.11 only accessible by the next chapter button of 6.12
but no, I suppose not
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Seregraug 02-Jul-19 05:06 AM
Well, you know what they say about timeskips, blink and you'll miss 'em.
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JayManiac 02-Jul-19 05:07 AM
👈 👈
ayyy
anyhow, I don't think I'll have time for a Histories tonight; I would've had time for two regular chapters but...uh..plans had to be reworked due to a lack of existence on the part of one of those chapters
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Seregraug 02-Jul-19 05:09 AM
(To confirm - 6.11 doesn't exist. It's a meta thing)
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JayManiac 02-Jul-19 05:09 AM
so we'll see when we pick this back up next ti- no I got that at the beginning but an equally meta thing would be to switch 6.12 and 6.11
I wonder how DiP handles it!
I heard them rescheduling their discussion question and thought nothing of it
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Seregraug 02-Jul-19 05:10 AM
They had a 3 second episode I think that day?
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JayManiac 02-Jul-19 05:10 AM
Pfffffft
that's amazing if they did
nope! one second
rolls right into the next one
incredible
I look forwards to maybe someday catching up to them
if only
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JayManiac 02-Jul-19 06:03 AM
Anything in particular? I mean, it's easy to forget about comedy beats if they're not your style of humor, and I don't know that goblins are the typical Wildbow-fare laughter
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JayManiac 02-Jul-19 07:38 AM
I love Blake's counting, it's one of the first comedy beats and sells just how much nothing blake can do about the situation at this point- which is even funnier because it kind of works at inconveniencing them, making it like the first sort of victory he has? Very Pigeon strategy.
Avatar
JayManiac 05-Jul-19 02:52 AM
Alrighty! I'm sorry it's taken so long to get back to this, I just read the last three ward chapters this morning so clearly I haven't had very much time to read lately
Alas
if only I knew the secret to chronomancy
it occurs to me that I haven't actually tried to guess what the secret to chronomancy is, but I'm not having very many ideas, which is frustrating
because Blake seemed to put it together based on all the information we were also privy to, so theoretically the clues are all there
I could spend a lot of time on this but I'm not patient and I really wanna read 6.x now so I'm just gonna start
When we last left off, Blake was screwed
but this isn't about him just yet
“You’re awake,” she said. She laid her pen down across the spine of her book. It dawned on him what he’d done. Weeks, months of frustration, fear, pain, and worry, it had all boiled forth, and he’d done just about the worst thing he could possibly do. The collar of her dress was ripped, her hands and knees scuffed. Leaves and dry grass stuck to the fabric. Straight blonde hair had been combed into a semblance of order with her fingernails. A book sat on her lap. Nothing dangerous – the clasp suggested it was a diary.
OooO! I know this guy! Amion Behaim, the one that Rose fought and then had sex with because practitioners are not stable people!
She's even writing the diary entry that I know him from!
“Yes,” she said. She smiled a little, looking down at the water that lapped against the dirt and the reaching roots that were no longer anchored in earth. “I’m making a lot of mistakes these days.”
Luckily, those days are far behind ya, Granny! I'm sure you won't doom your grandson to let a vestigial version of him take his place!
“You pulled free before you finished,” she said. “I was toying with you, Aimon.” He exhaled a shuddering breath. “Oh, this was such a mistake.”
Oh goodie, no "actually blake is a first cousin once removed imagine that!" in the cards here
“Stop talking so loud,” he said, “Whisper instead. If we get caught-” “Do not order me,” she said, and she managed to sound like she was twice her age, practically royalty. Then, in the next breath, she averted her eyes, stumbling over her words a bit, “That’s, I don’t think it’s how our relationship works.”
This situation is so screwed u- I just realized the pun and it's not making me feel any better about it. Maybe in another story this would be the part where they realize that they aren't beholden to their families and that secretly they've found love and happiness and through its power they will mend the rift between families, finally letting go of-
“Relationship?” “Not romantic, I don’t think, but there’s a connection here,” Rose noted, touching the snaking trail of golden dust that stretched between them. “Two people with a connection between them, enemy, ally, it’s a relationship.”
But nah
Hey remember that time we had that giant conversation in ward spoilers about romantic vs sexual vs platonic and how they aren't perfect labels that fit onto how we feel about the people we connect with?
If you need a good go to example of a relationship that dodges those labels and can't be classified with language, I present to you:
....
(I'm trying to come up with a cool ship name)
The Devil's Hour!
“Don’t be disgusting.” She stared out over the water, silent. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m ordering you around, when you asked me not to.” “A Behaim, apologizing to the diabolist in training?” she asked, archly.
Uh yeah this surprised me too, seeing as we know where it ends: Blake summoning a Maggie to summon a gremlin to summon from its bladder a mighty stream of...well you get the picture. I suppose I should've expected that their...collusion was a little more complex than what I'd dismissed it as
a dismissal that was, I point out, mostly to avoid having to think about it.
sigh
so let's keep thinking about it
“But you’re a gentleman, is that it? A gentleman that just so happens to kiss the most hated girl in Jacob’s Bell, unprovoked, and then goes on to ravish her,” she said, putting a breathy kind of emphasis on ‘ravish’. “You’re needling me again.”
Nope. Not allowed to make me like Rose again. I went back to hating her since the first arc and this is not allowed
also for the duration of this chapter I guess if I say Rose I mean Rose and not rose
hey that's a good distinction. If I say Rose I mean Rose and if I say rose I mean rose, get it? Got it? good.
“Yes,” she said. “You don’t know how good you have it, to have people telling you what to do. But you have direction, you have the backing of your family-” “I have the pressures of my family, the disappointment when I fail to live up to those pressures.”
It's not that I don't feel a bit sorry for the behaims here; I do. But also Blake doesn't have direction, the backing of his family- and he still has pressures!
“You’re whining again,” she said. “You want to know why I needle you? Because I like the Aimon that’s angry more than I like the Aimon who acts like a weakling.” He seized her wrist, quick enough to startle her, hard enough to be painful. She didn’t even flinch. She stared him in the eye, the faintest smile on her face.
Okay well now I can go back to...okay well this isn't hate-worthy, but it certainly isn't good. I'm all for belligerent sexual tension ♠ but "weakling" might be pushing it unless you agree on that kink beforehand.
Like doesn't that just enforce and multiply the pressures of the family to be strong n stuff?
“I’m more concerned that they’ll fault you,” he said. “Say what you will about me, I don’t want my family organizing a lynch mob or going to war against you and your family.” “That’s almost gentlemanly, Aimon Behaim. And I’m flattered that you’d think I’d put up any kind of fight.”
This is such a weird conversation. I don't know what I expected but it's just so...unsure of what it is
“This wasn’t a scheme, was it?” he asked. “A trick, to influence my emotions, to capitalize on my failings as a man?” “You didn’t fail, Aimon Behaim” she said. “Your malehood isn’t in question here. Not that I particularly enjoyed it, I’m almost relieved that it wasn’t so grand as-” “Don’t,” he said, pressing the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. “Please, don’t be lewd.”
Work. On. Your. Pillowtalk.
I actually went and read the first interlude again because I was like "is she just as flustered but hiding it behind saying lewd things and making him mad" for a second
but no, the ending of that diary entry perfectly matches the confidence we see from her here
“Don’t talk about it. It’s not ladylike.” She made a small amused noise in response. “I’m trying to decide if it’s better or easier to loathe you or respect you, and you’re making that decision difficult every time you open your mouth.”
This is what I meant when I said that the conversation didn't know what it was, it's just kind of...vacillating is the word Karkat would use, but I think even that's a more stable process than whatever's happening here
“Kind of strange to think of that,” he said. “The Thorburn diabolist and her husband lecturing their daughter, the stern gaze, the belt…”
Yeah, that's because you don't think of them as people. Even shitty people, which they probably are.
“I’m,” Rose stopped short. When she exhaled it came out as a huff of a laugh. She blinked a little, as if to hide the tears. “I’m frankly terrified. My carelessness ruined three or four lives, and she didn’t bat an eye. But this? I don’t think upset is the word.”
Confident was the wrong characterization. Her escape into a dynamic with Amion was a distraction, but it wasn't a facade.
“Who would ever envy me?” Rose asked. “Would you stop arguing every other question or statement I make? You make being kind a challenge.”
Lords, I was so distracted by trying to figure out how I felt about Rose that I didn't realize how much I was starting to like Amion, dammit every time it sneaks up on me!
“That isn’t what worries me. My mother’s unrestrained anger.” “I don’t understand.” “I’m worried she won’t care.”
psyduck
Aimon worked in a squat building that had been crammed between the now-empty ice cream parlor and a small bank. Young women passed by with regularity, to and from the factories and small shops on the main street. He quietly considered it a sort of hell.
Hey, with the bedfellows you keep, I'm not sure you wanna be tossin around that kinda language. You might just be proven wrong.
He’d been bad at numbers as a child, but grueling lessons from the family had remedied that. A chronomancer couldn’t be bad at numbers, of all things. Still, he’d never loved numbers, and now he lived them. He was forced to write with his left hand, to scrawl down and total the amounts, to note times and dates when he handed letters and parcels over, or when he accepted them.
Fuck that. Nevermind, this is hell, being a practitioner and still having to do fucking numbers. Sign me up for the Duchamp package instead, chronomancy blows. Okay don't actually sign me up for the Duchamp package that would be awful.
“I admit, I was sweating a fair bit, worrying that you’d let your mother know what we’d done. Jumping at bumps in the night.” “I said I’d keep silent,” she said, sounding offended. “Few things annoy me more than being called a liar.”
rancid cunt, though? Nah, heard it all before.
“Was it as bad as you’d feared?” “Nearly,” she said. She turned around, leaning against the counter with her back to him. “I’m sorry.” She glanced over her shoulder, eyebrows raised. “I am.” Her expression softened a bit. “Thank you.”
bulba
How unexpectedly wholesome of this....dangerous, deranged, dynamic diabochrromantic duo
“What’s going on elsewhere in the world, it feels like a premonition. Old systems are fixed in place, and they’re starting to wear out. Too many layers, too many patch jobs, too much stress placed on the wrong things.”
Oh I wholeheartedly agree. Have you seen who's president these days?
I mean no
cuz 1939 and all that
but hey, chronomancy tho?
“Our families are the same way,” she said. “Bound to old systems, degrading, winding down like an unwound clock.” “I wouldn’t argue with you there.”
I do wonder what she plans to do with all these thoughts. We know more about post-Rose Thorburns and less about Pre-Rose Thorburns, and likewise with the Behaims, but I don't feel like things have really changed on either side. Maybe pre-Rose Thorburns were more of the bad or mediocre diabolists that were bringing down the curve as BLB would have you believe and the PRT (Post Rose Thorburns) are more the trying to be good diabolists
(Also the PRT and the PRT have a lot in common: they're both gonna struggle along for a bit, trying to keep up with the ever-against-them world before eventually dying horribly)
“It gnaws at me,” he admitted, his voice low. “Even my own expectations for myself. Especially my own expectations for myself.” “What if I suggested a small kind of revolution? A way to respond to those expectations?”
Then I'm sure you'd fix things forever.
“What are you suggesting?” “I’m suggesting that we could gamble. Strive to change the system, to put something in place and capitalize on it.” “How?” “I’m not entirely sure, but whatever we end up doing has to be better than this, doesn’t it?”
Uh, NO, fucking NO IT DOESN'T actually have to be better than this it could be WORSE instead
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JayManiac 05-Jul-19 03:46 AM
“You’re a diabolist. I’m not so sure you’re right. You could fill libraries with stories of how things could be worse.”
thank you! Rose, listen to the voice of reaso- wow that's a sentence I don't say often in this book
It's usually "listen to rose, the voice of reason"
“Think about it now. Think about the moment you’re sixty or so years old and you take that chair, a leadership position in the council… you’re finally free, in a sense, but you’ve forgotten how to act. What do you do?” “You tell me. What do I do?” “You default to what you know. You do what your father did and his grandfather did before him. You inject a small personal touch, a bit of your personality and preferences. Things change, but they change by inches over the course of generations. The cycle perpetuates itself. Those pressures you feel now? You take that path, clockwork soldier, and you may never escape them, not until you’re dead.”
That said, this does seem to be where they are now, so Rose wasn't wrong about everything
“I’m starting to realize why we habitually avoid the Thorburns.”
he's catching on
“I’m not saying you’re wrong.” She smiled. “I am saying that I’d be a lot more eager to continue this conversation if you weren’t sounding an awful lot like a certain snake in a certain garden.”
Really? Cuz all you gotta do to get me into a conversation is sound exactly like Crowley
“I’m offering you freedom. I’m offering you power. A chance to break that pattern. I won’t say it’s free of consequence, but the costs aren’t as high as you’d think.”
Proceeds to quote The Snake
“You want friendship? Or more like the other night?” “I want both, or either. I want to make you an offer, where I shoulder the majority of the cost and the risk.”
fine
“What is? Where does this go?” “Changing the status quo. Breaking up the system.”
This is so exciting but also really confusing since we're pretty sure that they actually don't succeed at any of this and things stay pretty much as they are but with cell phones
“I want to possess you,” Rose Thorburn said. It was a sentence with two interpretations, but the emphasis on possess made the meaning clear.
I'm willing to bet it works either way. Efficiency in language, Amie, efficiency in language
-he said, saying the same phrase twice in one sentence
“A light possession. It wouldn’t be anything too dangerous, not a demon. But I can use the material from my books… some of the best bindings you could hope to find.”
Don't worry about it! I'll call up my buddy Corvidae and we'll have a grand ol time!
“Why? Can’t you do what I’m going to do, and just grit your teeth through the bad parts of life?” “Where to begin?” she asked. “God! I feel like I owe my family something. I feel like I need direction, a goal, but it’s impossible to go for it alone. I’m so scared that if I do something, try to make a change, then people are going to get hurt. I can’t lean on family, and a diabolist doesn’t get the luxury of friends, not unless they’re the kind of monster who can take it in stride when the bad stuff trickles down and starts to fall on those friends.”
hug
But also she's totally anteractively implying something about Blake here
I don't think she'd think he is that kind of monster, because if his friends were hurt he'd actually be devestated
but she might think he's pretty dang stupid
“Sometimes all you need is someone to tell you you’re doing the right thing, or the wrong thing. To bounce ideas off of. That’s the way it is in the books. The Watson, the Sam, the Friday, the Horatio.”
devastating
that's just a thinking emoji, not implying anything about Jamie or Jessie
suspicious
I mean also it's quite possible there's another sam who acts as a sidekick to an iconic character from the 1900s and I'm just uncultured
“They could be afraid of what we could do in response.” “Maybe. But that blade cuts both ways. If one side realizes their losing and decides to tap into resources like your family has, what happens? The only solution is for the war to keep going.”
That's an awful and horrifying thought
we've been referring to the books in Rose's house as nukes, and I'm realizing two things
the first is that it's a part of Rose's legacy that I hadn't really thought about in a while: she went out and bound a whole hellful of the worst demons she could
and the second, is that demons aren't very much like nukes
“If it weren’t for that, the idea that I have to go back, to keep fighting on that second, secret battlefield? I might think about your offer. But I can’t. Not really. I can’t commit to anything, and I can’t be your ally in whatever it is you’re trying to do.” “Okay,” she said.
That makes an awful amount of sense; I guess I never really thought about what it would be like as a practitioner in a war, having to fight on an entirely new level. The very nature of the world makes it so that the only groups that succeed are ones that have practitioners in them.
“What are you going to do?” he asked. “Change things,” she said. “It would be easier if I had help. A voice to say yes, or to say no. But I’ll move forward. Maybe I’ll lend a hand to the war effort.”
I wonder if we're gonna get the answer to whether she did alright without this voice, without Amion. It certainly seems like the Behaims didn't.
“Maybe you’re not so alone as you imagine,” he said. “I won’t give myself over to possession to cheat the rules, but if you need a dissenting voice… I can ignore the pestering of my sisters and aunt for a little while longer.”
Or maybe she did alright with his voice?
and maybe she didn't do alright with it
Thirty-five years later…
Oh okay we're just gonna do that then
Laird fought to catch up, black rain boots splashing in the flooded grass. Rose was already there. Regal, water ran off her wide-brimmed cap. Avoided by virtually every other council member in attendance. She couldn’t have looked less motherly, holding the swaddled child.
This...actually worked? Kind of? I mean, Rose and Amion got along for thirty five more years and their families are still like this?
Bonfires had burned, and Aimon had worried that one would go out in the face of the torrential rain. That one of the seven jars filled with a mixture of wax and hair might tilt over and roll away. He’d been there, a bystander. A friend. He’d been there when the demon appeared. Fat, decaying in some mockery of what had happened to Aimon’s hand, with a horse’s skull fixed over his head, it had carried a sickle.
Now that is not a twist I expected, that Amion was there for Barbatorem, for probably everything Rose summoned and maybe bound, as a confidante
That moment had left a wound as bad as the ghoul’s bite. Her expression, the intensity. They’d loved each other, but never at the same time. They’d been allies, confidantes, they’d slipped away to have secret meetings, to talk about what the council was doing, and how they might do it differently.
Wow
this is maybe the last thing I expected from...well, from how the chapter started
“He’s in charge of the family now,” Rose said. “Oh,” Laird replied. “I spent a long time wondering what your father would do when he was in charge.”
Same old, same old it seems? But how could Amion have gotten there?
The demon had cut into the pile of pigs, compulsive, furious. The sickle cut away the names. The name had fallen from Aimon’s recollection, piece by piece.
?????psyduck
“It’s been some time since we talked about it,” he said. When we married, we couldn’t meet so easily. “Your goals, your dream.” “It’s been some time since I gave it serious consideration.” “You’ve abandoned it then?” he asked. “No. Most definitely not. Have you?”
But what does she do? What does she leave for Blake, besides maybe Black Lamb's Blood, that's supposed to change anything!?
“Is that a yes, then?” she asked. “Tradition continues its ceaseless march through the generations?”
😦
“No,” he said. “No, I think we can take a different road.” He saw the dawning realization, the smile on her face. “But,” he said, “I need certain concessions.”
I'm still wondering just how this all went so wrong!?
“This can’t come back on my family. I swore oaths. To preserve the stores of power my family has amassed over generations. I won’t make Laird swear those same oaths. If he needs to bring about change, he’ll have the power to do so.”
Ugh! Why'd you give him all that power and then screw it up somehow!?
“Yes. Another thing. You’ll have to teach Laird.” “Teach him?” “Diabolism. Enough to protect himself and the rest of the Behaim family. We can’t move forward if I have to watch my back. Laird either.” She considered, then seemed to come to a decision. “Yes. I think we can arrange that.”
What
WHAT!?
Laird, this whole time, has known Diabolism!? And he learned it from Rose?
He felt a bit of a chill. “I can’t imagine it is. I can do what I can to raise Laird and my other children well, but-” “Don’t lie. You’ll spoil him rotten. I know you well enough, and you’ll be too generous rather than risk walkng in your father’s footsteps. If conflict is due, then conflict will happen.”
Dammit Dammit Dammit! Amion! You had one job! hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
“Hmm, there were two more. Sharp blades, I can’t imagine a good use for that. To carve out a reflection? I wasn’t so clear on that one.” “I am. As protection for my heir goes, it’ll serve.”
Oh son of a-that's how you did it!? Cut rose from Blake so he could protect her for what? Eleven days till the sphinx kills him!?
We spent this whole story being like "oh well at least she gave Blake rose for company and some diabolical assistance" and it turns out she gave blake to rose as a wall to plop in front of her until some lucky champion knocks it down
I'm really amazed my all the histories chapters and how they tell such a full story that still ties in so well with the one we're reading. Certain interludes have had that feel, but this is a specific flavor that I'm glad to get
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JayManiac 05-Jul-19 05:48 AM
I mean pythagoras had a whole math cult so makes sense
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JayManiac 05-Jul-19 06:36 AM
I just realized how I've been picturing Laird, guys
I know it doesn't entirely match, and that he's supposed to have a more squareish face and barrel chest and all that but counterpoint:
-barely greying sideburns
-smug as all Hell
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JayManiac 10-Jul-19 06:11 PM
Alright
it's been way too long
And also I might not be reading as much in the next two weeks starting the 13th because I'll be on vacation and without internet a good amount of that time, but point is I'm back!
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Om-Nomfull 10-Jul-19 06:13 PM
@A bird 🐦 I'm also a big sucker for the lore
same 2
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JayManiac 10-Jul-19 06:14 PM
Okay it's time for 7.1
so
let's
create
a
page
of
random
spoiler-
hiding
text
alright?
Okay
maybe
that's
enough
When
We
Last
Left
Off...
Blake was still screwed in some abstract sense but he was much less screwed in the now
Laird woke, free of any chain, handcuffs or rope.
For example, he'd apparently figured out the secrets to the Behaim's power, which is I guess that it at least partially runs on diabolism?
Also did they bind him in a circle or something? does that work on practitioners?
Did they make it out of kindness and humility? Bind with opposites after all
“What’s this?” he finally asked, while pinching the bridge of his nose, his eyes screwed shut. “That’s pizza. Pepperoni and onion. The coke might have gotten a little flat since we poured it. You took a few hours to wake up. I was almost worried.”
Pffft, what the fuck is happening? Are they gonna try to get Laird to help them? I mean, he's Conquest's champion, Diabolist or not.
It was Maggie who spoke up, “The tried-and-true rules have a firm grounding in history, officer Behaim. The roads were dangerous at night, food was hard to come by. You couldn’t turn away someone at your door, and you couldn’t refuse a guest amenities, or you were sentencing them to death. You couldn’t abuse hospitality given for the same reason, because you’d be sentencing the next guy to death. But, all that said, nobody’s going to begrudge a man, a peasant, or a king their right to keep a weapon on hand if they know their guest is a potential threat.” “And here I thought you were a novice,” Laird said.
Maggie's really stepped her game up, and speaking of games it makes a lot of sense that they're playing Karma's. It's an expansion and development of the "we claim guest rights" from the Magnus Chase books that keeps them from getting eaten a delicious number of times.
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spinagon 10-Jul-19 06:25 PM
Maggie's definitely having a lot of fun
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JayManiac 10-Jul-19 06:26 PM
Rose, not smiling at all, said, “Yet you keep coming after us, and you get bitten worse each time. What’s that they say about insanity and doing the same thing over and over again?” “I prefer to view it as one long, ongoing conflict, than a series of failures.” “How convenient,” Rose said. “I’m not sure the universe agrees with you.” “I’m not sure either,” Laird said. He rubbed at his temples. “Ah, my head.”
Have I mentioned how much I like Laird recently? He's so self aware and casual and conversational and understanding despite being such an asshole.
Y'know, if I were Maggie I think I'd be having fun too
“Please. And… where is my implement?” I pointed. Laird looked. The watch sat on a nearby table, outside of the circle. “We make no claim to your property, except to secure it. I don’t know if you can see from that angle, but there’s another circle to keep the zeitgeist spirit firmly in place.” Laird nodded.
I would be interested to find out more about how an implement works if you don't have a famimplement and put an Other in there? Presumably it's kind of a binding between you and the spirits that make up that object? I could be wrong.
Also a Zeitgeist is such an awesome concept because it's a personification of a temporal trend but it already has the word geist in it and
it's just really cool
“What happens next? Shall we repeat history, with the roles reversed?” “I give you what you need, then finish the circle,” I said. “Finish?” I nodded. “It’s an odd circle. Humans don’t lend themselves to being bound inside diagrams, for the most part. The details… who drew this?”
It makes me wonder if Blake knows something about Laird that we don't, something that makes him Other enough to be bound like this? Also duh, Alexis and/or Ty probably drew it because art people!!!
“You don’t need to, but you can give me answers for the same reason you’re giving me food. I can’t reciprocate your generosity, really, unless I give you answers. It’s a win-win situation for you. You get karma by playing by the rules, or you get answers.” “Win-win-lose, you mean,” I said. “I could give you vital information that leads to you breaking free and getting the better of me.”
Laird you weasel! I love this little dynamic switch up and I won't lie, part of why it's so great is the novelty of Blake being on top for once in this dang story!
Actually "for once in this damned story" would probably have been better and more accurate to say
“I compared my family to America, if you remember.” I nodded. “What happens when an American dignitary is kidnapped? When any offense is made against the American people or American soil?”
Oh fuck. I mean, we knew this in the abstract, but as soon as we compare it to America we just get this tide of history along with the sentiment. Behaims are gonna fuck ur shit up, and don't think simply "not knowing where you are" is gonna stop them.
“Pizza will keep for a little while, and it’s edible cold. We don’t plan to leave you here so long that you’ll run out of water or face an overflowing chamber pot.” “I see,” Laird mused, leaning back to get a better view of Maggie filling a vase with water – there apparently weren’t any pitchers in the cupboards. “I’m staying here for a while, then?” I nodded.
I'd think that "a while" is relative, especially to a chronomancer, wouldn't you? God, I'm responding to smug with smug this isn't a good influance on me
But I'm really just dying to know what their plan is here
Blake seemed pretty confident, and kind of...still does? I mean he's insecrure about a lot of stuff, suggesting he knows that this could go wrong, but you'd have to be pretty thick not to guess that you've missed something
“Could I ask for a book or two, then?” “No,” I said. “Don’t have any, and I’m not sure you couldn’t use it to pull something.”
He probably could, too
“When America is attacked, retribution tends to be brutal. Not necessarily swift, but they hold grudges. Pearl Harbor, Nine-Eleven…” “I would argue that America’s living a lie,” I said. “They spend a great deal of time deluding themselves about just how powerful they are, a lot of time deluding others, and a lot of time abusing the power that does exist. Not that Canada’s a whole lot better.”
ThorBURN, Blake 🔥 🔥 🔥
Cuz you can tell that Laird takes pride in his whole america comparison, and it's just inevitable and awesome that Blake turns it on him
“The circle will break up incoming connections, and should serve as a barrier to anything going out. You’ll have trouble practicing,” I said. I indicated Rose. “Rose’s work.” “I’ve seen similar,” Laird said. “But there’s a little too much detail and not quite enough substance, if I may say so myself. The outer circle may be stronger, but you passed it easily enough.” “That’s intentional,” I said.
And he can't help but just roast the circlings. It's clever for a circle to block connections, since that's what sustains a practitioner and gives them power
I reached over to the table, grabbed a book, and then leaned forward, placing it in between the first and second circles. Black Lamb’s Blood. “Hm,” Laird said.
I thought you weren't gonna give him a book
I watched carefully, the words to call him back on the tip of my tongue, as he made his way around the circle. Caught between the first and second of the three circles, Pauz did a full circuit before deciding that there wasn’t a weakness he could capitalize on. “A watchdog,” Laird said. “I asked myself what you cherish,” I said. “Then I asked myself how I could use that against you. You’re arrogant, you want to be in charge, to be Lord, to have power. Pauz can take all that away. “You made the circle weak on purpose.”
I'm so very glad that they found a way to use Pauz...but Laird is a diabolist, do you really think he'd be caught flat footed against an imp? Implement and power or no? I mean blake, you talked that Imp into a contract that benefits both of you, do you think Laird couldn't do the same? I mean, I suppose you could've just put "don't make deals with Laird" in the contract and fixed up that lil loose end, but I'm sure there are more
I stabbed my finger in his direction. “You used them, you’ve brainwashed them with the Behaim-centric, anti-Thorburn thinking. I had to fight to keep them alive, and as far as I can tell, that’s more than you did. Your child, your nieces and nephews. As far as I’m concerned, you’re toxic. You’re dangerous. If you’re miserable for the next couple of days, I’m not going to complain.” “Days?” Laird asked. I thought I detected a note of surprise and emotion, a hint that I’d broken through the facade.
Laird you Utter Shit that is entirely the wrong part of what Blake just said that you should be fucking listening to
How bout the part where you're miserable and toxic and nobody likes you except the people you brainwashed!?
I saw Laird look down at the imp. “The rules don’t say I can’t talk to him,” Pauz said. Lines creased Laird’s face as he turned to look at Pauz. Concern? “The rules say you have to stick to English,” I said. “No demonic tongues or anything of the sort.”
Oh? This wasn't an oversight by Blake, it was deliberate? Is he trying to prove that Laird is a little bit of a diabolist or something by getting him to make a deal with Pauz?
I mean it'd probably tank Laird's karma, and maybe Blake has a hidden camera that he can show to the Behaims later, but otherwise I'm not sure what this plan entails
“Do you want to volunteer information?” I asked Laird. “This could go easier. I could give you amenities, or “I didn’t think you were capable of this, Thorburn,” Laird said. “I’m not doing anything but keeping you here.” “It’s torture. Psychological torture. You’re setting me up to fall into the imp’s clutches, but by doing it like this, you defer responsibility for it.”
Okay that basically admits that Laird thinks Blake is a good person, or at least thought that, and yet still did all that awful shit!? ugh. But also this is a little bit of torture Blake gotta be aware of that. But also also information and knowledge is one thing you're sorta lacking
besides personal power and a guarantee you'll make it to tomorrow
“To be entirely honest, I wasn’t aware that was actually a thing,” I said. “Deferring responsibility.”
I love that Blake didn't actually know this, even if Rose...probably did
Fell sat in a chair, the butt-end of the gun resting in his hand. He’d relaxed a bit since the imp was summoned. “It’s true. There’s a reason practitioners prefer curses and convoluted ends over efficient things like bullets.” “Ah,” I said. “Interesting.”
Which is just this fabulous bit of meta-storytelling that forces protagonists into unique conflicts instead of just bullet-related ones. it's such an efficient "one buy"
“You’re playing with fire,” Laird said. “If that imp breaks through-” “Pauz. I am Pauz,”
Feral, and Foul
“If the less-than-charming Pauz influences me, it’s a step forward for his kind. There’s no recovering what we lose to them. Objectively, taking this risk is more evil than the murder of a thousand Molly Walkers,” Laird said. “Or, you know,” Evan piped up, “You could not kill a thousand girls?”
I love Evan so much and now that I'm getting back into the story it's reminding me of that
“You sound scared, Laird,” Rose said.
Oooooo! Playground insults! That one even rhymes, so it's an objectively great playground insult.
💜 2
“You remind me of her,” Laird said. “Of the elder Rose, your predecessor.” Rose didn’t reply. I pointed. As a group, we retreated from Laird and the imp. “You remind me of someone else, Blake,” Laird called out. I didn’t take the bait.
Is it your dad, Laird?
I dunno, Blake and Amion don't have all that much in common, barring the fact that sometimes they enable their respective Roses but even Blake's better about that than Amion...or worse, depending. (edited)
I didn’t even have a chance to draw in the breath to say another word before Pauz launched into a full on speech. “You won’t have a moment’s rest,” Pauz spat the words at Laird, “You’ll slip, step too far. When you let me in, the first thing I’ll do is make you drink the contents of that chamberpot. I’ll bleed you and you’ll leak, pissing yourself in fear. I’ll watch you scramble to sop it up, to lap at it with your tongue and blot it with your rags, fighting to keep the circle from being compromised.” “Thorburn,” Laird said. Pauz continued, “Give me one hour inside that circle, and I can break you. I can make you wallow in your own piss and shit like a pig in mud, and you’ll be happy to do it, because it pleases me, and because it means I won’t make you feast on your own filth.”
aaaaaaAAAAaAAAAAAaAaaAAA
Those are not comfortable words to read
hhhhh
Good that we're reminding us of everything about good ol Pauz here: he looks like a baby, it's pronounced pa-ooz, and he's a friggin devil spawn that would like nothing more than to ruin everything ever
The eerie gravelly voice went on, “Give me the chance, and I might go after your family, and I’ll do the same to them five times over.” “Thorburn,” Laird said. “You’ve won. You got me. You don’t need to drive the point home.” Pauz continued, “If you don’t give me the chance, I’ll make a sport of it, I’ll reduce you to the sort of animal that would go after them and do depraved things. I want to watch you come back to me like a dog to its master.” “I’m not listening, la la la,” Evan said, wings to the sides of his head. Laird looked up at me. “I can’t take another hour of this, let alone days. Anyone would make a mistake. Let the imp through, or fall asleep, or jump at a sudden scream and accidentally trespass over the line-”
This is really really disturbing to read, and Laird is presumably telling the truth which just drives it all the more home because he's never been this off balance in the book so far.
And then Evan, good on ya for just taking initiative there
My friend's ten year old sister will pinch us if we accidentally swear in front of her, and this...goes a bit beyond that.
“Did Molly beg?” Rose cut in. “Again,” Laird said, leaning his head back, staring up at the stippled ceiling, “That’s a question you should be asking Maggie. Ask her about blood and darkness.” “You’re a bit of a bastard,” Maggie said.
But then Laird helpfully undercuts any sympathy we may or may not be feeling by being a fucking dickwad again
and wait
hold up
I mean I guess bastard is on the low end in terms of swears, but I...still kinda thought it was a swear word suspicious
“If you want to beg for mercy, maybe you shouldn’t start by arguing trivialities about Molly’s death,” Rose said. “I didn’t really know her, but Blake did. He cared about her.”
Thank you, Rose!
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JayManiac 10-Jul-19 07:15 PM
“You started by trying to be clever. To figure it out, to be gracious and win me over in little ways. You picked at Maggie and Rose to try and find weak points, and tried to figure out what you could about the circle for much the same reason. I didn’t miss that. That’s Laird Behaim on the surface level. Push a little deeper, and you get the reaction, the rationalizing. Morality, deferring the blame.” I studied him. His eye flicked between me and Pauz, who was mute, tensed as if to leap, mouth pressed into a frown that extended from one corner of his jaw to the other. “Push deeper, add a note of desperation, and we see what may well be the real Laird Behaim. You’re pushed to find a solution, you’re almost begging, and in that moment, you go for the first ideas that come to mind. Ideas that would work if the tables were turned and we were trying to convince you. You tell us we’ve won, as if the nebulous idea of victory is something I even want. You continue to rationalize.”
HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHHAHAHHIHHHAHHHHhhahahahahhaha!
That was friggin priceless
I didn't pick up on Laird trying to give them 'victory' but I feel like I should've
“Classic Bond villain mistake,” Ty said. “I know,” I said. “Leaving the enemy in the deathtrap, ignoring him? A henchman of questionable loyalties watching over things?”
Well when you put it that way...
“You’re telling me the universe encourages being the Bond villain?” I hesitated. “It does, doesn’t it?” Ty asked.
Just hang a lampshade on that right there, why don't ya. See this is part of why I love and relate to Ty!
Ty changed tacks, “Evan, back me up here. The rule for an evil genius is that you’ve got to have, like, an ordinary five year old kid to keep around and tell you your plan is idiotic.” “I’m not five,” Evan said. “He’s not ordinary,” I cut in. “And Blake’s not evil,” Evan added.
I love how they just take him down point by point by point. But also yes you gotta have a semi-ordinary semi-innocent someone to keep around and tell you your plan is dumb. And in that sense, Evan is pretty good at telling Blake that his plans are dumb
“None!? You’re in dire need of an education. We should make that a thing, tonight. Shore up our defenses, sit back with some videos on the laptop, and get the kid caught up with the greatest hits.”
This is the most Wholesome thing in this fucked up universe. I didn't quote it but Ty calls Evan "Ev" and Ilovethis
(edited)
also: confession
I have not seen any bond movies
I know what the concept of a bond villain is because I've seen it parodied so many times but I haven't actually seen the originals
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spinagon 10-Jul-19 07:22 PM
I think I've seen a couple
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JayManiac 10-Jul-19 07:23 PM
I saw austin powers, get smart, spy kids...spy kids 2, spy kids 3, spy kids 4? don't suppose those count
First things first, though, we had stuff that needed doing. The sphinx was due to attack, and this was the optimal time. I didn’t want to be near Laird when it happened, lest disaster strike, and if I was being entirely honest with myself, I wasn’t upset to know that Alexis was a fair distance away. “Fell, how are your power reserves doing?” I asked. “I’ve used more power in the past three days than I do most years,” he said. “Covering us up, covering our tracks and keeping the hideouts out of sight. It’s not easy.”
Can you believe I almost forgot that Isadora formally attacks Blake today? it's also easy to forget that Fell is pulling out all the stops for this crapshot at freedom
The Behaims, as far as the connections suggested, weren’t close. The last Behaim owner of the bracelet, Duncan, was a good distance away. That was a very good thing to know, considering that we were on our way to the police station.
Oh yeah, Blake doesn't know if he really answered any questions during 6.11
“Yep!” Evan took flight. But he circled, fluttering for a moment in a haphazard attempt at staying in one place, difficult with the strong wind. “Ty?” “Yeah?” “Batman would totally kick her ass.” That said, Evan was gone. “Brat,” Ty said.
This friendship is so wholesome and I want to know what the debate was and also can I just chill with Ty and Evan forever they're pretty much my kinda people
hope they don't both die horribly
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spinagon 10-Jul-19 07:31 PM
There's a theory that "her" is Contessa
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JayManiac 10-Jul-19 07:31 PM
Hahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahaha
from "Weaverdice, fourth edition"
nah but I like these little fireaxe moments
“I could do something with the sword,” Maggie said. “I see it as Evan’s more than anyone’s,” I said. “I’ve only got two gremlins, and it’s a rip-and-tear summoning with no control, and I’ve got some Faerie tricks I bargained for, but I’d really rather not use those.”
Do not. I repeat, do not give Maggie that sword. That's Evan's and a little bit yours and Do Not Give Maggie That Sword.
“It’s true,” Maggie cut in. “It’s part of why we’re here,” Fell said. “Helping him out.” That seemed to be the qualifier the woman at the desk needed. The joys of having buddies with good karma. I gave people the wrong impression, led people to expect the worst. The goblin queen in training gave off a better vibe, and the hitman in service to the secret lord of the city was the pleasant, convincing one.
Karma is a bitch. A bitch with giant claws, and wings, and who's descending upon your location as we speak oh Lords
But both Maggie and Fell giving off better Karma Vibes than Blake is just golden
Down the stairs. Fell stopped me before I could round the bend and head for the basement. “They’re coming.” “Who?” “Don’t know.” “I’ll deal,” I told him. “Two minutes, then you can drag me out.” He opened his mouth, then shut it. “Go. I’ll be outside.”
I love how we're gradually watching them understand each other and work efficiently more, it's a real development of this friendship and oh Lords they're both gonna die horribly aren't they?
I mean seriously though, they're barely even making barbed comments towards each other any more
but Fell said a thousand little eyes instead of one big one, which suggests to me The Shepherd, Sisters, or Behaims. The Eye would probably be one big one, the behaims supposedly aren't here, the Shepherd is hopefully still down for the count, so I'm thinking it's either the Sisters or...maybe Isadora. Not because of the thousand eyes thing, but justbecause we know she's gonna attack
“I’ll put it in my bag,” she said. “Promise.” The power that a small oath had. Just a little more oomph. The officer handed over the hatchet, and Maggie stuffed it into her bag. We made our exit as fast as we could without running. Maggie stuck her hand into the bag and handed me the hatchet as soon as we were out of sight.
Ilovethis
I could feel the eye looking. “They probably made a few thousand of these, then tossed them out to be carried into the wind,” Fell said. “They’re stepping up their game,” I said. “Worse,” he said, “I think they’re sharing tricks. This is the Astrologer and the Sisters, I’d bet.”
I was right! and I was wrong! But i'm gonna focus on the right part!
“Then there’s only one option,” Maggie said. “We gotta hit them. We knew it was going to get ugly. Let’s be the ones to decide how.” “How?” I asked. “Blood and darkness,” she said.
I'm so down for the Sistrologers fight
That's a good chapter end too, I wonder if it's a three beat?
Nope, just the one time Laird said it
Anyhow, that's all for right now, maybe I'll read some more this evening but till then byyeeeee
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JayManiac 11-Jul-19 01:59 AM
Mmkay, we're gonna jump right into void 7.2: when we last left off, Blake was double-screwed, but at least he didn't run into Duncan!
My backpack, sitting at Ty’s feet, produced the gate for travel to the spirit world. Tyler did the ritual, for the practice.
I love this little beat at the beginning, because they're in this awful 'we totally gonna die' situation, and they're still like 'hey just for practice why don't you do it this time?' and it's an actual good call to add things to the new guys' repertoire as soon as inhumanly possible
I mean, we thought that Blake was thrown headlong into this shit, turns out he got a bit of a slow burn
It was like being caught in a net. Struggling meant getting caught faster. Moving around, we put ourselves in a position to be seen by more eyes. They were communicating, I suspected, using something as mundane as phones, and reporting what they saw so others could do the meditating thing, get their eyes to focus, and track us.
Well you know what they say about protagonists and antagonists: if you give Blake a Laird you have to give Conquest champions with a bunch of floating eye-papers all across the city!
that's what they say, right?
We headed straight for the nearest group of Sisters, and I was all too aware that others were making their way toward us, some from maybe halfway across the city. The net was closing. Our only option was to cut the net.
Well I've got some great news, then! The Sisters are all female, far as we can tell, and we have a mirror gir- no another mirror girl who jumps out and cuts women...who are the net in this really fucked up way of interpreting the metaphor.
I wasn’t sure if it was uncharitable to say, but she looked most at home in this chaos. Here, as we walked into the wind, she was moving faster than any of us, determined, and the human veneer was giving way to the Other with the force of the wind and the traces of the spirit world. I apparently looked like a heroin addict when I was infused with too much in the way of spirits. Maggie was a little more elemental, a little more natural.
My current theory is still that Maggie must've done something to herself to get an edge, made herself a little more into an Other, especially for blake to be calling this out. She had her abstract form with the faerie ears, she seems at ease in all of the chaos, she's routinely displaying that she isn't as novice as you'd expect when it comes to certain subjects...
The weather was steadily getting worse. My clothes were soaked, and the cold was seeping into me. “Is this something important?” I asked, raising my voice. “The weather?” “It’s important,” Fell said, raising his voice to be heard. “What is it?” “No idea!”
stare
My only thought is maybe the astrologer?
But also maybe the sisters, with water and air elementals and stuff?
probably both
it's both
“Stealing is bad karma, right?” “Yes. Implements more than regular things,” Fell said. “But even stealing a regular thing is bad.”
I love how the universe never gives you slack for stealing no matter what. It's a perfectly teacher-y thing for you to point out all the extenuating circumstances and to just be met with "well, but you shouldn't've stolen that then".
“Can we chat?” I asked, “Or have you sworn something or been bound in a way that makes it impossible?” “We could talk,” she said. Her voice was muffled, and it wasn’t the wind. This particular spot was in the middle of the city block. The wind that did make it into the open space where the alleys converged swirled more than anything.
I like this little tone setter; I can't say for sure that it means we're going into a more calm, conversational, swirly part of the chapter, but whether it's simply lured me into a false sense of security or genuinely alleviated tension it works
“Your boss, the Elder Sister… how’d she get you roped into this?” “We volunteered,” the woman said.
And here's another of those beats where Blake's like "aha, so my enemies have forced you to come and oppose me" But then everyone else is just "nah, we just...we're just here. We don't like you."
She took us in. Fell and Maggie were standing off to one side. Ty stood next to me, holding the backpack in both hands. “You guys volunteered to join the war effort, help the Elder Sister,” I said, to bring the new arrival up to speed and give them a nudge to maybe offer more details. “I wanted to make sure you weren’t lied to. This is dangerous, and you might reconsider if you had all the facts.”
I think Blake might be grasping at straws here but I'm kind of glad he is, that he has enough faith in the idea that maybe these opponents can be talked down. He gives off hella Bad Karma Vibes, he's been pretty slandered, and the people are usually on board with helping to kill him, so not the most logical strategy around, but hey this world's not all about logic anyways
Like, I can't help but notice that he asks whether they've been sworn not to talk to him...and they haven't
Blake thinks they're being forced, tricked or coerced...but maybe they just haven't?
“We invest our time, two hours a week, while we’re in University. Learn the ropes, learn the basic spells, do the rituals until we can do them from memory, offer an animal in sacrifice to the spirits, and eventually forge our rings as we enter the inner Sisterhood.” “And you give up the ability to lie,” I said. “You face greater risk from Others and predatory practitioners.” “Yes, and we serve Conquest in exchange for his permission to do business in Toronto. We each make several Terracotta Soldiers -dolls- every year, we attend meetings in a rotation, paying fealty. All of this is a kind of insurance, and an investment.”
They have pretty good reasons for wanting to stay on conquest's good side in a stable toronto with the ability to set people on fire if they feel like it. I don't know if Blake's gonna....hold a candle...to all that
“Not really buying it, Sister,” I said. “A tiny bit of magic and a close-knit sorority, in exchange for having to march off to war?” “Once every few generations? Yes. A tiny bit of magic? Many people seem to think we’re weak because we aren’t practitioners first and foremost. We’re businesswomen, lawyers, mothers and wives.”
Arguably, those people would each make the best kind of practitioner, in a certain field. I think Blake's probably letting the biased viewpoint of "wanting to stay alive" color his take on the situation a bit. Silly Blake.
“We’re not as weak as people think,” “Maybe not,” I said, “But I don’t think that’s why he picked you.” I saw her expression change a little. Concern? She didn’t look that comfortable in the cold wind. Her cheeks were red. “Why, then?” she asked. “Because he’s worried you’ll see through him.
Oh? Maybe I underestimated him, this could be a real chink in the armor, assuming they don't already know. I mean, if contact with Conquest was pretty limited he could probably trick you into thinking he was pretty tough, especially if your only interaction was with The Lord of the City
“-Like the Knights and you. There are the ones who know but couldn’t do anything about it, like Fell here… the ones who know and don’t care, perfectly happy to maintain the status quo, and there are the ones like me. Who know and can announce it to the world.”
Since all the major players know this already, I didn't think it would come back in such a potentially major way, but Blake's got a good point. This is a card he- and kind of he alone- can play. Could still fall flat, but you win some, you lose some
“The Lord of Toronto is weaker than he lets on,” I told the Sisters. “He’s a pretender. He uses theatrics to seem like he’s more than he is, to get people like you to bend the knee. He’s a false Lord, a figurehead.” Her eyes narrowed.
Holy shit they didn't know I really hope that this leads to something
I was just in my head like "hey is this gonna be the arc where things start turning around and Blake gets a few more wins?"
then I remembered it's called Void, the one thing Blake is most afraid of
or...maybe second most afraid of
But maybe it just means that it's rendering his contract that says "you have to keep fighting tooth and nail against karma" null and void, and this is the last arc and the other nine are just Ty and Evan chatting for a million words
“What I was originally getting at was, well, if I’d brought you on board, there was a chance you’d clue in. Even if he wins, he sort of loses, because you come to resent him, or he loses respect and loses power as a consequence, on multiple fronts. By telling you now, I get the same result. Thank you for sitting still and listening.” “This doesn’t change anything.”
Well Shit. At least Blake got to display a giant middle finger to conquest as he was encircled and subsequently beat the shit out of by all these people showing up.
I mean if Conquest finds out about this it could definitely keep him angry
which reminds me: what the fuck is blake's plan to win this thing?
Oh we've heard plenty about his plan to stay alive this thing
but what's the endgame here? Turn the sisters and all of Conquest's champions against him?
He has to clearly establish that he's won and that Conquest has no choice but to surrender, and even if he semi-neutralizes every single one of these threats I don't know if I see that happening
I don't know how it's just occurred to me, but...yeah, his plan doesn't have a very concrete or viable endgame
“Damn,” I said. “I don’t suppose you’re going to turn around, say I’m right, and agree to let us go?” “No. Putting you before the Elder Sister? No.”
Alas, poor Blake. That was Never Going To Work, but you tried anyways and that's what matters
“Should we?” I asked, again.” “Yes,” she said. The word was barely out of her mouth when I pointed. “Leonard!”
What a pull
Arc 3! We've been waiting four arcs for this particular setup!!!
They coughed. We backed up before the gas could reach us. One had drawn a gun from under her coat. Evan flew by her, but didn’t move the weapon aside. I looked at her and shook my head, raising my voice to be heard. “I don’t think you’ll die unless you pull that trigger. Anything that fires a bullet could ignite the gas.”
Plus, whatever Fell says, the universe straight up conspires to make just shootin 'em the most frustratingly un-simple option
Rose at work? Bloody Mary, even?
🔪 🥅
His power had been spent in one burst. I’d been waiting for this kind of situation. Dealing with practitioners, humans. This was the first time I’d been up against them and fully armed at the same time.
Wow, I hadn't noticed this, but yeah. He's spent most of his time dealing with trials, Others, or practitioners Other enough to be Others like The Shepherd. The Sisters had no idea just how prepared he was for this pretty specific instance that like...never comes up
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A bird 🐦 11-Jul-19 02:45 AM
While quite Other as practitioners go, there might be other problems using Leonard on the Shepherd (edited)
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JayManiac 11-Jul-19 02:45 AM
Fight fire with fire, fight ghosts with far-weaker-ghosts?
(I don't know how that didn't occur to me I just don't think of The Shepherd as human first and foremost...and then I remember that he controls ghosts)
I think giving up talking is a pretty significant step on the path to Other-ness
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A bird 🐦 11-Jul-19 02:47 AM
Torch the Eye! Conquer Conquest! Stink out goblins!
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JayManiac 11-Jul-19 02:47 AM
I mean he literally has to Conquer Conquest so 🤷
And he kind of out-smug-villain-ed Laird last chapter; there's more to this than you'd expect
🤔 1
“They may shoot first, next time,” Rose said. “They might,” I said. “But Grandmother told us we needed to get our karma up, as one of her rules, and this feels right.”
I think this probably did get their karma up, and I didn't miss the fact that he waits until right after she agrees to resume hostilities to get to leonard-ing. I'm not sure Blake and Rose have kept it up on the whole, but this chapter and last chapter have definitely been a bit of a good karma mine, minus the car-key misplacement. Enough of one that Isadora can't just friggin maul you? No. Not likely. But a bit of one.
“Dunno how right it feels. It’s getting colder, the wind’s getting worse,” Maggie commented. “We should hurry,” Fell said. “There are more coming, and that trick only works once.” “Getting criticized from all sides,” I muttered. “Not from me,” Evan said.
This.
this is just
this is one of the funniest beats in the story hands down
and we just came off of laird+gremlinpiss
I mean I don't know that I agree that all of comedy is the same thing, and these are two of the most different examples you can find
but this
this was clever
hhhhhh it's the ones that take a second for me to get
I drew a marker from my pocket. I moved the older Sister’s head. It only took a moment. A dotted line. Words: I could have cut your throat, above the dotted line. Below: Conquest would have.
I mean...he would've. Don't know that this is gonna convince anyone, but I love love love that Blake is still trying
👀
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A bird 🐦 11-Jul-19 02:52 AM
I love how often Wildbow gets lines to do double duty
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JayManiac 11-Jul-19 02:53 AM
I know! Everything has its function as part of the tension, as part of a set of character beats, as part of a humor setup, etc.
I think that might be partially because an aspect of Wildbow's method is "All these things I did accidentally follow a pattern? Let's turn that into a Thing!"
Fell had used more of his power to help us disappear into the midst of the weather.
This is far from the first beat we've gotten of "Fell is kind of running out of juice" and I wonder how we're gonna pay that off?
Some blocks had power, others didn’t. Power lines were down somewhere, I was betting. The gap between the two worlds was swiftly closing. Darkness, I thought.
Ah? Tell me more, Blake? Does this darkness resemble...Void?
I love this arc name, because in addition to being a Cool Arc Name with all the other arc names, I've got tons and tons of experience dealing with the concept of Void because it's one of homestuck's 12 Aspects of reality
“You guys okay?” “Bit spooked. The power went out. The candle man-” “Tallowman,” Alexis said. “The Tallowman, he made candles, but that mostly made it worse. His candles cast pretty spooky shadows.”
Others being used for nonviolent things is my new favorite sitcom premise. "Oh Tallowman, there you go again with your hell candles!"
I like the idea that he just wanted to help but then ended up making things spookier
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A bird 🐦 11-Jul-19 03:01 AM
No no, he's specifically not making hell candles. Just... Hell-ish candles that were previously thought to be hell candles
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JayManiac 11-Jul-19 03:02 AM
right! Because if those were real hell-candles then someone would be practicing diabolism
and nobody's doing that (edited)
agree 2
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A bird 🐦 11-Jul-19 03:02 AM
And due to the perceptual nature of the world he lives in, may have functionally been hell candles
But! Not hell candles
Probably
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JayManiac 11-Jul-19 03:05 AM
And we know how our universe loves its technicalities
that's why its rules are all very stable and nothing ever knocks them over and takes a shit on the board
lol 1
“It’s the work of the Lord of the City,” Fell said. “He’s increasing the pressure.” “We’re stepping up our offensive,” I said. “We just took down one group of Sisters, and it looks like we took the meat out of their surveillance system, though it’s still there.”
the Lord of California must have pretty great taste in weather, although I really wish they didn't hate rain so much, we could probably use some. But also we're stepping up our offensive and I'm so excited to start slinging back. I mean if Isadora's gonna come and fuck shit up, might as well fuck up a few of Conquest's goons while she's at it.
“The snow’s hurting them as much as it’s hurting us?” I asked. “Maybe,” Fell said.
one of these guys relies on literal firepower so yes
and the rest aren't exactly the Sisters of the Snowblowers
If the weekend ends and they have to go to work, and if my arguments had any effect, maybe that’s enough doubt to make them reconsider what they’re doing.” “He still has the Shepherd, the Eye, the Astrologer, and he should have the support of the lesser Behaims, if he’s convinced them that helping him is the only way to rescue Laird,” Fell said.
Thanks, Fell. We needed that, just really helping morale there
also haha "lesser Behaims"
We marched off as a group. I could see how the others crowded around one another, shoulder to shoulder. Only Maggie, Fell and I stood apart. It bothered me that I wasn’t part of the huddle, but I was willing to trade the physical discomfort for the psychological security. I rationalized it by thinking that I was wet and snow-covered enough that I’d just get them wet and more covered in snow. It was feeble, but I’d put up with it.
aw. that's sad. and the way he said it was sad and now im sad.
“It’s pressure,” I said. “He’s lost soldiers, he’s getting meaner. The snowstorm may be a part of it.” “We’re winning?” Alexis asked. “We’re not losing, and that’s the important part,” I said.
Uh yeah but you're not winning
*How are you going to winning*
Ghosts. They were more monstrous than most I’d seen. Twisted, influenced by outside sources, maybe. The Shepherd had our location. The ghost-keeper.
Dangit! I thought we were done with him! I mean not actually that would be a bit too good to be true, but I thought he'd be out for a little longer. Guess Blake really got his goa- no wait shepherd herd sheep it's sheep.
“Wraiths,” Fell said. Wraiths. Ghosts twisted by negativity and spirits. Some, like Leonard, faded with time. Others found sources to tap to fuel themselves, but became twisted. More like the Mary Francis summoning that was keeping Rose company right now. These were the twisted ones. I could imagine they were the Shepherd’s special reserve.
Uhoh. I did wonder what would happen to ghosts that just kept being fed power, and if they could find a source for that power. Welp! Turns out they can, and since they're literally made of Bad, that source of power doesn't turn them back into people again
because when has power ever made someone more human in this story?
Maybe you could say Evan
counterpoint:
he also turned into a bird.
Not that birds aren't people! and if we have any in the audience, know that I'm not attempting to impl- oh I've already flown myself off this cliff
lol 1
The old man and young man mingled to become a shadow bent by disease. The old man didn’t continue on his way. He fell like a rock, his features clarifying as his emotions grew stronger. Others leaped to his side to help. The ghost had taken something from him, and he hadn’t had much to give.
aaaAAAAAAA THAT IS NOT A COMFORTABLE THING TO READ THEY JUST STEAL PARTS OF YOU
at least we have a bit more insight into mary and maybe why she has her specific kill-pattern
if her wraith-ness is built on aspects of femininity it'd make sense to choose only those victims
“Maybe the scrying papers aren’t what found us,” I said. I pointed. It was a shape. A man, half again as tall as any of us, naked, his hair long and curly, a thin beard on his face. He carried a sword and a round shield that was broad enough to cover him from knee to shoulder. The snow piled on his shoulders, dusting his hair and pubes white.
Oh shit
That is awesome and very likely really really bad
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eNamorD 11-Jul-19 03:18 AM
Isn’t the Lord or California setting everything on fire
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JayManiac 11-Jul-19 03:19 AM
No, that was last- slowly remembers that fire we had a week ago like ten miles away
look, Eyes are popular with Lords. Just somethin about em
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A bird 🐦 11-Jul-19 03:21 AM
Nothing says "I control this space" more than being able to destroy everything in it and no one stopping you
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JayManiac 11-Jul-19 03:22 AM
reminder: never elect bird to control literally anything I would like to remain intact
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A bird 🐦 11-Jul-19 03:24 AM
The trick is being in a position where electing is not really a factor in the decision
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JayManiac 11-Jul-19 03:26 AM
Glad to know you're at least beginning your reign of terror with ethics solidly in mind!
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A bird 🐦 11-Jul-19 03:27 AM
I was googling bird tyrants for the sake of this bit and found this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit-tyrant
The tit-tyrants are a group of small, mainly Andean, tyrant flycatchers found in the genera Anairetes and Uromyias. The tit-tyrants are fairly small birds (11–14 cm) that get their common name from the tit family, due to their energetic tit-like dispositions and appearance,...
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JayManiac 11-Jul-19 03:28 AM
thats the most adowable widdew wowld conqwewew on the whole entiew pwanet
“The Astrologer,” Fell said. He was backing up. He’d already drawn his gun. “She’s making a play.”
Fuck! I wish she were here in person so Blake could make his appeals to her, someone they might actually friggin work on. I mean Conquest has to be conscripting her to do this somehow, it's not just because she's a champion, so all Blake has to do is remove whatever's keeping her under Conquest's thumb. But of course she summons things that presumably don't give Blake answers
It took me a second to make sense of the storm within. Dark shapes that had been people were gathering and mingling like waves in a storm, crashing against one another. The wraiths seemed to be getting stronger, feeding on the negativity and violence. The people were rioting, and the Wraiths were both feeding on it and lapping it up.
Oh Lords, Blake is not gonna take this well, and also he's super duper cornered when they said a corner store I didn't think this is what they meant!?
With no cars on the street, we were free to back away. I took a step back, and virtually everyone else in the group took my cue. Fell didn’t. “No,” Fell said. “Stop.”
StAHP? Whadyameanstop!? there's a sword guy wraiths an I think its nattaverygoodtimetoSTAHP
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eNamorD 11-Jul-19 03:31 AM
Oh don't forget we've also been having some big earthquakes lately. Two really big earthquakes in like..eastern central California
And I'm pretty sure I woke up to an earthquake in the middle of the night the other day
that's okay, I'm sure it's just part of the sinister deal the Lord of California made to maintain our great weather
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JayManiac 11-Jul-19 03:33 AM
Oh great, well I'm sure the tourism will offset any negative consequences. I mean we just need tidal waves and tornadoes and then we'll know that (spidermanspoilers)Mysterio was right they're descending upon us
"He wants us to run,” Fell said. “We’d be running right into a waiting trap.” “We’re supposed to stay and fight?” Ty asked. “Do you want to die?” Fell asked. “No, don’t want to die,” Ty said. “We have to pick one and go through them,” I said.
This is the most rock-and-a-hard-place moment so far, but I bet it's not the worst one in the book! I pick wraiths, those are at least tangentially related to things you understand
“Hey, goblin,” Evan was saying. “Listen. You come out right now! I order you and Blake orders you!” The sword didn’t change. “He’s not listening!” That fucking goblin. I’d bound it, after a fashion, but it had bound itself. It was apparently content to stay bound and let us deal with the current situation, and I couldn’t do anything to change that fact. If I could use my own talents, my own power and words, maybe I could have forced something, but that didn’t fit with the nature of the contest.
I somehow didn't clock that Blake's wording to Evan, meant that The Hyena bound itself and wasn't under Blake's power anymore...should've stipulated that
This was it. I’d aimed to unsettle and upset Conquest, to hit him where it hurt. I’d done it. He was pulling out all the stops.
🎊
Yay!
You did it!
now whatpsyduck
Evan returned. “The Eye.”
HHHHHHHhhhhHHhHH Remember when I said Blake was gonna get more wins? Me neither!
Alexis was down, and she had an arrow as long as my arm sticking through her stomach.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH
ohno 2
NOT OKAY NOT OKAY
An arrow simply appeared, sticking right through Fell’s collarbone.
REALLY REALLY NOT OKAY ♠
❗ 2
ohno 2
I dropped to my knees, my arms going around Alexis. I held her tight, trying to pull her back and out of the way. Her body felt alien and limp in my grip, the contact uncomfortable, but not acting was unimaginable.
HHHHH and that's what that beat earlier was doing with Blake and physical contact and I really hope none of them die
“Blake,” a feminine voice said. I looked. The Sphinx blocked our path, large enough to take up the entire sidewalk.
OF ALL THE TIMES TO SHOW UP
Her lion’s paw moved, a little lower, claws appearing and disappearing. Shredding my jacket, my sweatshirt, t-shirt, and laying the ribs beneath bare. Last Chapter Next Chapter
ohhoohohoho no we did not just end things there
We did not just end things there
Ilovethis 2
IS FELL OKAY I NEED TO KNOW
Okay, don't have time for another chapter but I resent that fact so hard
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A bird 🐦 11-Jul-19 03:43 AM
Taking bets!
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JayManiac 11-Jul-19 04:02 AM
I mean under the collarbone is not a great place to take a hit
stomach? you're probably fine
Collarbone?
there's like..important stuff there
and I'm not sure they have the resources to save his life, especially if they have to save Alexis too
So I'm gonna have to say it:
I reject all logic in favor of Fell is gonna be fine!
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JayManiac 12-Jul-19 05:41 PM
Okay I've only got until 9 so if I know me I'm gonna have to cut this short
but 7.3 here we go!
When we last left off, Ho Boy
Blake was super duper duper screwed, Fell and Alexis were a teensy bit impaled, and things were generally Not Going Well
I was lucky that I wasn’t able to process what she was doing before it happened. I didn’t stand firm or go stiff, I bent. I went, even, as the claws hooked into fabric and skin, hurling me off to one side. I felt the scrape of claw-tip against bone. Going limp, it meant I’d been pushed, rather than stay there to let the claw carry through more flesh.
Ow! Yeah, Blake was just clawed by a lion paw
I didn't expect it, given how...just generally chill isadora's been so far
I mean even though she literally came by and said "hey guess what today's the day!"
I’d been stabbed, once upon a time. I’d been hurt. This was still something foreign. Too much to process. In the moment, I took it in as something wrong, like Pauz and the abstract demon were wrong.
Ironic, considering that this is a Right kind of being lion-clawed
but also not ironic because that's a perfectly fine way to be feeling after being lion-clawed
Mindblowing pain, well beyond the point I could understand or frame it.
"fine" is the wrong word, actually
A stray thought, nonsensical, wondering for a moment if she sharpened her claws herself, more than realizing that the claws were hitting me.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahaha
My arms flopped limp to my sides, because I didn’t have the focus or the strength to keep them raised. I suspected something was wrong with my pectoral muscle. Ty appeared in my field of vision, standing at a funny angle, bent over, arms outstretched, but his attention turned skyward, his posture overly shy.
Oh yeah, Ty's intimidated by Isadora for more than one overwhelming reason.
“I would advise helping the young lady with the arrow through her midsection, or you could help Mr. Fell, if you wanted to put connections aside for the smarter option. You’ll need two people to save one, and the one you ignore is likely to die. I’d say Maggie there should help so you can have a chance at saving both, but I somehow doubt she will.”
Does Isadora know about Maggie's whole...deal there? That she kind of benefits if this goes really really horribly? Fuck, and they're definitely gonna choose Alexis if it comes down to it too...and I don't blame them I just personally like Fell more and please maybe nobody dies here?
“It hurts,” Evan whispered.
fine
“Out of my way, please,” the sphinx said. “What if I say no?” Maggie replied.
Maggie bulba
She might not help Fell or Alexis, but she can't let her knowledge-dealer die!
“That so? I could say things about you being a hypocrite, a supposed paragon of order and balance, pulling a dirty move like this.”
Oh Maggie, never stop pissing people off
“As far as I can tell, you aren’t much of a sphinx.”
Okay wtf?
I mean
we've only met one sphinx in this story and it's her, but it's not like Maggie has met more, right? She's supposed to know things about faeries and goblins, not sphinxes...is Isadora just using glamour to appear like a sphinx? That'd be a little out of left field but maybe it's possible?
I felt lightheaded, and I wasn’t sure how much of that was the breathing and how much was blood. “What are you doing?” Ty asked.
I feel like this is the second or third time that people have been having a casual conversation over Blake's bleeding, broken body. I know it happened during the Shepherd chase
Then, loud enough to make my vision go out of focus, louder than she should have been able to manage, even considering her size, she boomed, “Astrologer! Reconsider.” I closed my eyes rather than try to recover from the sound. I twisted around, craning my head up to try to make out what was going on. If my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me, the Astrologer’s creation was aiming skyward, almost straight up in the air.
Reconsider what!? Reconsider what!?
She probably doesn't want to hurt them, so Conquest has something on her that's worth more than Blake's life
What's Isadora asking, though?
“Ev-” I managed. “What- what do I do? What can I do?” I shook my head.
Is...
Is Blake about to die?
“Eh-” I started. “Ev. Sor- sorry.” “No! Don’t say that!” “Pro-mised, try to, stop more- stop bad things,” I said. “Did- didn’t last- not long enough.”
No....
Blake had better not die here because if he goes Evan goes and I'm not ready for either of those things
“Doesn’t matter,” Evan said. “Mat… ters,” I said. “Doesn’t! I… Can’t I say or do something?” Evan asked.
Nothing really matters
anyone can see
“Blake,” Evan said. “My promise… there are strings. That’s how people do it, right?”
Evan represented everything I wanted out of life. Something uncomplicated with moments of fun, getting by, surviving. Leaving the bad stuff behind to build something better. If he started scheming, then I felt like I’d already lost. I’d failed to leave a better impression, the world better off than it had been before I’d gotten involved.
Oh Blake...of course the world was better off before you got involved. You've done nothing but fuck shit up, move some fucked up stuff around and generally be a nuisance to everyone and everything in your corner of the universe. But also you saved Evan and neither of you'd better die here
“Keep fighting. Do something. But you gotta try.” I didn’t have words to sum up exactly what I felt, right there, looking at him, on the other side of the gory mess that was my chest.
Who needs words?
spoop bulba
When you have emojis?
Frustration at the fact that I couldn’t, anger at him for not understanding even when he could feel some measure of the pain I did, confusion over everything, and abject relief, because he was still Evan. No scheming, no underhandedness. Only the core shared trait that had drawn us together. We’d press on.
Yes! YES! Even when life gets you down and rakes its claws through your flesh, press on Blake Thorburn! Sing one of those cheesy songs about "you're gonna hear me ro-" oh wait no not that one that might have connotations
I felt pain in my chest, but it traveled a funny route as it throbbed, and my eyes told me that my skin was hanging loose.
This perfectly captures the feeling of being really really hurt and not entirely comprehending everything at the exact same time
I grabbed the Hyena with my good hand, already numbed fingers plunging into cold snow. I gripped it by the handle. The Hyena had studded it with spikes sharp enough to pierce through my gloves and stab into the flesh, and I let it. I made my reaction to the pain -outside of the reflexive pulling away- to be to grab harder.
Evan said that he didn't know how to give Blake tenacity-- I think he just did
My gaze fell on the others. Ty was pressing down on the outside of Alexis’ wound, around the shaft of the giant arrow. It was this spectral thing. Would it fade away? What happened then? Removing an object from a wound just gave everything a chance to bleed.
Don't suppose Nick taught you any Practitioner first aid? I can't help but notice that Blake doesn't even look at Fell
also where's the Sphinx?
is she just gonna let him do this?
We’d been doing okay, Isadora had stopped us.
Hahahahahahahahaha you're injured Blake, so I'll let you have that one. Would things have been better if Isadora hadn't shown up? Absolutely. Were you "doing okay"? How bout you ask Alexis and Fell!?
She’d stopped everything. The giant archer constellation thing was still, no arrow nocked. The wraiths and everything else stood where they were. The sphinx’s arrival had frozen the fight. Nobody wanted to be the one to move and upset her.
Well, that's actually maybe a good thing, then, that you have the chance to kind of recover instead of just being filled with more arrows
“-know what’s going to happen, Rose?” Isadora was asking. “I’m positive,” Rose said.
Are you? Maybe Blake should've, y'know, told Rose what was up
“If the scales are tilted one way, sometimes drastic action is needed to restore things. They may wobble in the aftermath, but equilibrium will be reached.” “Then this looks like a whole fuckload of balance coming further down the road.” “That’s an accurate assessment.”
This is such a great retort and then Isadora's just "yeah. Pretty much."
(edited)
It was a distance to the Sphinx. Six paces. She was facing the window, and her own wing blocked her view of me. I wasn’t sure I’d make it that far.
Is he gonna try to swing the Hyena at Isadora? Hardcore
“Spirits,” I muttered, my words barely coherent, I was speaking so quietly. I made each breath a word, wheezed and whispered out past my lips. “Gods. Elementals. Goblins. Faerie. Take morsels from me. Take power. But give strength. Give me… what I need. Give it first.” If there was a difference, I wasn’t sure I could tell.
I expect that there probably is, I mean you didn't exactly specify how much power to take, so I bet someone hopped on that
“Hyena,” I said. “You… if you decide… break binding… attack sphinx… feel free…”
Ah yes, this, this is the careful wording I've come to expect from diabolists. How much you wanna bet the Hyena just sits there and doesn't do shit?
“I thought you wanted the lord of the city to stay in place. Why let Fell die?” “Because he won’t return to being a servant. He’d continue fighting. This way, his niece will be pressed to take over. Unfortunate, given how very young she is, but it maintains the balance.”
Fuck you, isa. Fuck. You
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David Hunt 12-Jul-19 06:19 PM
It's amazing how common it is for powerful people to characterize their fucking over the less powerful as "unfortunate."
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JayManiac 12-Jul-19 06:19 PM
And it's only slightly more forgivable when you're the elected representative of fortune itself
takes slightly more of the blame in that case
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Seregraug 12-Jul-19 06:20 PM
Isadora is a bad cat. disdain
agree 1
Makes sense given Bow's opinion on cats though. 👀
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JayManiac 12-Jul-19 06:20 PM
I'm not aware of this particular bit of information
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Seregraug 12-Jul-19 06:21 PM
Oh, not much, just that he doesn't like cats.
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spinagon 12-Jul-19 06:21 PM
So no chance of catgirl protag?
NOOOOOOOOO
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JayManiac 12-Jul-19 06:22 PM
Alas
am I only a cat person because I'm deathly afraid of dogs? Maybe.
But have I accepted that and found my own love for cats in the meantime? Also maybe
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spinagon 12-Jul-19 06:23 PM
I used to be afraid of dogs, but now I'm just mildly nervous
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JayManiac 12-Jul-19 06:23 PM
I think same, I've been getting over it very very slowly
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spinagon 12-Jul-19 06:23 PM
Or very nervous if said dog is barking at me and jumping around with an evil look
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Seregraug 12-Jul-19 06:23 PM
Big dogs terrified me growing up.
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JayManiac 12-Jul-19 06:23 PM
Well sure,
as you grow up less and less of them qualify as 'big'
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spinagon 12-Jul-19 06:24 PM
Yeah, german shepherds always qualify as big
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JayManiac 12-Jul-19 06:24 PM
but there are some small, energetic ones that are terrifying
german shepherds are why I'm afraid of dogs
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spinagon 12-Jul-19 06:24 PM
My wife's family has a dog, and that helped me get over it (edited)
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JayManiac 12-Jul-19 06:26 PM
our neighbor used to have one - i lost my ball over the fence - use some inductive reasoning to determine what smol J did when faced with that particular conundrum. I'll give you a hint: I thought that dog was nice and friendly and liked me.
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spinagon 12-Jul-19 06:26 PM
bulba 1
Smol puppy dog
I couldn't be afraid of her
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JayManiac 12-Jul-19 06:27 PM
Awww
see pictures of dogs are cute
they can't bite me
Oh yeah I'm supposed to be reading a book
Fell’s niece? Fell hadn’t said anything about that.
Oh? Really? Cuz he seemed like a share your feelings kinda guy? Shocking.
I was swinging one-handed, but Evan flew past, to give it a bit more force, a bit of a push. I wasn’t strong enough to lift it clear off the ground, so the point scraped against the sidewalk, carving an arc. I aimed for her hamstrings, for lack of a better word.
No! Not my lionstrings!
“No, little warrior,” she said. “Better monster slayers than you have tried.”
Welp, that was worth a shot. If you're even a sphinx in the first place, Isa
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spinagon 12-Jul-19 06:30 PM
I wonder how many people tried to fuck her up
And why
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JayManiac 12-Jul-19 06:30 PM
Is it really so hard to imagine?
I mean she's pretty ruthless when it comes to blake here
I could imagine Ty swearing revenge or something
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spinagon 12-Jul-19 06:31 PM
So just revenge?
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JayManiac 12-Jul-19 06:31 PM
Or like, "I want the thing you're guarding"
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spinagon 12-Jul-19 06:31 PM
The thing is, she doesn't seem to be guarding anything
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JayManiac 12-Jul-19 06:31 PM
Doesn't mean she never was
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spinagon 12-Jul-19 06:31 PM
Except the concept of balance
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JayManiac 12-Jul-19 06:32 PM
Some people don't like the concept of balance
I mean I bet every time she's had to kill someone to preserve it there's been some...pushback
The lion, the bird of prey, neither suggested slow reflexes. Her mother had been made to be a warden, a guardian of a holy place. Yeah, she was right. If it was that easy, it would have been accomplished long ago. Isadora’s paw pushed me back. Already off balance from the swing, I was out of strength. I landed hard, my head hitting snowbank.
There's something oddly comedic about this. Blake's just like "huh, yeah. Makes sense" and then gets knocked into a snowbank.
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Seregraug 12-Jul-19 06:33 PM
Break the wheel of karma and shatter the magic system! It is time to rise up! 😤
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JayManiac 12-Jul-19 06:33 PM
Viva la revolution
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David Hunt 12-Jul-19 06:35 PM
"So my dad was just walking down the road when this lion lady asked him 'How's you're day going?' and he said 'Fine" and then she killed him for giving the wrong answer. Now I'm going to kill her. Well, I'm gonna try and she'll eviscerate me, but still..." (edited)
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JayManiac 12-Jul-19 06:36 PM
🦁
See! Plenty more capable monster hunters!
“He doesn’t think you have it in you.” “Fuck you, Rose,” Ty said. “Don’t encourage her to kill him.”
I didn't pull it earlier, but that whole "they're blake's friends, not mine" line from earlier is getting a bit of a second beat here. I mean Alexis did say earlier "female you is kind of a bitch", and I'm noticing the strain that this is going to place on all these relationships assuming the people in them continue to not-die. Which is a pretty big assumption, considering.
Rose knows, I realized. Isadora told her, or she’d already figured it out. She knows that if I die, she gets to live. She’s not worried because she knows, and the people who are dying aren’t her friends? “Blake put up a fight,” Rose said. “You’re going to let him die after that?”
Uh, this is kind of a cynical viewpoint on Rose here, I think she does care if you die, and if your friends die. I'm not sure where you're gettin all this from, Blake
“Are you implying it’s wrong?” “No. I’m saying it’s… ignoble,” Rose said.
Did you just answer her fucking question!?
“Ignoble,” Isadora said. “I think so,” Rose replied. I heard Isadora sigh, and it was another sound that was big. Then I heard her speak. “Conquest, I request your presence, and swear no harm to you or yours so long as no harm is meant for me in turn.” I could feel him arrive.
How does this help anything!?
“I take it this isn’t a gift?” Conquest asked. “No,” Isadora said. Rose spoke up, “As gifts go, it would be a weak one. Finishing him off, when the victory is undeserved, it would look bad, wouldn’t it?”
See, Rose still comin with the pRose there, she cares!
“No need to say it a third time,” Conquest said. “You’re helping them.” “I am.” “How unusually shortsighted, Isadora.” “I’m helping you as well, Conquest.”
Is she saying this in the vein of "oh balancing the universe helps everyone", or is she actually gonna help Blake a little?
Rose was cornering Conquest. If she absolved Isadora of guilt, Conquest could only look petty if he sought retribution.
Hahahaaahahahahahahahaha
But also Conquest is super duper petty
he's gonna jump at it
“I could end him now,” Conquest mused, “And the situation would be handled.” “Two-” Rose started to speak. “Silence,” Conquest intoned.
I love how Rose just keeps fighting with the only weapons she has to keep Blake alive
She doesn't want him to die
and maybe it's just cuz she doesn't Know yet
but maybe not?
“Blake Thorburn,” Conquest said. “I grow tired of this. One of your champions has been claimed by Death, someone precious to you is on the way there, and the younger Rose Thorburn has informed me that you have nothing good waiting for you on the other side.”
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
😭
♠ 💀 🔫
Guys I'm not okay
and that's not an MCR reference this is just sad
okay
well
moving on
He continued, “Do you wish to keep fighting, or shall I save them and save you? Those close to you can resume their ordinary lives. I can allow you to visit them when you’ve served me well. Your familiar, even, can carry on. Servitude under me might be unpleasant, but it stands far and above what waits for you and your family on the other side.”
Don't do it, don't take it. You're gonna end up like Fell, Blake, don't do it!
His eyes were white from corner to corner, but there was a sheen to them that made his gaze look more dangerous than blind. His rictus grin stretched just a fraction wider.
It might sound good now, it's not
He promised to torture you and make you pay for the contest Blake
“Three…” I said. “Three days.” “Three days?” “And I hope… to be well enough… to fight you,” I said. “Three days recovery… you can say killing me was your doing.”
Fuck yes
Fuck. Yes. That's the Blake Thorburn I know and love!!
The bridge stood unfinished. A massive construction, aimed at nowhere. Rebar and girders stuck out of concrete, spearing out toward water and sky. Evan flew by, rising, turning, then plunging. Falling as far as he could before he had to pull up and turn away from the ground.
Okay so he blacked out after giving the biggest middle finger to conquest; now what? Is this a dream? The afterlife?
Also how's Blake gonna be well enough to do jack shit in three days?
My arms were bare, my tattoos free of scarring, but the branches and birds had doubled in number.
He's gotta be in some kind of spirit plane or something; there's no way his Karma's that good
When I drew in a breath, the air was oxygenated in a way you never had in the city. All these trees, the fresh air, the lack of pollution… the simple act of breathing invigorated. I felt at ease in a way I’d sought for a long, long time.
Maybe it's been a day or two, Alexis lived, they found a bunch of power, he got more bird tattoos with her new implement that give him a lot of strength , and they took a long weekend vacation before the end of the contest?
This was… it was about the best I could hope for. True peace.
wow, yeah
we're just gonna relax the rest of the chapter, I'm really feeling thi-
That peace was shattered by the sound of footsteps. Mrs. Lewis came to stand on the edge of the unfinished bridge, a few feet to my left, hands clasped behind her.
Oh god dammit
literally
friggin demon lawyers
always fuckin up ur shit
“I get the feeling,” she murmured, “That my arrival isn’t entirely unexpected.” “Not entirely,” I said. “I don’t know whether to admire your stubbornness or condemn it.” “Why not both?” I asked.
Oh Blake. I don't know if you have time to read anymore, but if so I think you'd love this book called Worm...I dunno, give it a shot?
“It sounds like a generous offer you guys made,” I said. “I call you, and all I have to do is the one errand? Well, that sounds like it might be worth holding on to.” “Does it? Or do you intend to die without invoking us again?” “I thought I might save it for a really bad situation.”
I love how he never answers any of her questions directly
I mean she must see through it, but she can't guarantee that he's a bad investment still.
“As opposed to being on the brink of death, surrounded by enemies, people you cherish dying?” “Yeah,” I said.
That there's a read of this where it might be the truth is just...Hhhhhhhhhh
“You and Rose are both aware that when you cease to exist, she takes your place.”
Haha! That's not a question, that's a statement
which means that Rose is aware and she still made an effort to save his life so she does care about him anyways!
“Where are we?” “Right now, you are lying in the same bed you’ve occupied for the last two days and twenty-three hours. They’re taking measures to get you in fighting shape.” “Fuck,” I said. “I can imagine what some of those measures are.”
Yeah...
I figured that whole awesome sequence was too good to be true
“This is the last chance. Strike fast, strike hard, and call on help if you need it, Blake Thorburn.”
Fuck. I'm gonna be bustin out my full catchphrase when next we read
The first thing I saw, as it turned out, was Rose, standing beside a man who had to be J. Corvidae.
Jim Crow, Motherfuckers!
as horrible as he probably is...
I've been waiting for him to show this entire time and I've been super excited for it
anyhow I gotta go I finished the chapter one single minute overtime I count that as a win
💜 2
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JayManiac 20-Jul-19 08:05 PM
alright
i've got a long car ride, some of which has internet, and I haven't read pact in ages I'm dying
but yknow who else is dying? Blake! When we last left off, he was superduperscrewed
okay let's go 7.4 I don't know how long I have so if I just randomly cut out I'm sorry
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Wildbow 20-Jul-19 08:08 PM
bulba
sharkhi 4
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Seregraug 20-Jul-19 08:09 PM
Last chapter we had: 🗞 🐱
🤔
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JayManiac 20-Jul-19 08:11 PM
My attention was on Corvidae. He was within the full-length mirror, standing in front of and to the right of Rose, a small notebook in one hand, an old-fashioned pen in the other.
So more specifically Blake just woke up with less time than it's gonna take me to read this chapter to kill conquest, and one of his only remaining allies is Jim Crow, who's taken a short break from Being Segregation Itself (just a jguess), to hopefully help fuck up conquest by turning all his champions on each other in true greek myth fashion. I like that he has a notebook, it's just so perfectly...unnerving. Like he's writing down all the ways he's fucked with you already. Also of note: he's in the mirror dimension, like Mary. We didn't get confirmation that he had anything to do with mirrors so I'm guessing this is more the terms of Rose's agreement than anything inherent to him.
Seventh choir, the abstract, easy to underestimate. They played subtle games, standing at the opposite end of the spectrum from the first choir, which simply took the most direct route, devouring.
The seventh choir has always been the most interesting to me, and I think probably to most people. I like the subtlety of Corvidae, and think it's a lot more interesting- though not immediate and visceral- than Ur and its ilk
I wonder if the choirs go in order of subtlety if you squint a bit, since Pauz of the fifth seems to be the middle ground between subtle and direct here
Had I passed him in the street, I might not have given him a glance. The more I looked, though, the more I noticed the oddities. His features, cheekbones and the lines of his chin, the shape of his ears, the structure of his neck and shoulders, it all was slightly off, almost as if he’d been drawn by someone who’d never seen a grown man before. It quickly became unsettling.
I wanted to pull this entire description because it was all just so great. This part specifically, though, might hint at his nature as a "curse" or a "bogeyman". MIdge entered the uncanny valley from one side, being a sort of 'human too far gone' and creating that unnerving atmosphere, whereas Jimmy here enters it from the other, being a conceptual imitation that's close enough to unnerve yet far enough to set off all the red flags. An then Mary just stabs people I guess. Pretty human, not uncanny or anything it's just 🔪
“Alexis?” I asked. “She’s okay,” Rose said.
Oh thank fuck. But that means that if Fell wasn't certainly dead before, he is now. I've made more peace with it since we get slowly introduced to the idea that he's not around.
Oh fuck I wonder if Laird's gotten out yet?
knowing Pact, he's probably teamed up with Pauz and become one with Conquest and is currently poised with one giant-ass foot ready to bring it down on this whole apartment
My shirt had been removed, and I had a heavy pile of blankets on top of me. I removed them to verify what I was touching. I’d been plugged up with wax. It was a pale beige-brown, out of contrast with my skin, the skin around the injury still red and angry, though not necessarily infected.
Oh hell, that's horrifying. Are we moving towards Blake being one of these almost demons? I don't know, it's just a random thought, now that he appears to be part Tallowman and we've spent a lot of time around bogeymen/curses/too-far-gones
I mean, it's a journey that could persist after someone friggin kills him, as is fated
but we already kind of did that in worm, so maybe not
“Healing?” I asked. “Maggie’s been using a trick she learned to patch you together, do away with the wax and smooth over the skin.”
Goblins are a lot of things: crude, ugly, oddly sexual, creatively awful. Not healing, or smooth, though
in fact this sounds a lot more like...Glamour? I mean she says she's attacked things from the Faerie side too, and we know who her dealer'd be
“My recommendation,” Rose said. “He can’t go all that far from you without wanting to return, I’m not sure if it’s familiarhood or sentimentality. He was frankly driving us up the wall, wanting to be entertained or involved. I told him that you might rest better if he rested too. He doesn’t have to sleep, but it seems he can do it if he wants.”
This is adorable. I know it's probably familiarhood but I'd like to think it's both because it's usually both and also that makes this more adorable.
“It’s been slow work, giving you new flesh, undoing the damage. Apparently Maggie could do it fast and give you gnarly scars, but she wanted to do it slow and leave you looking normal. I thought you’d want normal – you’re already fighting to keep your identity from slipping away, with everything else that’s going on.” “You thought right,” I said. “Thanks.”
Then again, the fact that this is what Blake is struggling with, this is what he has, his humanity, gives more credence to my almost-demon-journey. Especially because the other way was probably the Goblin way. Is the real skin just glamoured wax, though? Because that could suggest something else
I glanced at her, trying to ignore Corvidae. He disturbed me on a number of levels, one being his appearance, the other being the fact that he was here. At the same time, I didn’t want to do what Rose had done to me earlier, now that our roles were reversed. Maybe there was an explanation.
Yes Blake! You each lost the other Thorburn and made friends with a bird dude and then brought the other one back, practically the same thing
of course
Blake made friends with a lil human kid
Rose made friends with an eerie approximation of the worst parts of humanity
but picky picky picky
birds!
“Two people bled out to bring me back?” I asked.
But if Blake's connections to them are his identity, then wouldn't it be a pretty inefficient system for Ty and Tiff to bleed Blake Back? I mean, I suppose it worked, but sweet jegus
Fell wasn’t someone I loved, and even my ability to like him had been strained, but I’d respected him, he’d been competent, he’d even gone out of his way to help. But I’d gotten him caught up in this, and now he was dead.
😭
“The Shepherd collected his soul,” Rose said. “Not just the echo, but the soul. He got in touch with us yesterday, offering a trade. Laird for Fell.”
OOoooOOOoooooo the plot thickens! And maybe he doesn't have to be dead!
“Not explicitly,” Rose said. She paused. “I said no.” “What?”
You said WHAT!??!?
AAAHAHAHHGHGHGHGHHGH
“I thought about it for a while, and we talked it over. Maybe in another situation, we’d be able to stick him somewhere, put the soul in a vessel, bring back Fell in some capacity. But they wouldn’t give us Fell if we could still use him. By getting Laird back, he kind of counteracts your victory earlier, and it’s maybe the last hold we have on them.”
AHHhhhhahhahhHAHHGHHHHHAHHGHHHHGHHGHGEHJK
YOU ARE REDUCING MY BOI FELL TO HIS USE VALUE LIKE THE NEOLIBERAL CAPITALIST DOES TO HUMANITY ROSE I'M NOT TAKING UR SIDE HERE
I'm unreasonably mad about this
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Wildbow 20-Jul-19 08:36 PM
😡
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JayManiac 20-Jul-19 08:36 PM
Maggie could've bound Fell as her familiar it would've been great
^unreasonable statement to showcase anger
“Exactly,” Rose said. “And if we give up Laird, along with any points we earned there, the Shepherd releases Fell, and then Fell’s soul moves on…” “They have more points in the end,” I said. “Fuck, no, you’re right. That might have been the right decision.”
Not you too Blake!
I mean, I get it
I'm just sad that I had Fell dangled in front of me one last time but no he's actually just gone
but at the very least
that means they still have laird
and if laird is miserable I can find a kind of solace in that fact, I think
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Seregraug 20-Jul-19 08:39 PM
Fell was felled. 😞
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JayManiac 20-Jul-19 08:40 PM
🔫
“Pretty bad. He’s ‘protecting’ the city by maintaining the snowstorm, keeping people out of harm’s way by keeping them indoors. His people have been telling local Others that there may be a change in the way the city operates, and this is the time to get in good with the lord of the city, be in his good graces when he moves up. The ones that aren’t smart enough to understand are still happy there are no people around, so they’re roaming, looking for trouble. If I’m being open about what’s happening, then I’d have to tell you that people are getting hurt.”
I didn't even think there were that many Others in the city gone uninvolved in this contest, but yeah that's friggin great let's just call in all the shots against Blake. I like how Conquest pays lip service to the idea that the city matters to him but that just results in more people getting hurt because of his other schemes
and I suppose any advantage they had over the Shepherd has been smoothed over and he's back
but at least the Sisters are probably less prominent with work and whatnot
“Because when I think of things backfiring and schemes with horrific collateral damage, I think of family.”
Good thought, Blake. I mean, I care about Blake and want him to win, but honestly the world at large would be a bit better off if he'd been killed by Isadora rn. Of course there's the potential of Blake making things Right again, and even right again, but as of now he's fighting that tide
“I fought it, but I didn’t really have a way to break the pattern or get them to stop. They plowed forward, I watched it like I might watch a car wreck, and it became easier to just ignore it, do my own thing. Or so the fabricated memories go.” “Were you in the running?” I asked. Rose nodded. “We all thought Paige was the top candidate, then Peter made his play and… well, the next thing I remember, I got confirmed as heir at the meeting.”
we don't talk often about this awful part of the history, but I want to...reflect on it more moving forwards, especially in the context of Rose trying to be better than her predecessors
I mean granny Rose there, not rose btw. Because we assume she set up this contest of backstabbing and horribleness to find who would be best at practitionering, but what was she really after?
Maybe she wanted to pick someone who she knew had the fortitude to withstand practitionership, but would still push things towards the Right and the Good, despite all the pressures a diabolist faces
“It doesn’t really matter. It’s just the vestige thing. When it’s bent out of shape, reality seeks the straightest path to righting itself.” “That can’t be right,” I said.
I agree, it doesn't seem right. I think as fake or real as Rose's memories may or may not be, people act in the way they would in the "real" world
especially since I think there's essentially a state of reality where the connections and spirits say all the things in Rose's memories happened instead of the ones in Blake's
“Molly. You’re forgetting Molly. If reality is seeking the straightest path, why would you be the first pick for heir? Why not follow after Molly?” Rose frowned. “I don’t know.”
Because Rose is the true best heir of the Thorburns
if anything, in Blake's version Molly was just another shield to fortify the real pair Granny Rose was banking on
It would be a bad idea, I reasoned, to take the clothes outright. It could be bad karma, even if we were close enough for the sharing of said clothes to be implicit. Or did the connections factor in? Were the clothes okay for me to take simply because of the indirect ties I had to them? Fuck, I didn’t understand enough about how the world worked.
I love this, because it's an entire other layer on the age old question "am I allowed/close enough to this person to ___" in a way where the world has a say in it
“You only have two champions,” Rose said. “You’ve got me, and you’ve got Maggie. Maggie’s out, doing her thing.” “Her thing?” “Hunting monsters. Diverting them away from Laird, our last remaining hideout. We don’t have Fell to hide us anymore.”
Wow. That's just a kick in the 'oh shit'-o-meter
(edited)
But at least Maggie's helping in more ways than one, and they're holding their own against the situation
“We needed ammo. They were rooting us out, they’re still using the dolls, the vessels, they’ve got ghosts, and when they get close, they bring in the Eye to start wreaking havoc. Power goes out, fires in the neighborhood… trying to get us to pick up and move, distract us. Astrologer has constructions at regular points around the city, it’s… it’s a mess overall. So we called on a few more Others. I called on a few more.” “More?” “It’s all I can do. I can’t match the Lord of the City in numbers, not with summonings. I can be smart about bringing them in and pointing them places. I can call on specific Others for specific tasks, and J.P. was one.”
I wonder what a book from Rose's perspective would be, I love these games of utilizing every available resource in the smartest way possible and hey if things go the way the universe keeps saying they will I might get my wish in the worst way
But also: is this J.P. guy not corvidae? He's in the mirrors, for one, and Blake was kind of assuming there...
“Distracting your adversary’s champions. J.P. set the Astrologer and the Sisters of the Torch against each other.”
Nah he's totally corvidae
“Apparently the sisters have this elemental they all use in their rituals. An intermediate flame spirit, the eponymous ‘torch’ of the group, their go-to power source. J.P. went for a walk, came back, and the elemental decided it wanted to set up shop in one of the Astrologer’s pieces of equipment, rather than the housing they’d prepared for it. Apparently there’s a lot of power flowing through her systems at the moment, enough to bait an Elemental closer.”
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahah that's amazing
Just tweaking little things so that they end up in the worst possible position for certain people
it's so fuckin cool
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Wildbow 20-Jul-19 09:01 PM
It's actually tragic
(Don't read)
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JayManiac 20-Jul-19 09:01 PM
I don't suppose that's safe for m- gotcha
Like I said, if I ever actually finish this book I'll backsearch "|" and talk about all the times people had spoilery things to say
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Seregraug 20-Jul-19 09:02 PM
Sometimes we don't, but just spoiler it anyways.
👀
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Wildbow 20-Jul-19 09:03 PM
Indeed
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JayManiac 20-Jul-19 09:03 PM
You're gonna drive me crazy
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Seregraug 20-Jul-19 09:03 PM
I'm a demon, it's in the job description. 👿
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JayManiac 20-Jul-19 09:04 PM
I’d made some headway with the Sisters, and I had questions about the Astrologer and her changing allegiance… this wasn’t something I would have gone along with.
"made some headway" =/= "showed her exactly where you could've slit her throat"
“I’m not sitting here and waiting for things to get worse,” I said. “Evan, wake up.” Saying his name flexed the connection between us. He roused, then did a small bird stretch, wings extended fluffing out his feathers to look bigger. “You’re up! You’re okay!”
spoop
I love that Evan is in this story that I'm reading
he's just delightful
“Thanks to my friends,” I said. “Ahem,” Rose said. “I’m counting you among them,” I told her. “Don’t be silly.” She seemed genuinely taken aback by that.
bulba
All I've wanted this entire story is for the two of them to get along and for Fell to not be dead, and for Evan to not be dead either, and a lot of other things but shhhhh this makes me really really happy
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Wildbow 20-Jul-19 09:07 PM
Evan's dead.
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Seregraug 20-Jul-19 09:07 PM
But not gone. 🐦
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Wildbow 20-Jul-19 09:09 PM
Wanting a character to not be dead when they've functionally been dead since the story started is asking a bit much
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JayManiac 20-Jul-19 09:09 PM
He's also kind of alive a little bit
he can feel and sleep and recover like a weird bird zombie with his neck broken okay so he's still pretty dead
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Wildbow 20-Jul-19 09:10 PM
His neck was broken and then he got better.
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JayManiac 20-Jul-19 09:11 PM
yeah!
The snowstorm was bad. I’d borrowed Ty’s coat, scarf and hat in the end, and the cold cut right through it. My chest tightened as the wax filling my wounds hardened.
I like this little resolution to the conundrum of "will ty and the universe be cool if I just...take this?"
I think it was the right call
the Right call? maybe not
but it was the right call
Blake: Rose you're one of my friends and it's silly for you to think otherwise
also Blake:
Rose was stronger. I wasn’t so sure I could stop her if she decided to send her monsters after me.
Le sigh
But also she looks pretty badass moving through the mirrors with her monstourage
Ilovethis 1
that's a word now^
also of note: she has an oily black figure of unknown origin we've never seen before
im sure it won't be important
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Seregraug 20-Jul-19 09:14 PM
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JayManiac 20-Jul-19 09:15 PM
Monty Python and the Holy Shit Blake Watch Out
I hadn’t lied when I said I considered Rose a friend. I didn’t trust her one hundred percent, but I hadn’t lied.
HHHHHhhhhH. This relationship is the second most weird yet occasionally wholesome one in the book, after Rose/Amion
At the same time, I wasn’t sure the sentiment went both ways. What was I to Rose?
Maybe this is a situation where she thinks he's resenting her and maybe he is a little bit but she actually cares about him too and they generally have the same sort of feelings about each other but can't see that despite being each other's reflections
Or was I something else to her? If not a jailor, could I be something else? Molly had been a sacrificial pawn. Was I the same? Was I simply chosen because my mirror-world alter-ego was the most competent, or because I was most likely to help the family’s overall karmic balance before I died? Was she only helping me because it bought her more time before she had to brave these dangers herself?
Blake is going straight down the friggin speculation hole with this one, maybe even to the Victorian (not to be confused with victorian) point of freaking/zoning the fuck out
okay so that last message barely sent and cell service is not expected to improve so I'm gonna stop there for the meantime I'm really sorry I have to cut this one short but I'll be back with the end of the chapter...at some point. Thanks for tuning in yet again guys, this is tons of fun and I'm gonna try to read a lot more in the remaining roadtrip week to come
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JayManiac 21-Jul-19 06:39 PM
Okay I'm BACK let's finish this up, sorry for the delay
when we last left off, Blake was doing some reflecting
haha
get it
because...
ahem
anyhow, yeah blake was wondering if his sister was gonna send monsters after him/try to kill him after she just held down the fort and revived him
Like I've said, I think these two have roughly the same kinds of feelings towards each other: each thorburn does care about the other, but neither of them trust each other, and they're on opposite sides of this awful power dynamic where each of them is severely disadvantaged in some way
On one hand, Rose could (and does) resent Blake for having more agency than her right now; on the other, Blake could (and does) resent Rose for being the one to replace him after he dies. They're both worried about the other sabotaging or undermining them because of that resentment, but neither of them actually are going to do that
However, it's worth mentioning that Rose is not Blake
I mean she is, but she's not
The key difference I see is in the empathy department: Rose is a lot more Taylor-esque in her justifications and her "big picture" sort of thinking. She's the Thinker, she has the long term plans and the simulations
Blake is the Warrior, easily motivated by empathy, connection, and an internal sense of justice that doesn't really key that well to big picture rationalization. He just has to try in the now.
No. She’d put herself at risk, being shackled by Conquest to spare me from being tortured.
And I love how Blake's thought spiral just...stops. The fact that this line gets its own paragraph speaks to a part of Wildbow's structure that I've always appreciated: a kind of poetic isolation of the important line to give it more meaning, eg. Finally, everyone was working together
It feels very true to how my thoughts structure themselves and I really really love how it's used in each and every one of our main characters' internal monologues throughout all his work
She might have come to regret the decision, but I had to remember that sacrifice.
I don't think she does. I'm gonna identify two ways of thinking: the Rosian and the Blakien (not to be confused with the Blakian with regard to William Blake, who's generally a cool dude). In the Rosian, the way to maximize advantage is to shackle the least powerful of the duo to conquest, and in the Blakien she just doesn't like seeing you suffer
To be clear, I don't think each character only thinks in the one way, Rose has shades of Blakien and vice versa, it's just the way they lean towards artistic/visceral/internal or scientific/thought-out/external
But I had to remember that she’d made the big sacrifice. There was no explaining that away. She cared on some level.
I really really think she does, just like you do, Blake. And I know that's gonna keep getting strained, but there's a kernel of honest, actual love here that makes me hope for a better solution
arguably, this is the main conflict of the book
it's the only thing that persists through each various trial and tribulation: Blake's externalization of himself as a familial figure, forcing himself to reconcile his own self love and problems with family
a concept which is further challenged and explored by Evan, who I'm confident in calling a surrogate little brother/son/pet bird figure in the Thorburns' life.
okay lets actually read the book now guys I've read two lines in like twenty minutes
I think there's enough right here to go on for hours, and it's sad that even I don't have all the time in the world to; and neither do the Deep In Pact guys
But that just speaks to the quality of the work
I looked, and I saw a homeless man in a puffy jacket making achingly slow progress through the snow. When I looked at him with the Sight, though, I saw something else.
Getting mad bartimaues vibes, and I liken the Sight to a more nuanced version of Bartimaeus' "I looked on the sixth plane and he was a chef, but on the seventh plane he was a monster"
Ilovethis 1
In the sliver of his face I could see, I noted no nose. His mouth had no lips, only obvious, yellowing teeth. His skin was a bruised green-purple color, his eyes hidden by shadow. Almost like dessicated corpse given life.
Every Other in this book is so awesomely human in a relatable yet unnerving way, even things like Ur
I couldn’t shake the mental image of her sending the black thing after me. It was eerie in appearance. If Corvidae was the kind of Bogeyman that preyed on adults, powerful people –white men, if Rose’s accounting was right- then the black strangling thing was a baser kind of monster. One that would be perfectly at home under a child’s bed or in a dark swamp, waiting for the right foot to be placed down in its reach.
Ilovethis
I love the distinction between the monsters imagined and persistent through the minds of children vs those that stem from the fears and challenges of the adult world, and how they differ.
It's a perfect distillation of what childhood is and allows the book to explore that, even if it's just in this little portion
And it also says a lot about Blake, that he relates so heavily to this child-esque fear, especially since Pact is at least partially about entering the "adult world" and the trials and tribulations of society itself, manifest as horrible and sometimes less-horrible creatures
But, all that in mind, the reality was that in both the spirit and the real world, the city was being drawn together in a spiral. Like spaghetti around a twirled fork. The fork, I realized, was Conquest’s tower.
I've been waiting for Conquest to use the city itself as a weapon, especially considering all those themes I just mentioned, and this is it
He was drawing up the city, altering geography and everything else. The spirit world was the most obvious victim, and the real world was following suit in its own way.
I've had streets and perceptions warp around me despite my unawakened state, and it's so unbelievably awesome to use that as a concept in the spirit world, with the real world existing between states in a way that any unawakened could chalk it up to an overactive imagination
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JayManiac 21-Jul-19 11:38 PM
Thank you so much! That's really good to hear; sometimes I kick myself for not getting something that the DiP guys get, so I'm glad it feels like I'm doing my own kinda thing.
I'm gonna try to finish this here chapter, fingers crossed
Rose had made another call I didn’t necessarily agree with. Maggie wielded the Hyena, a gauntlet on her hand, sporting a very similar design.
On one hand, she'll probably use it to make things worse. On the other hand, she'll almost certainly be better with it than Blake was, and he needs just about all the help he can get. Now I'm not saying she should keep it, but honestly that's probably because I'm not reading her book.
Three wraiths. Three monsters. Rose’s creatures were stronger.
Oh I love the little turn of phrase here, the moment we realize which monsters Blake is talking about, and how he's thinking of it. I mean, obviously they are monsters, mistaken for demons, but there's still that undercurrent of 'what is rose becoming?'
Corvidae intercepted the third, a man that had burned to a crisp, apparently, gripping him by the wrists. He’d spoken something in french, and then released the spirit. The spirit flew away as if it had a goal in mind.
French, eh? For the wraith's benefit or Corvidae's, I wonder? I also can't help but notice that Blake still calls him Corvidae, whereas Rose calls him by the name he presumably introduced himself as, especially with the significance he places on the names of Others; he obviously doesn't consider Corvidae very human
“Rose gave me permission,” Maggie said. “You were unconscious.” “You could have asked me,” Evan said. “I could have woken up to say it wasn’t cool.” Or, I thought, she had you go to sleep so she was free to lend out the weapon.
This is the first moment I'm like "wait, she totally did that". I haven't been dismissing Blake's concerns, but this one seems more plausible than the whole 'she's gonna use the bogeymen to attack me'
“I kind of failed. It might be a good idea to check upstairs. See how old Behaim is managing. Can’t really guard against attacks from all directions when you’re all on your lonesome.”
If they lose Laird after not trading him for Fell that's just gonna be the final nail in all this.
Two people, or a person and a vestige, struggling to do the job that we’d had a hard time doing as a group. Two people I didn’t necessarily trust at this point. I wanted to trust them, so much it hurt, but I had too many questions and not enough answers.
I believe you, Blake, and I don't think you're necessarily wrong either; Maggie's got ulterior motives and Rose does not do things your way. You have a right to be concerned.
Oh yeah
also
Stop literally Othering your friggin sister she's a PERSON!!!!
I rounded the corner at the end of the hall, and I found myself facing Laird, still in the circle. Pauz was crouched there, grinning, his back to Laird.
Oh thank fuck
The new Other Rose had left behind, a woman with a Glasgow smile and surgical mask pulled away from her face, lay unmoving on the ground, clutching her chest.
I know this one! She was in Constantine, and I'd heard of her in passing from japanese horror stories. I actually thought of her when Mary was being introduced, but I didn't think we'd actually see her! That's really cool, especially because I couldn't find very much on the Tallowman when I went looking
Laird held up his implement.
Oh shit, it's Time
“I noticed you coming,” Laird said. “I thought I’d wait for you so I could watch it happen.” He broke the circle, flinging water across it. Pauz was free.
Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck Laird's gonna break free before you can bind him into a sundial forever gods dammit
Pauz took a step towards me. Then, a moment later, Pauz was a book again, pages and cord fluttering into place, trapping him, then taking form
Well that's a relief, at least
I didn't even notice that Blake never thinks "oh yeah this thing is a bluff and pauz isn't actually allowed to do any of that stuff he says" which is good because then there's this moment of tension
“We’re better than you think,” I said. “So am I,” he replied. He clicked his watch. A moment later, he was gone
Dammit! Get back here you smug bastard!
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JayManiac 24-Jul-19 11:32 PM
I'm on 7.4, the inverse of the one you're on, actually!
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JayManiac 29-Jul-19 12:49 AM
We're back baby
Back with consistent internet, in the comfort of my home, and ready to fail at reading Pact faster because there's just so much to talk about
sharkhi 1
CharmanderHi 1
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Elliot (Boy) 29-Jul-19 12:50 AM
sharkhi
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JayManiac 29-Jul-19 12:50 AM
Elliot! Welcome! First time tuning in on one of these? I don't often see you in this channel, but I'm so glad you're here!
agree 2
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Elliot (Boy) 29-Jul-19 12:51 AM
I muted the channel when I first started Pact because I assumed everyone would be ahead of me all the time (edited)
But a few days ago I was clued into the fact I could finally experience the other side
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JayManiac 29-Jul-19 12:53 AM
Oh yeah I've been on your tail for months, listening to DiP as I go, it's a really cool way to experience the book
ty 1
Anyhow, it's time for 7.5
and here in the liveread channel we have our catchphrase: When we last left off: Blake was screwed!
Or rather, he seemed screwed, and Rose and I sure thought he was, but he seems to think Laird getting out un-screws him a little bit
The snowstorm raged all around us. Progress was slow, hampered by weather and the increasingly inconsistent rules of the city’s layout. We could somehow still get turned around by walking in a straight line, and there were threats everywhere. Many minor. We waited while one threat lingered. It wasn’t one of the minor ones.
Alright, we set the chapter by reminding us of exactly how conquest is affecting the city, how everything's going to shit, and without any mention of the *Behaim secret that's driving me up the wall*
“I played a video game with ghouls in it once,” Evan said. “They were a level up from the regular zombies.” “That’s not what this is,” Rose said. “It’s just an idea,” Evan said.
Gods, I love Evan. And he's right, that not-ghoul over there is just an idea...an idea that can report your exact location to the shepherd and maybe kill you, but an idea nonetheless
“Maybe it isn’t a ghoul,” I said. “All the other signs are there. It fits.”
I wonder how the book is going to handle the difference between the Rosian and Blakien forms of handling things- will Rose prove the better practitioner because of her scientific, categorical, birds-eye (wait just a fuckin second) worldview? Or is Blake's artistic, visceral, figure out the rules of this encounter and judge it by its own merits approach the one that fares better? Because you get to this and it's like...maybe it's not a ghoul? Maybe it is? Does it matter?
“It’s really not the focus right now. Assuming it’s a ghoul or it’s ghoul-like, what do we do? I’d really rather not take the long way around, get lost and run into something else.”
Because that's the thing about Blake: he's more concerned with what its deal is, what it can do, and what that means for him than whether the Eye of Objectivity (which starts flame wars instead of literal fires) says the ghoul is a ghoul or a tool of a fool or what have you
“Yeah. Maybe I should amend that to say ‘practicing necromancy badly‘. Using terms we’re mostly familiar with, they’re individuals who are out of balance. They’re the spinning plates that are only just hanging on, and that means they need a fine touch to keep going. They do that with periods of convalescence, like hibernation, and bursts of… hunger is the wrong word. Life or death voraciousness. Maddened with a need for sustenance. More like a rabid dog than human.” “So they are basically super-zombies,” Evan said. I heard Rose sigh.
This is among my favorite tropes ever: A: so it's this B: you unenlightened prick. In fact, it is not that, but this complicated series of things that correspond to this other series of things and create a mess of nuance that your birdbrain couldn't possibly comprehend A: So it's just this. B: You- I... B: fine, yes. It's just that.
Besides, things in this universe usually don't deviate all that much from how we perceive them- if we think we know what a ghoul is we know what a ghoul is because they're based on what we think they is
But also with a Bowian (wild, not david...or jim for that matter) twist that doesn't contradict our conceptions, just reinterprets them
“Can we not be the still-living victims?” Evan asked. “I don’t have much meat on me. Look at me…” He got out from under my scarf and puffed up. “I weigh as much as the battery from the remote control, and a lot of that is feathers.”
Same, Evan. Y'ain't gettin much off of this pile of bones.
“They’re dead. They don’t feel the cold, they don’t get tired, the only thing that drives them is a need to gorge themselves with flesh. They aren’t going to move until they have a reason to move.”
I love how they're Totally Super Zombies and that's just becoming more and more apparent as we move forwards in the chapter
It's the continuation of a beat that works pretty well
“Conventional wisdom is that you stave them off by reintroducing them to the cycle of life.” “Meaning?” I asked.
Oh hey, so you know how I said that Wb takes the basic abstract concept and keeps it the same while adding his own twists on it to make it work with the existing world in a more creative and interesting and usually a little more terrifying way?
“The go-to answer is menstrual fluids,” Rose said. “Drawn on their forehead, fed to them, ‘poison’ a weapon with it. “Huh?” Evan asked.
well tHERE IT IS
I glanced at Maggie before I realized what I was doing. “No sir,” Maggie said, deadpan. “Damn,” I said.
This is just...this is great
“I don’t get it,” Evan said. “You don’t want to know,” I said. “I helped against that black demon in the factory. What could be worse than that?” “Other options, Rose?” I asked, ignoring him.
And it keeps getting better. Good Lords of Gimel, it's a good thing Blake isn't uh..."practicing straight" or they'd have to give him the talk and that'd be more than awkward
I've always wondered what the hell familiars do during that. Are they just there, or one room over, feeling vaguely pleasurable things through the familiar bon- you know what if this book never ever answers any of that I think I'd be alright (edited)
Me, during this book: "This is the best magic system ever and I really want to explore way more of this world than we'd ever get to" Wildbow: [explores world] Me: Okay but did we need to see that part?
“Some plants are tied to the cycle of death and rebirth. Holly.” “We used holly against the Hyena,” Evan said. “See? I know stuff. You can tell me stuff. No need to leave me out because I’m a kid.”
Evan you don't know what you're getting into just..hhhhh I thought this beat was over and it's not and it's still funny
“Just tellll me,” Evan said. Maggie glanced at me. “I’m not going there,” I said. “‘You don’t want to know‘ is generally something you should take at face value in this world, he needs to learn that, but he’s not going to learn from me.” “Coward,” Rose said. “Come here, Evan.” “Yes!”
Oh sweet scion they're actually gonna tell him this is even better
I love Blake's version of "ask your mother"
Rose murmured her explanation. “No.” Evan said. “My mom told me about that! No! Don’t- What’s wrong with you?” “Shh,” I said. “Let’s not get their attention.” “You make the super zombies drink it?”
Be careful what you wish for, Ev. Ignorance is bliss, after all. Didn't Uncle Fell teach us that before he was impaled and then died?
“Ugh,” Evan said, then before I could reprimand him, he said, “What about eggs?”
Evan's smarter than every Thorburn combined, and is the most valuable member of the team
“We need to move before they do,” I said. “We backtrack to the nearest convenience store, grab supplies, then we egg the cannibal super-zombies, including our mysterious obese cadaver, and if that fails, we use weapons instead. We have your summonings.” “We do,” Rose said. “Go.”
This is every kid's dream: being taken seriously by awesome people with motorcycles. Who could ask for more? Also Blake refers to ghouls as cannibal-super-zombies despite the fact that ghouls is easier to say and that makes me happy because he's picking up Ev's terminology
and makes me worried, because maybe he's just doing it to piss off Rose
Moment of truth. I whipped an egg at the first one to step outside of the bus shelter. I missed, hitting the edge of the glass enclosure. The ghoul stopped in its tracks, and the one behind it collided with it. It was hard to say whether it had worked.
I didn't expect the start of this chapter to be so funny, but they're fighting this fat old super-cannibal-zombie, giving part of The Talk to a bird, and Blake can't even throw eggs correctly it's just great
Mary didn’t hit the ground. Somewhere in transit, she became muddled, as if all of her features existed as one amorphous mass, and then she shifted to another form, slipping away from reality, unable to hold herself together.
Oh? I guess we never really knew the rules for what keeps these guys all slick and stab-y but I'm a little bit surprised that the answer is 'punch them real hard'
A car approached. I felt a tertiary sort of connection to the occupant.
????
I'm so used to cars approaching and it being Fell that now I'm sad
“Your choice,” I said, one eye on the car that was struggling to make it through snow that was piled higher than the car’s underside. “Can’t let you continue like this. Going after people. You choose. You go after one of the enemies I designate and then return to me for further instructions and possible binding and execution, you agree never to harm another living soul, or you die.”
Oh yeah! I remember the days when Blake wished that there were just random low-power Others around for him to wrangle! Fun times! He was almost dying back then, sure, but at least it was just the universe against him
“Second choice?” I asked. “Agree never to harm another living soul?” “I swear,” it managed.
Drat. No new GhoulTool against conquest.
Okay Jay, you gotta finish chapters faster, it's easy, just don't pull every single time Evan tal-
“Don’t feel bad,” Evan told the ghoul. “This is a lot better than the other idea they were talking about.”
dammit!
I approached the car, which was struggling more and more. The snow here was higher than it had been on the major streets. I didn’t recognize the woman within the vehicle, even if I could make a guess about the connections.
My only thought is that it has to be a sister of the torch, or...fell's mom come to avenge her son? I'm hoping it's that because Blake needs some help, especially if he's still not gonna reveal the goddamn behaim secret just spit it out what's happening
“Can you see it?” I asked. “I can,” Maggie said. “She knows him.”
Who? Laird? Conquest? Fell? The Hyena? Nick? Who?
A small smile crossed my face. This was ideal.
i'm still confused but I reread and made sure I'm supposed to be confused. So either it's all good, or I missed something twice
We approached the car from the side, and somewhere along the line, Maggie managed to hide the sword altogether. Sure beat a poster tube.
Wow Blake and his friends sure are living the life now
you could even say it's
Glamourous
“Stuck?” I asked. “I don’t need to go far,” she said. “Just that house over there. If I could get into the garage, I’d be in the clear. I don’t want to be on the street if the plow comes.” “We can give you a bit of a push,” I said. “Do you have a shovel?”
Ideal just because it's an opportunity for good karma? Or is there something else at play? She doesn't seem to be awakened, at the very least
“Are you in a rush, or do you want to come inside and have a bite, or warm up, at least?” “I can’t speak for my companion here, but I’d love to take you up on that,” I said. “Yeah,” Maggie said. “Please.” “I’m Joanna, by the way.”
Hi Joanna! I hope you don't die horribly
Oh
wait
are they gonna use an unawakened's presence to hide out from the lesser Others?
that doesn't seem like all there is to this
“Blake,” I said. A moment’s concerns were banished when Joanna smiled and led the way inside.
So...they were worried she was an Other?
Nothing too strong in the house itself. It wasn’t a demesne. “Alarm rune,” Maggie murmured in my ear.
What the actual fuck is happening? She is a practitioner after all?
There were a variety of clocks on the wall in the bent hallway that extended between the garage door and the front door. I saw a picture of the woman with Duncan Behaim.
Oh
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha
That reveal (edited)
“Are you married?” I asked. “He’s my fiancé.” The fiancé was on his way.
Hohohohohohoho this is just awesome in every way, it was built up to so well and I was waiting for the reveal that we were doing something with the Behaims but I didn't expect it
“Laird is his uncle. A whole contingent of my Duncan’s family just showed up a few days ago. It got to be too much, so they changed over to a hotel room.” I resisted asking where. “Family can be hard,” I said. “I’m glad to deal with family,” she said. “Makes me feel connected to him, if that makes any sense.” “I can sort of understand that,” I said.
Okay I just got hit with this read: they're going to this police officer's house, meeting his wife who doesn't know them, trying to dig up information while responding with relatable statements that can be villainous if you read them just right
The hero's on his way back, rushing to do something before the villain can enact his plan, but he doesn't know he's walking straight into a trap and-
i dunno
it just feels really villainous to me somehow
He's asking questions he knows the answers to, like why duncan's into clocks...he's smiling semi-sadistically, he's brought two almost-demons and a goblin-sword, his henchmen are perusing around the house...it's just unnerving if you film it right
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JayManiac 29-Jul-19 01:53 AM
I mean, I'm psyched for Blake to have the edge on someone for once, I can just imagine... "any idea why he has that...particular eccentricity?" and "we're...looking for someone. He's proving hard to track down"
Well, it takes me around 2 hours to read a chapter because I pause to talk for twenty minutes after Blake thinks anything at all
I'm lucky Blake doesn't do a lot of thinking, I guess
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Elliot (Boy) 29-Jul-19 01:55 AM
Adrain Chase is 100% a Behaim tho
agree 1
but yeah I totally get what you mean
Blake is getting sucked into the game a bit
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JayManiac 29-Jul-19 01:55 AM
I mean when the universe says "be a bond villain" how can Blake say no?
I keep similar pace to you because it's hard to find a spare 2 hours to read a chapter more than about every 2-4 days, which puts me right around "slowly gaining on DiP. Very slowly."
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Elliot (Boy) 29-Jul-19 01:58 AM
Yeah I didn't realize how much live reading slows you down till I started it recently
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JayManiac 29-Jul-19 01:59 AM
I wouldn't trade it for a binge, honestly. It's just so fantastic
agree 1
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Seregraug 29-Jul-19 01:59 AM
I tried doing as light weight one as possible and I still felt the massive slowdown.
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JayManiac 29-Jul-19 02:00 AM
I still remember going back to your read of a chapter and being like "the fuck did they do that it was like lightning!"
“Have to take risks,” Maggie said. “Keeps things exciting, if nothing else.” “That’s not exactly my perspective,” I said. “Nor mine,” Rose said.
But Maggie's got her whole 'the worse it gets the better it gets' thing to keep in mind, and also she's the 17 year old protagonist of a bunch of books for kids so that's a good perspective to have for her specifically.
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Seregraug 29-Jul-19 02:00 AM
I just said a lot less I think.
I missed a ton of things though because of it. (edited)
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JayManiac 29-Jul-19 02:03 AM
🤷
maybe it's a tradeoff, you got a bit of the live-read, a bit of the binge and you landed somewhere in a happy middle!
“Think. Laird slipped away a bit ago, using his pocketwatch. Duncan isn’t using the same means to get here faster, when someone he cares about is at risk.” The phone call finished. “He’s forsworn, isn’t he?” Rose asked. “That could be it,” I said. “Could be I’m right.”
I'm not sure whether to take the time 🕰 to try and figure out what he could mean by this sentence alone...I think I'll just let the story tell me and then be like "oh I should've gotten that one"
“It’s fine,” I said. “If it’s an inconvenience having us, we could head out and get in touch with Laird another time. We did our good deed for the day.” “It’s no inconvenience, really. Duncan’s going to be back any minute-” “Oh, I definitely don’t want to be sitting in your living room without you there,” I said. “He might be surprised and shoot me.”
And here's blake calculating words, a tactic that usually doesn't seem this villainous because usually it's being used with other practitioners who know the deal or when Blake is undeniably, completely screwed
It wasn't bad in the police station because duncan was being worse, or in Laird's house because most of those people were practitioners, there was glamor, and it was Blake's only option
without all that this just seems...it's not wrong, and certainly not Wrong
but hhhhhhh
“Mr. Thorburn. I can’t say how surprised I am to see you here.” “I’m here all the same,” I said. “Enjoying Joanna’s hospitality.”
And I wholeheartedly believe Blake is enjoying it too
Hospitality. Few sins were as egregious as a breach of genuine hospitality. To harm a guest in one’s own home, or for the guest to harm the host.
I've been waiting for something like this ever since I compared karma to Magnus Chase's "guest rites". I like this a lot more, because: 1. there's someone who doesn't know the deal here and it makes it that much more fun 2. I love Riordan, but he uses guest rites in those books to stop his protagonists from being eaten so many times and there's just not enough variation. Karma feels like a more cohesive, constantly-in-play system that's been used to construct a lot more conflicts, and it never feels like "oh we're doing this again."
Duncan met my eyes. “You have my permission to tell her,” I said. He started to open his mouth. “-But I’d reserve the right to tell her about you in return,” I said. His mouth closed.
I bet she's gonna like that. Jeez, Blake. I know this guy tried to have you locked up, kill you, yada yada yada, but did you have to fuck with his love life?
Jokes aside
I like that we're getting Duncan in a more humanizing position here
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Seregraug 29-Jul-19 02:14 AM
Blake: smugface
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JayManiac 29-Jul-19 02:14 AM
he learned from the best
“As far as I’m concerned,” I said, “We’re even. You want to spoil that, draw that gun, I’m going to have to balance the scales again.” He didn’t budge. I continued, “I’m not even with Laird. Not with my cousin’s blood on his hands.” I could see Joanna react to that, visibly paling over the seconds the silence stretched on.
This is hitting all the right standoff buttons for me and I love it
“Stop,” Maggie said, before he could draw it. She stepped out from behind me, holding a gun in her right hand, already raised and pointed at Duncan. Fell’s gun.
and in true Bowian fashion, something happens that I don't expect, but should've seen coming, that changes what my expectations of the conflict are, and what the heroes now have to do to solve it
well
"heroes"
I spoke, “Duncan, we have more firepower, right this moment, right here, than you do. You can make the first move, break this tentative truce we’re both benefiting from, and I’m betting we’ll still beat you. I’m offering to let you balance the scales. Call in help. Call Laird out of hiding. Call your backup.” “This was a damn shitty way to handle this,” Duncan said. “Involving my fiancee?”
I could come back with all sorts of retorts here, but at the end of the day this is a pretty damn shitty way to handle it blake...but I'm so very here for it because it's fun to read. You never get to see this sort of thing from the other side of the table and I'm almost disturbed by how much fun I'm having with it
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Seregraug 29-Jul-19 02:20 AM
Well, Duncan, you know what they say: "What comes around goes around."
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JayManiac 29-Jul-19 02:21 AM
I didn't connect that Blake's totally absolutely using Karma to fuck with him and how perfect that is, but it's perfect
“If that,” I said. “Duncan… I’m trying to be civil. I’m trying to be fair. I did Joanna a favor, she invited me in. Maggie didn’t threaten anyone until you touched your gun. If you play ball, call Laird, and stay out of things, I won’t touch you or your fiancee. You walk away from this, you can concoct some misdirection to reassure her…” I could see her expression change. “You know it’s not that simple,” Duncan told me. “It isn’t,” I said. “It’s your choice.”
That. Now that is insidious, Blake. Injecting that note of distrust into their relationship that's never really gonna go away.
The egg timer disappeared as he walked past it. A little sleight of hand magic to go along with the practice. A part of me wondered if he’d used that same sleight of hand to slip a potential criminal something more incriminating.
Almost certainly, but I'm sure there was no love lost between them
“Use the egg timer,” I said. “Why don’t you pull the same trick Laird did to slip out of the circle we had him in? Can’t you stop time?” He glared at me. But he didn’t stop time.
Okay time for me to start guessing. Only Laird can wield the power? Or only one at a time? No, none of that makes sense. There's some condition here I'm not seeing
“Tell me it’s because you’re forsworn, even.” “I think you and I both know it isn’t that,” he said.
Sucks that Duncan's not forsworn, but also then what is it!?!
“Ah,” I said. “Then get rid of the timer and make the call.”
why call all the backup exactly to you, Blake?
Why!?!
This was it. Two big steps to walk away from all of this in essentially one piece. Step one. Laird.
How much is 'all of this'? The contest? Toronto? The living room?
“Can you let Joanna and only Joanna go? She can go upstairs, out of harm’s way.” I glanced at Joanna. She sat on the arm of the armchair, both hands around her mug. She looked up and nodded. I couldn’t trust ordinary humans. Then again, she liked Duncan, of all people. How normal could she be? But it was a kindness, and I was starting to think I needed to be more kind, especially after my last visit with Mrs. Lewis. “Go, Joanna.”
Okay thank the Lords, Blake is still Blake, everyone! Don't sound the alarms
Laird was approaching.
or do, but not for that specific reason anymore
First Laird, then Conquest.
Oh, alright, those two steps
And in the moment my attention was on the world outside the window, Duncan moved.
If I've learned one thing from Wildbow's books, it's that the best way to creatively complicate a situation is to let people act how they'd actually act, with agency and not-dumbass-ness
in any other story, maybe duncan would be dealt with, and the story would progress as planned
He turned it into a grip, grabbing Maggie by the wrist and waistband and heaving her into the air. Before she had her bearings, he was flinging her, hurling her into the armchair.
not in this one!
I closed my eyes. Stepped on his hand, walking, the position of things fixed in my mind.
Peter-tingle? is it something to do with spatial limitation? Are they even chronomancers? Is Isadora even a sphinx?
I fought, rather ineffectually. “Blake! Stop squirming! I can hit him if you stop!” I couldn’t, not really. An awful lot of bad memories, inarticulate.
fine
Duncan wasn’t holding me. He was a step away, pistol in hand. Maggie was on the ground, disarmed, holding one both hands to her face. I felt a surge of victory. I’d been right. Perception.
Oh you sons of behaims
The Behaims didn’t alter time itself. That would be insane. It would require more power than they could feasibly manipulate, to alter reality on a fundamental, core level. They manipulated other people’s perceptions of time.
I think I've come so very close to understanding this, when I've said things about how the behaims alter memory, awareness, etc. but with everything going on I just didn't completely clock it
haha
get it
that wasn't intentional but I think it was instinctive
The way Duncan had turned back time at the station… I’d sat there in my cell, thinking I was waiting for events to play out, for rescue from the Knights to come, but I was really just revising memories to experience the morning all over again, while catching up to the real present day.
It's so friggin Mysterious
does that count as a spoiler? Maybe, but hey we don't even have the channel anymore so spoilers on that are free reign
I had little doubt they could really manipulate time, but it was undoubtedly expensive, a real investment.
Interesting, I wonder how the two concepts are related
I see more how this is related to shamanism, spirits, altering perception and awareness
I see it as less related to actual time
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Elliot (Boy) 29-Jul-19 02:38 AM
I kinda picture it as you need to study time magic a lot to know the tricks that let you use it the cheap way.
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JayManiac 29-Jul-19 02:39 AM
That makes a lot of sense, that it's the same discipline but you can bullshit it if you combine know-how with shamanism
Shutting my eyes and being oblivious helped against the little tricks.
Okay this one I'mma spoiler. Don't click on it if you don't know what I meant by mysterious.
Maggie, still holding her face, blood seeping through the segments of the gauntlet, struggled to her feet. “Grab the gun,” I said, my voice low. Her head was bowed, and I saw a glimpse of something inhuman in her expression when she changed hands, shaking the blood free of her gauntlet. She was possessed? Was that what was going on with her? She’d let something in?
Oh hell, that would make a super disturbing amount of sense, and probably won't end quite well
at the same time, her specialties are faerie and goblin, so I don't know how spirit-possession fits in. Maybe she got the lowdown from Briar girl...who voted to have her killed that one time?
“We should wrap this up. Where’s Corvidae?” “I told him to stop Duncan.” “Did you tell him how?” “No.”
AhhahahAHHHHHAHHHHHHH
same 2
That's your textbook dickhead genie Rose, you can't just do that!?
“I’m under the impression that Rose is upstairs with Duncan Behaim’s wife-to-be and a particular Other. I didn’t want this, but it’s happening! Stop fighting!” There was only silence. Everything had gone still. Had Rose’s Others listened to me? Handy.
And then Blake kind of has to capitalize on the situation even though it was Rose's [lapse in judgement/not giving a shit] that got him into it
real, real comfortable with that
See now I notice every time I do that and just say to myself 'jay, you'd be an awful practitioner' (edited)
“What Other?” Laird asked. “I don’t think you’d know him,” I said. “Let me reduce this to a very simple question. What are your priorities!?”
See that's the thing, if you force him into a situation where he has to let this awful thing happen and pursue you, or not and don't, then I think you just did an awful thing because you know he's just gonna keep coming, right? Duncan's relationships aren't gonna be more important than putting you in the ground, Blake
“Not death,” I said. “Something worse. She’ll be lost to him forever, in a particularly twisted way. The Other that does this… it’s been mistaken for a demon from time to time.” “Corvidae,” Laird said.
Oh yeah, Blake might not know that Laird was totally trained by Rose
I’d barely lost a half-second there. I couldn’t see the watch, and the trick was losing cachet. I grinned. “…status and the power grab? You can stop trying, Laird. It’s not working anymore. Not really.” “I think I’ll do what I can,” he said. “It’s a simple choice. Family or power?” “Family is power,” Laird said. “And corrupt powers make for a broken family, as the Thorburn line has demonstrated so well.”
Now hold on a minute buddy, Laird actually believes this, or else he wouldn't say it
But it's super duper clear to me that equating family with power just economizes and utilizes them with no humanity to it, like I've been saying this entire book. Laird doesn't see that there isn't a difference between what he's doing, reducing people to power, and what destroys and infects a family
“Sounds like you’re dodging the question. I guess you can’t admit to your kid that you don’t give a damn about him.” “No, Thorburn, that isn’t it at all. I’m buying time. Even-”
I notice that he doesn't deny the second part at all, focusing entirely on the first
this is the entire reason practitionership is so fucked up
and by talking about practitionership, I'm also talking about what it represents in-story, in-metaphor: Society, social pressures, playing 'the game' of manipulating concepts and benefiting from a social order that rewards cruelty and rampant economization
I mean, was this so difficult to see all along? I think the first thematic hint of it we see, is that Laird's familiar and implement are one and the same
if a Familiar is a convention of the world in the same way marriage is a convention of ours (magically reinforced because conventions are the world in Pact)
and an Implement is similarly tied to your job, the way you express labor, the way you translate and handle power, the tools you use to affect the world
Then Laird has done some equivalent of treating his metaphysical 'marriage' and his metaphysical 'job' as the same thing, and if there's a healthy way to do that I haven't seen it
It's one of the first things we learn about him, and at that point it serves as an education point about familiars and implements, since we're still new to the concepts. But it's a secret DoubleBow- as Scott would say- because it's also setting up how Laird treats his relationships and what his issues are
Ilovethis 2
this story is so damn good (edited)
agree 2
It's the concept of society as a metaphor, and the things we agree upon being real, that makes this magic system the best I've encountered- the quintessential urban fantasy, even.
Bow, you've ruined superhero comics for me, and I'm honored and blown away to have this genre completely ruined for me too.
Oh yeah there's more chapter maybe I should read that
My heart sank. The plan was fucked. Laird was right. Even knowing how to deal with it, I’d let him buy time. Reinforcements had arrived. Conquest stood in the swirling snow, tall among the various dolls and young Behaims, triumphant over the crumpled bodies of Rose’s summonings.
Oh yeah okay so Blake is screwed, glad we just end on that note
What an awesome chapter
I love that the behaims reveal wasn't even my favorite part of it; I loved the supervillain!Blake part and the cannibal-super-zombie part and the Laird-is-a-shitbag part it's just so great
Anyways, I hope everyone enjoyed my little rants here and there! That's the chapter!
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JayManiac 29-Jul-19 03:15 AM
sharkhi
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JayManiac 29-Jul-19 03:25 AM
I wish I'd started a little bit earlier; I've just heard some of your discussion questions and gone "Good Lords of Gimel I want to write a giant essay on that"
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JayManiac 30-Jul-19 04:02 PM
Alrighty, it's 7.6 time!
last chapter, Blake came up with this great plan based on a great hypothesis to defeat Laird as step one of his bigger plan: 1. beat Laird 2. beat Conquest. 3. Go home (not dead)
And now he's oh so utterly screwed!
“I do believe this will end here,” Conquest said. His voice, inhuman as it was, carried.
So Blake...you have any substeps for step two of the plan, or did you somehow not anticipate that revealing your exact location to conquest's champion may attract unwanted attention?
“Okay, well, we knew he might come,” Maggie said. “I’d hoped for more time,” I said. “We need to take down Laird first. This mixes things up.”
I dunno, you've kind of already beat Laird, in that what he does can't affect you all that much, so I think the priority is probably just Conquest himself at this point. Feel free to prove me wrong
👀 2
Rose appeared in the glass window of a cabinet. “Corvidae didn’t get a chance to do anything. He was ready to, but it didn’t go that far.”
Oh thank utter fuck, I wasn't gonna be thrilled to see what he'd been up to
“Seems we have a bit of a standoff,” Laird said. “Seems so,” I answered. “A bit like bank robbers with hostages, isn’t it?” “I was thinking something along those lines,” Laird said.
Out of curiosity, how many bank robberies has Laird had to deal with throughout his life? I somehow doubt that's one of the recurring issues of Jacob's Bell, but there might be an equivalent.
He’d cornered himself in a way. Us too, but the situation he’d put himself in was the leverage I was most interested in. If he decided on the full-on offensive, then he risked Duncan dying, he risked losing the trust of his family. They’d probably get me in the process and win the fight, but would he do something?
I think the appearance of caring about the family is an essential part of economizing and exploiting them for his own means, yes.
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Wildbow 30-Jul-19 04:12 PM
I'm looking forward to the reveal that Laird gave up years of his life for his kids (no read jay)
😔 4
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JayManiac 30-Jul-19 04:16 PM
He’d come to Toronto to bail Duncan out. He was willing to use his family as pawns, but he hadn’t done anything to make me believe he didn’t care about them on some level. When the chips were down, did he value reputation and power more, or did he value family?
Hmm, okay, yeah, but do you Blake Thorburn really want to be the one putting those chips down? If you arrange for Laird to have to choose between whether his family lives or he gives up power and then his family dies then that's kind of on you for constructing that situation knowing what Laird was probably gonna do
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David Hunt 30-Jul-19 04:18 PM
I somehow doubt that's one of the recurring issues of Jacob's Bell, but there might be an equivalent.
I'd guess that Laird has attended classes regarding hostage negotiations, just in case. I wouldn't be surprised if smaller town police could attend training classes in larger cities if they looked for them and could afford it.
agree 1
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JayManiac 30-Jul-19 04:24 PM
“You’re so invested in finding something evil in what I’m doing. Have you considered, Thorburn, that I might be right? That you and your family are a stain on this world and we’re all better off without you?”
I wonder what exactly could've made Laird believe this? Something he saw in diabolism class? Granny Rose made a bad impression? Regardless, I think that even if Laird is ultimately right about the 'stain' that diabolism is, cutting Blake off from all other options, victimizing and attempting to exploit him was the wrong way to go about mitigating that threat. If you chased him to Toronto and then shit started going sideways that suffering is partially on Blake, mostly on Conquest, but certainly part of it is on you, Laird.
Laird wouldn't even try to take him out because he thought that Blake could be useful in the short term without much risk
Which is kind of incongruous with the Holier than Thou Art way he's handling things now. If he really gave all that much of a shit about the world, it's certainly implied he could've incapacitated Blake beforehand
could've been misdirection, I suppose, but I think Laird was genuinely looking to benefit from that arrangement
“You tell me, Thorburn. You started this contest, and Conquest has bent the city to its knees as a result, innumerable people have been hurt or killed, you’ve set two peaceful groups of practitioners against one another, assaulted a police station, and led this city into at atmosphere of fear, violence and confusion.” “It’s got to be better than what happens if he gets what he wants.”
Probably true, but Blake is really banking on the idea that it has to be. Otherwise, he's caused a whole lot of suffering to save his own skin.
Don't get me wrong, Conquest is an Asshole and him getting his hands on demons is probably the worst, but nevertheless...
Laird was building on his dream, striving for some distant goal, becoming Lord, putting his family on the map. My dream? My goal? When I floundered, trying to put my thumb on it, I kept coming back to a mental picture of the place I’d dreamed about. The place Ms. Lewis had called my refuge, my hope. It was the place I wanted to be, the place I wanted to reach when all this was said and done. I fought, in part, because I wanted to get to the point where I could do that. Get on my bike, get away from it all. Find a place where I had peace and a nice view. My friends hadn’t been there.
fascinating, in a world where so much of identity and humanity is built out of connections and relationships.
My friends hadn’t been there, was that because I felt, deep down, that Laird was right? That I wasn’t a positive force in their lives?
Almost certainly. I mean, I think it's been clear from the start that introducing them to the Practice was not going to "better" their lives, especially if they're with the Thorburns. Is it weird/naive that I'd still call what Blake did the right decision?
“He’s not getting to you, is he? This garbage isn’t hitting the mark?” “It is,” I said. “He’s partially right.”
That's the frustrating thing about Laird, isn't it? All of what he says is bullshit, but annoyingly little of it is wrong
“We have options,” Rose said. “We came into this with a strategy. So did they. Let’s be smart about it, plan, counterplan. You can’t get fucking down in the dumps because they’re attacking your character and Evan isn’t around to stand up for you.”
This is a great pep talk and all, just maybe not the best one for Blake. Anytime you've used the words "plan" or "counterplan" I think you've lost him. And suggesting a further level of emotional detachment isn't really gonna be his thing either
“Got anything else to summon?” “Not really. A few of the ones I tried to summon were off on other errands. A few more felt like Midges, or the text was iffy enough I wasn’t sure if they were real demons or not.”
Lords, Rose, that's because there's no such thing as a "real demon or not". Just figure out how much of a handle you can get on it, what the karmic cost is in handling that, and how shitty it'll be if it blows up in your face. Maybe I'm biased. Strict categories are Not My Thing.
“I’m glad you’re thinking, Blake,” Rose said, “But I don’t think the answer is as easy as that.” I nodded.
Are we just gonna ignore how awesome a burn "I'm glad you're thinking" is? Because damn, that sure is a helluva way to phrase that
“I know how goblins operate,” Maggie said. “Asking me to be your champion and then giving the goblin beast to Evan isn’t good strategy.” “Let me rephrase. If I release it, Evan will have command of it, circumstances allowing,” I told her.
Oh thank fuck. Look, I love Maggie, but: 1. not as much as I love Evan 2. she crazy (and by that I mean she has ulterior motives and may or may not be on her way to becoming more Other than human)
“Still cold. You sortaowe me one, after I’ve come all this way.” “Maybe,” I said. “If I was certain I knew who you were.” She snapped her head around, staring at me. “Huh?”
See that's the kind of reaction you give when you're absolutely hiding something about what the fuck you've done with your identity
“No kidding,” Maggie said. “Are you losing it?” The question sounded so natural, but the fact that it was a question and not a statement only added to my doubt.
wELP! If I wasn't on the distrust-maggie-train before....
“June. We can use June.” “How?” “Let her go. It’s her medium.”
Ooof. I mean, isn't expending a ghost kind of like ending a suffering in the universe anyways? Blake still might not take that 100% well, but I think it's probably a good call
“What’s the second idea?” I asked. “We let Pauz free.”
Okay okay that, on the other hand...
Loud, throbbing music cutting through the whistle of the wind. The bass was turned up too high, the entire thing undercut by the hiss of static, a radio station that was tuned slightly off. “Car stereo,” I said. We’d taken too long to deliberate, and they were making their first move.
Uhh....that's kind of a weird pull. I buy that music magic exists for sure, but I didn't think it'd be Laird or Conquest's...forte
Then Laird’s soundtrack started playing. Words in Arabic, punctuated by a soundtrack of ticks, tocks, and audible gear shifts.
Aha, not music then
“Quiet,” Maggie said. “Or what? You can cut me a little with the sword, but the gun is either fired or it isn’t. There isn’t a lot of middle ground.” Maggie kicked him in the head.
Hahahahahaha, she may be crazy but I love her
“Hyena!” Rose raised her voice. “The seventh-youngest Thorburn bound you, and the seventh-youngest Thorburn bids you to listen! Accept our order, obey Evan Matthieu, the ghost and the bird, agree to do us no harm. Do this and you may step forth, wreak havoc, strike down our enemies!”
Lords, how I've missed the sweet sweet sounds of pRose. She's just so awesome at this!
and plus the hyena actually listens! See that's probably what Blake was missing before.
I could cover my ears to stop that bit of perception alteration from getting to me. Maggie couldn’t, not with a gun in one hand. Not if she wanted to aim at Duncan. This wasn’t a glamour, not exactly. It wasn’t countered by someone recognizing it for what it was.
Those are always the most annoying, and narratively the coolest. Like, when Blake found out Conquest was Wizard-of-Oz-ing it up, it didn't solve his conflict outright, just gave him some hope for what a solution might look like
He moved, holding the gun with one hand. His body was as affected as mine was, but his hands and his arms weren’t. He looked at me out of the corner of one eye, aiming-
because now that we know what Behaim magic is capable of, there's so much you can do with that, creating situations like this with people who know how to use it. And I was kind of right that it may be linked more to shamanism and spirits than actual literal chronomancy
Rose was saying something, but her voice was distorted. Then I heard fluttering right in my ear, and the entire world shifted into focus, in the chronological sense. Evan. Good kid.
sharkhi
He was the assailant, I was the civilian, or the man on the battlefield who was out of ammo and praying not to get hit. That was the aura he had, the atmosphere that he carried with him when he was on the offensive. It stripped away rational thought, shifted the ‘fight or flight’ decision making into pure ‘flight’. It was like being the kid in the classroom, homework unfinished, praying the teacher wouldn’t pick you to answer the question. That was the closest comparison I could make, tying it to reality, except being ‘picked’ was being hit by the bullet. And you knew the fucking teacher had it in for you.
Perfect metaphor, Blake. I've had some teachers who could've offered themselves up to conquest without very much cognitive dissonance if you know what I mean. I love that we still take the time to characterize conquest because the idea of an incarnation is still so awesome to me
and it doesn't distract from the fight because it's all being used to build the tension
“June!” she shouted. “We release you from your binding! All at once now! The snow! Nothing but snow!” Conquest shielded his face as the hatchet detonated, the ghost appearing as she’d been the first time I’d seen her, clear as day.
I'm not really going to mourn, since this tragedy is long past, but it does feel like a culminating moment, something that's been coming for- what- four or five arcs now? It's kind of sad to see her go
You were a good hatchet, June
Russian winter to stall the Conqueror, I could only hope.
hahahahahahahahaha this is perfect
didn't miss that much history class after all
“For now. We can’t stay here,” Rose said. “Go for Laird.” “Don’t have any weapons,” I said. “We do,” Rose said. “It’s the last big option you have, but…”
Oh yeah, just let Pauz do all those things he said he would when he was in that circle and everyone was uncomfortable and he did those screams remember the screams? I'm sure that's not gonna be morally questionable at all
Conquest was making his way to us, too big for the room. It seemed Duncan wouldn’t have a house when all of this was done.
I hate duncan as much as the next guy but...I can't feel good about this
The Hyena lay on its side at the end of the driveway, collapsed, snow already thick in its fur. It didn’t breathe. Blood pooled around it.
Holy shit, who took down that thing!? That's fucking terrifying; are we sure that Conquest is Wizard of Oz-ing it up after all?
“Ah, of course. You have support. Shall I call mine?” I tensed. The Shepherd? The Eye? Conquest spread his arms. As if stepping out from behind the curtains on either side of the stage, two figures emerged. Two men, a bit of scruff on their cheeks, they wore utilitarian clothes, dirty, one suited more for spring or fall, the other for winter. Heavy layers. They had wavy blond hair of different lengths. One was slightly shorter than the other. Fractionally.
Uh...the astrologer called gemeni? The Eye got a makeover and Barbatorem cut some of him off?
They were me. “Echoes,” Conquest said. “Images, memories and emotions that left a mark on the surface of reality, on the spiritual plane. Much like yourself, little bird.” “Fuck you,” I told him, and my voice was strangled. “Allow me to reintroduce you,” Conquest said. The younger one rushed at me. There was no avoiding it. In a way, it was mine.
Holy Shit. Blake's trauma is literally running at him? Is this the Shepherd's doing, or because Conquest is Lord of the city? Man, I always wondered what happened when the universe was hit with a trigger event but the person didn't die
it's not a ghost exactly
but it's still gonna be haunting
I think I'll have to wrap the chapter up later today; I didn't have as much time for this one as I thought I would and this is a section break and I think I'm gonna have a lot more to say about this last part so I'm gonna put things on pause here for a bit
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JayManiac 02-Aug-19 05:04 AM
Okay, I said today but that was last tuesday but it doesn't matter let's finish. THe chapter, not Pact. Although I'm hoping to have a bit more time to read next week, might try a chapter a day and see how that goes. That's neither here nor there: when we last left off Blake was fighting...Blake
The rain fell hard. It wasn’t one of the nights where sleep came easy. Most nights, I could get five hours, in the right place, if I’d eaten, if everything was okay.
I wonder if this just sends Blake into flashback mode, or if we're now experiencing this Blake, the made-of-trauma and unpleasantness Blake.
But I itched. I suspected I knew why, and shame gnawed at me. One night in the shelter, when the rain had been worse, I might have caught them from the cot. Lice, bed bugs, fleas, something.
This is just awful, that he sees the thing that society set up to help the homeless, as something that he regrets having to use, that's making his life worse. It just creates this feeling of utter hopelessness, and it really feels like the beginning of a chapter.
I’d known sleep was going to be hard to come by, so I had picked a less desirable spot, where I had more of a view, where the rain only fell on me when the direction changed. I was fully prepared to spend the night awake, enduring discomfort on a number of levels, lost in thought and introspection.
And I can relate to it, if I pull together experiences and imagine them long-term. I've never been near where Blake is, but I can imagine his situation here with no trouble. Can you believe I once thought Blake was a sub-par protagonist? I was fresh off of Twig, but still. Crazy to think how much I've learned to love and relate to this character.
When I contemplated the situation, I was trying to find arguments that I could make, that would keep my parents from shoving me right out the door again. I wasn’t young enough to demand they take me back. They weren’t required to by law.
The fact that Blake is thinking in these terms retroactively gives lines where he asks Rose whether Fake Mirror Mom and Dad loved her so much more weight.
Kids with makeshift clubs. Sticks, something that might have been a ski pole without the plastic bit on the bottom.
I already know I'm not going to like reading this. It'll be written too well.
Teenagers, big enough to be almost-adults, little enough to lack the full-sized brain that let someone make the right judgement calls. In a way, it’s why I don’t blame Maggie more than I do. Because I’ve spent too long trying to frame this.
What?
Oh this is freaking awesome
We saw a little of it in Ward with Rain's interlude, where he cut in with these little italicized passages while we watched past!Rain's trigger event but it took a little longer to catch on now that it's in first person
It's a good way of introducing the mechanic, since we get something that's from current Blake a couple lines earlier, but you don't necessarily notice, and then you get the line about Maggie and go "oh, wait, yeah. I get what it's doing."
But actually this is a fascinating line in and of itself, because I'm not yet at the place in my life where I think of 17 years old and 20 years old as meaning very different things, but Blake certainly does, and here we see one of the reasons.
It didn’t matter, the struggling. They took turns. Aiming at the head, aiming at the stomach, legs, groin, knees. End it. Please. I can feel it all. How much experience can an echo cover? The emotions- hatred, confusion, mindless animal terror.
It's just so uncomfortably perfect that I'm flashing back to Dowght's animals, an event where Blake was flashing back to this.
It was like each hit beat me down a little more. Pushed me further back. Put me in the mindset I’d had when I was just a little younger. Being a teenager, so frustrated, hurting in ways I couldn’t put words to. Being a small child, wanting his mom.
HHHHHH that line is why the family setup exists right there above it: for this perfectly hopeless moment. And this is why Blake thinks of 17 and 20 so differently: he feels like a vastly different person, with what he endured in those years.
My eyes fell on a sparrow, sitting on a short sign. “I can’t do anything here,” Evan said. Yeah. “Yeah,” he agreed. “I’m really sorry.”
Hhhh, I know I'm not going to spend a ton of time on what Evan's going through, but it should be acknowledged here. Blake is someone Evan really looks up to and these are some of his weakest moments and that can't be easy to watch.
I wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for. For being unable to help? For having seen it?
Maybe he's just sorry that it happened, Blake? Sorry that something so awful ever had to happen to you and sorry that you have to relive it like this?
For having seen it? that line in particular is really heartbreaking. I kind of want to cry.
I inhaled as if I were coming up from underwater. I took a step back, forgetting that there was snow blocking my range of movement, and I stumbled. “You and I both know what this next one entails,” Conquest said.
And there are two of them
Not just that, but this line from earlier:
This isn’t the worst one. Or even the second-worst one. Not the one where I was shot and beaten.
actually implies that the one where he was shot and beaten was the second worse one. I wonder if the book is actually going to show us the first?
“Fuck you,” I gasped out the words. “Fuck you, Conquest. You shitstain! You think this makes you look strong? Your worst doesn’t even compare to what petty humans do to each other!” “Are you sincerely asking me to do my worst to you?” Conquest asked. There was fucking amusement in his voice. “I’d ask you to fuck yourself, but I doubt you’re that well endowed, if you’re pulling this petty fucking shit!”
Is it reductive to say that the desire for conquest always comes from feelings of insecurity? Probably. But I think it often does, and I think this incarnation of conquest specifically is made of that shit
The echo didn’t rush. It limped. Eyes downcast.
I don't have very many words to express how I feel reading this right now, so...
Until hands gripped my upper arms. For a moment, I thought it had me. Fear overtook me. “This is for the best,” Laird said, in my ear.
LAIRD YOU FUCKING PIECE OF ABSOLUTE ECONOMIZING HEARTLESS GARBAGE
Oh look, I have words again
Evan flew between us, breaking Laird’s hold, and I heard him fluttering in my ear as Laird screamed all of a sudden. I was free.
Yeah you deserve whatever Evan just did to you. Hope he clawed your eyes out.
But the echo was too close now. I turned, thinking I could move away faster if I wasn’t walking backward, and I felt it seize my wrist. ■ No.
I almost, almost thought we weren't going to see this. I was hoping we weren't going to see this. The lines between this echo and the last were packed with the worst kind of tension and dread
One man, this time. His features were distorted, but I’d been messed up enough after the fact that it might have muddled the memories, distorted the echo. No, no, no.
No no no no no I don't want to watch anymore I'm gonna go around the corner and you can call me back when the scary part is over.
“What’s-” Evan started. “What can I do?” Evan cried out. Nothing. It’s a scene, it wants to play out. Just talk to me, distract me, okay?
Please, please do anything, Evan. I don't want to see this, you don't want to see this, and Blake really really really doesn't want to experience all of this
It is. It’s as simple as it gets. People suck. “What about your friends? Your friends don’t suck! Ty is cool!”
Ty is so fucking cool.
just say anything, please. keep saying things
Not like you. It’s a replay. “Fast forward! Stop! Pretend it’s a video, like it’s art, and change it like you would the video, right?” Like June? Calling events to mind?
Can he do that? Please?
Yeah. Skip to the end.
Evan look at you go.
Just, he's amazing spoop
Alexis sat in front of me as I woke. “Shh,” she said. “I’m here. I’m not doing anything, I’m not going anywhere. Just rest. Feel better.”
There's relief from the tension, but still just this overwhelming sadness
“If you need anything, no matter how minor, stupid or hard to get? Ask. I’ll figure it out,” she said. “Just stick around,” I muttered. “I can do that.” A burst of gratitude, big enough to leave a mark, alongside all the other crazy, mixed-up emotions.
Aaaand I'm crying
Hhhhhhhhhhhhhh
One sec
Okay, I'm back. Recovered. Somewhat
I stirred, but this time I didn’t gasp. Laird had backed off a little. Silently, quickly, I grabbed the splinter of wood I’d been given to find the eraser demon. I stabbed it into Laird’s neck.
Back just in time for a huge wake-up-dose of *AAaAaAAAHH WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED*
Welp!
Can't say I blame him
that's the chapter, I don't know what else to say. Probably one of the best chapters of the book so far. I need to fully recover from it before dealing with the consequences of what the fuck blake just did
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JayManiac 02-Aug-19 07:35 AM
I think I morbidly laughed
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JayManiac 03-Aug-19 03:34 AM
Alright, it's time for 7.7, the Seventh chapter of a Seventh arc. See I don't know if that's important somehow but I wouldn't discount it in this book.
When we last left off, Blake was screwed up enough to stab Laird in the neck holy fucking shit
The splinter found its way to a spot just below Laird’s Adam’s apple. When I pulled it away, it broke, the narrow end of the splinter disappearing beneath welling blood.
Mmkay. We're one line in and I kind of already want to throw up
don't know if that's some kind of record, probably not
I felt like I wanted to throw up, scream, swing punches and curl up into a ball, all at once. I felt betrayed, if you can even feel betrayed by your enemies.
No yeah I did too, strangely enough. Like, Laird being capable of this was never something I saw coming, even with all the sense it makes
“Even something so small as a rat can bite, when sufficiently cornered,” Conquest said. “You might want to step forward and help Mr. Behaim. Certain deals were made, and those deals are void if he passes.”
What exactly is Conquest talking about here? The fact that Blake promised not to kill Laird and then totally did that thing that's gonna kill Laird? Or is there something else? I guess he'd be aware of things like oaths being spoken in his city, but I can't help but wonder if there's something I'm forgetting
If he was coughing up blood like that, there was a good bit of blood leaking from the wound, straight to the windpipe.
heuach. Ulp. Nope.
“Turn over, Laird,” I said. “Face down, better it flows out and up, than inside and down.” He didn’t move. He stared at me with one bloodshot eye.
This is really really disturbing, and just kind of sad. Blake has no idea what to actually do, he's just catching up to all the shit he did do, and none of this bodes particularly well
The blood flowed more freely, and leaked between fingers as he clamped his hands to his throat, forming tendrils as it dribbled onto snow.
Nopenopenopenopenope I don't want to read it. Not as much as last chapter, but just...do we have to?
Also Blake breaking his promise would fit the themes of the arc
how the fuck
how did I miss conquest saying "those deals are rendered void"
in the arc called Void
I am off my game today
“If I grant you another stay of execution,” Conquest said, “It would be the third. I would be in my rights to demand a favor of you.”
Oh fuck, so this is straightup the end of the contest one way or another then, unless Blake manages to escape somehow
My instincts were telling me to go after Conquest, to throw myself at him in an effort to hurt him like I had Laird. To get rid of all of the negative feelings, venting the outward-pointed ones on Conquest, silencing the inward-pointed ones by taking that bayonet to the chest or throat. It was the simplest, easiest way to make it all stop.
Holy shit. That's the most active thing Blake has thought all chapter, and it's not exactly "good" or "healthy" or "sane". I absolutely get why though- he wasn't magically forced to relive all of his trauma, but he's doing it anyways internally, reverting back to that place.
He was approaching, and I was frozen in place, trying to get my mental bearings, to convince myself to move.
Which probably isn't all that hard when a lone man bent on conquest is approaching you so soon after what Blake was reminded of
Thinking of everything I had to fight for. But all I really wanted was peace. The two ideas conflicted.
And that's blake's whole thing isn't it? He might slide down the slope, but he doesn't do it easily. He's not like Taylor, built for this kind of existence, or Sy, who built himself for it
Molly? I’d just avenged her in a way, maybe. There was more to be done, but I’d done something. If I ran into her after I moved on, I could say that much. No, wrong train of thought.
I love that this story's confrontation with the main antagonist thus far, is Blake trying to find a reason to attempt to win. It's just so, so hopeless and broken and wonderful.
I wouldn’t be able to fight like this, not with my head and heart all mixed up. I couldn’t convince myself to do this smart, instead of doing it reckless. Rose? I didn’t trust Rose. Family? No.
Hhhhh, just seeing him run through everything just hits that drum again and again and again
The next thought outside family was the lawyers, the nebulous idea of dying and going straight to some miserable afterlife, simply because of the karma that dragged me down. That was a bit more of a push. The concrete idea that I wouldn’t find peace, going down that road.
Yes. Yes. I love this. You don't get peace through death; if you want peace you have to fucking earn it first. And it's gonna be a literal hell of a lot harder for some people to earn it than others; just look at Blake, he's got his entire family's ancient sins to overcome. I love that conceit, and that it's the one to shake Blake out of his stupor
He drew his weapon back to thrust. I cast my arm out. I was almost too slow. Laird’s blood, caught in my cupped hand, spattered the snow. I held my hand out, more blood dripping from the fingertips.
How does Laird's blood help? Does it?
Blood of a free man. I thought, still backing away. Once captured, rescued and given liberty. By you, no less. “This is why you wanted to find Behaim?” Conquest asked. I was silent as I continued backing away. “Freedom may run contrary to my nature, but blood doesn’t,” Conquest said.
Was this the plan? I feel like you could've found some more concrete forms of freedom. Now that I'm thinking about it, Blake himself is literally imprinted with symbols of freedom, almost like it's a theme of this book or something
In Homestuck, one of the six dualities of existence is between Blood and Breath, Blood symbolizing deals, families, contracts, chains, connections, and Breath symbolizing flight, movement, freedom, life, and agency. I can't help but think of them every time I read this book, but I don't know if I've ever actually expressed that.
Therefore: "Blood of a free man" has a certain irony to me
and, I think, to conquest for that matter. He even says that blood isn't counter to his nature, though freedom might be, which reaffirms their existence as opposites
He barely had to try, while it took everything I had to get out of the way in time. I hit the snow, and had to fight to get the right position and find traction so I could move fast enough to avoid a second thrust.
I was so caught up by whether Blake was gonna get his ass in gear that I never really considered...what then? How the fuck does he possibly get out of this?
“Wait? If you want another stay of execution,” Conquest said, “I’ve already said what that entails. A favor.” I didn’t respond. Maintaining eye contact and speaking felt like a foreign concept, and I wasn’t about to take a submissive action like lowering my gaze. “Beg me,” he said. “Kneel.”
Blake is more fucked up here than when Isadora attacked him, which is saying something
But- while I really don't want to understate the importance of mental condition as opposed to physical condition- it does carry the distinction that Blake has all the tools he needs to patch himself back up. I just don't envy him the task of doing it right exactly now before Conquest gets impatient
I’d known from early on that winning wasn’t really in the cards. Even if I did win this battle, I’d lose in the long run. I was so sick of all this.
Blake had better be about to go the fuck off. this feels like a 'go the fuck off' line
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA YESSSSSS BLAKE GO OFF ON THIS MOTHERFUCKER THIS IS THE BEST
I love how he has to say "metaphorically small-dicked"
you know, just in case he says something and the spirits go: "wait hold on, Conquest has an absolutely massive dick this makes no sense!"
Conquest raised a hand. The wind shifted, abrupt and strong enough to nearly lift me off my feet. I was left momentarily blind as snow found its way to my eyes, my weight no longer solidly on hard ground.
I love how these moments can feel triumphant despite the fact that Blake has gained no tangible ground towards winning or even really surviving this
I hadn’t missed the pattern. I’d sensed it when we’d fought the oblivion demon, and Fell had put words to the idea. Evan’s ability to help me escape harm had its limits. Illusions had a way of cracking on the third attempt. Evan’s ability to save me from harm had a way of failing on the third try. There was an underlying logic to this world. “Go check on Rose,” I murmured.
Figure out the tropes, Blake. You can do it, become the Trope Savvy itself!
So he either has an idea, or figured out that he needs Rose for better ideas
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JayManiac 03-Aug-19 04:22 AM
I don't remember it, maybe it's next episode
do you mean it feels poetic, like there's a parallel between his actions and his demise, or just that it feels like cosmic justice?
But also at some point it's not karma it's just "you pushed someone to a point of instability and then acted really surprised when you got stabbed in the neck". A clear progression from this mistake, to that consequence
“You twist my words.” I did. I could interpret most things he said or did to attack him. It was something I’d learned to do long ago, when I still lived at home. When the fight over the inheritance and the general atmosphere was still ongoing, toxic and unpleasant. I said, “They’re coming out of your mouth. You’re an incarnation of Conquest in a country and city that barely has any! I almost pity you.”
That turns this last biting comment just...tragic. I think everyone's been in a place where they just twist everyone else's words and actions around so that it hurts, jumping on each little phrasing just to get that last little bit more hurt into the other person. It's just...a sad state of being
He raised his gun, but he didn’t aim at me. It was Maggie, on the far side of the street, crouched by a snowbank. She was more exposed, now that the snow had stopped. Her face was intact, now. The same healing she’d granted to me? Faster, clearly, with no scarring.
I think the "no scarring" bit is specifically meant to clue us, the readers, in that it's glamour
maybe this is me on my "Hey what Elliot's been saying makes a shocking amount of sense" schtick, but I'm just seeing more and more confirmation
He fired, and Maggie moved her hand. The bullet hit snow. He fired again, but she was already moving her hand in the other direction. The bullet hit snow on the other side.
See, and we thought Blake was a little too good with the stuff!
“The Eye was working the storm, drawing on shifts in climate, and twists this city up to build my tower, as man disrupts his environment to fuel the growth of cities. He’s active, but indisposed. You’ve weakened my Shepherd, set the Sisters of the Torch and the Astrologer against one another. Laird bleeds to death as we speak. This is the natural conclusion. Once I’ve dealt with the goblin queen that lacks any goblins, it’ll be only you or me, and you can only run for so long.”
Well, when he puts it like that, Blake is almost winning. Except for all that stuff about not being able to run and the fact that he's not exactly down to challenge Conquest to an arm wrestle. I did wonder how Conquest was twirling up the city without being able to use his own magic
“A beheading, do you think?” Conquest asked. I looked to Maggie and Evan. No help there. Maggie held her funny little dagger, but she was staring at me, and she wasn’t doing anything.
what the fuck is she gonna pull
I had my locket, but no glamour, no spell I could rely on. The hatchet was broken. I was almost out of tricks.
This is what makes it feel so climactic, the dispelling of every single trick Blake has collected thus far.
But Duncan had been too, not so long ago, and he’d put up a fight. Duncan.
Except, you know, the stonehenge bracelet he never fuckin used for anything. I guess it was waiting for the right Time
The thoughts that reached me were fragmented ones. Theatrics, object- He drew his weapon back behind his right shoulder. “Fuck you!” I shouted.
This is hilarious, among other things
"oh shit can't figure out my train of thought it's all happening so fas- FUCK YOU"
gold
“Stop!” I bellowed, pulling my sleeve down, exposing the skin between glove and coat. The blade of the bayonet, practically a sword, given our scale, struck my arm. The arm wasn’t enough to stop it, obviously enough. Much less my wrist. But the Stonehenge charm bracelet was the first thing in the line of fire. The blade cut the bracelet. It stopped. Everything stopped.
Then everything was still. Absolutely still.
Ilovethis
theatrics, the bracelet, the command, everything. It's all just great
Theatrics, for one. A good, clear shout, acting at the right moment. Duncan had been given the bracelet as a power reserve. I’d spent that power, rightfully taken, much as I’d spent June.
There was some debate as to how rightfully you took it, but I'm glad it plays the Elder Wand when it comes to who owns it
Lines circled my wrist, like the rings of Saturn led astray, dust swirling in a corkscrew orbit. Breaking apart, showing just how much time I had. One or two minutes, if that.
But again, none of these victories are quite...victories. They're just steps on the long road blake has to actually having a shot
Using my jacket as a bundle, holding the bottom corners and the sleeves, I scooped up the blood-soaked snow.
Is this still the plan? I thought that Conquest already kinda stepped through that....I suppose it could be because Blake didn't have a complete enough circle to actually halt his approach.
Maggie wasted no time in listening. I was glad for that. I even respected it. After so long fighting with Rose, arguing over every last thing, it was awfully nice to have a friend that’d stab me when stabbing was necessary.
Hahahahhahahahahaha I love how unironic this line is
The dagger punched into the back of my hand, almost exactly where I’d stabbed myself when I’d fought the faerie swordswoman.
The faerie swordswoman, you say? Reminding us that those exist?
I added, “We need you as we needed Laird. This may be our last chance. Take as much as you need. I don’t know if I trust you, but I trust you to do that much.” I felt the strength go out of me, as I sank to my knees.
Ilovethis
Thorburn synergy let's go
He’s only about as strong as the Hyena. I took on the Hyena with only a little help from Evan and June.
Well, actually he's stronger than the hyena, which he just killed...not to rain on your parade or anything.
Maggie’s backpack was bloating and twisting. She threw it at Conquest. He swatted it aside. Rose is back.
You've seen Blake use Pause, now it's time for him to use Pauz
All that trouble. All of the danger he posed. But I was letting him go.
I mean, it didn't feel good when you put him away, but you counted it as a thing that you did right. Does this kind of prove that even diabolists who want to just bind demons and put them away, eventually end up using them for their own ends? It's probably partially due to the stigma, but this seems like a situation that isn't exactly...Right. I can't be all that happy about this
But it worked, distracting Conquest.
I can be a little happy about this
Pauz attacked, leaping to the small of Conquest’s back. A rabbit leaped from the midst of the snow to claw and bite Conquest’s arm, failing to get far with the white, leathery skin-fabric covering in the way. I couldn’t say for sure, but a part of me wondered if a being like Conquest remained as afraid of demons as the rest of us. He was immortal, few things could touch him on a fundamental level, but when you lived by a concept, and you faced down a being that could subvert that concept…
Like I've said, much of the motivation for Conquest in the first place comes from fear and insecurity, the need to control because you're afraid of what the world might do to you if you don't. There are other motivators: vengeance, attempting to 'share prosperity'...but if you think of them right, it's kind of tantamount to fear. I think Conquest is absolutely, deeply afraid of Pauz.
I especially didn’t like giving the demons ground, but the alternative was losing the fight or turning to the lawyers.
Well when you put it that way...either of those two options also give the demons ground
or give conquest ground, which is arguably as bad
I could see the connections between imp and animal. He was reeling them in, calling them in from elsewhere. Rats by the hundreds.
This is awesome. I didn't think pauz would end up being able to gather this much physical umph all at once
I wondered if this neighborhood would be okay, after all was said and done, or if the vermin and mad animals would follow Pauz to his next destination.
Tell yourself whatever you like, Blake. This place is screwed
“Surrendering?” Rose asked. “No,” he replied. He aimed at me.
It's always been an unwinnable contest. He can't be killed, and he might not actually be able to surrender. There's no win
“Sorry,” Maggie told me. She bolted, running down the street. Conquest raised his gun, but Maggie ducked low, and in a moment, the connection broke. She’d cut it.
How much of it did she cut? Will she remember Blake? Is she just not his champion any more?
“The alternative is death. I strongly suggest surrender,” Conquest spoke. “Laird is dead. I promised him that I would wait two centuries before I used the Thorburn power. The threat would cow those beneath me, I would gain in power, simply having you in my grasp, and he can build his kingdom in the meantime. Keeping you alive was only a way to delay your counterpart’s manifestation as something real. It simplifies things.”
Ah, so that's the promise he made Laird, which is now, as you say, Void. And also confirmation that Laird is dead, which I'm guessing Conquest knows for sure because he says it as a statement. Alas: goodbye Laird.
Piece of shit.
“I don’t know if I can surrender, because Rose and I are a unit, two sides of the same thing. We’re both the Thorburn heir, as I understand it. You might need to get her to surrender. You’ve bested me, I won’t move ten paces from here until this is decided.”
Huh. That, is a way of putting it that's probably true now that you've said it exactly that way
But I wonder what exactly Blake is trying to pull with it
“It’s not that complicated at all,” Rose said. “I haven’t used any magic.” Conquest turned his head. “I haven’t. Just like Duncan did when he was spent of power, just like Blake, I’ve been using the power Maggie and Blake’s friends set up. They drew the circle, they set the things up to be summoned when an object was broken… we picked objects on my side of the mirror.”
Hahahahahah, yeah actually Rose maybe can't use magic the way Blake can
And thus, is totally within the bounds of the agreement
“As for my other power, to break mirrors, it’s innate to me while I’m an Other, a distorted reflection. Besides, the deal was not to use power in Toronto. This mirror world… it’s not Toronto. It’s a vestige of Toronto. It’s like comparing Disneyland and Euro-Disney. It’s my world.” “Questionable,” Conquest said. “All the same-”
Okay, this is actually pretty easy to argue against, but I love that Conquest has to be sure because that's his ethos, that's the fear that he's motivated by. I mean really, at least that last part of Rose's argument undoes itself: if a vestige of toronto is not toronto, then she is not blake thorburn and thus doesn't have to surrender for him to
unless there's something more, like the fact that she was cut from him by barbatorem
that could be pretty significant actually
Glass continued to break here and there. I could feel the strength going out of me. Rose was spending power, and she was using the conduit of blood Maggie had drawn out, to keep her reserves up.
What's Rose's plan here? What was Blake's? Trap Conquest in the mirror dimension? How exactly?
Time to draw from the same well as Rose. “If you cross me here, I will bind you again, Pauz, I swear it on my name and my blood, and I’ll stick you somewhere where you won’t be found until humanity is long gone.” “Your words don’t have the power that hers do. You’re not the real heir, not the heir intended.” “No,” I said. “Do you really want to risk it?” He narrowed his eyes. He disappeared in a flurry of flies and darkness.
I like this little beat of dealing with pauz, although I kind of wish conquest had stomped him...too much to ask for, for Blake's mistake to be so easily overwritten
Corvidae appeared, a small oval mirror in his arms. There we go.
Oh...Oh
He held it up, walking slowly. I could see when the presence moved into it. Corvidae threw the mirror.
Yess...into the circle!
The mirror stuck in the middle of the circle I’d drawn. The blood of a free man, Laird. The circle would be lined with Rose’s hair. Hacked off. Caught by Conquest, freed by myself. Maggie had torn out the pages of Black Lamb’s Blood, weighing them down so they wouldn’t fly away. I couldn’t afford to lose them. The pages that had bound an Other, now free. Thrice bound. “It’s done,” Rose said.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY FINALLY FUCKING DID IT! THEY BEAT CONQUEST HOLY SHIT
“We did it, Evan” I murmured to Evan. “Woo,” he mumbled.
On their last fucking legs too, exactly 1 champion and 1 weird curse guy left to spare
I friggin KNEW we weren't gonna let the seventh chapter of the seventh arc go by without some Shit Goin Down
That was the perfect confrontation and resolution to this whole section of the story, I'm breathing way too heavily for the activity of slowly reading a book
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JayManiac 05-Aug-19 03:35 AM
Okay, it's a new day and a new chapter that it's definitely a good idea to be eating as I read
sharkhi 1
7.8! When we last left off: Blake wasn't screwed*! How's that for a twist!?
*Terms and Conditions may apply, such as being destined to die, probably creating bigger problems in your mad struggle to solve this one, the power vacuum that now exists in toronto, the fact that most of you is probably glamor wax now, promises not to hurt Laird too badly that may not have put you on the best terms with the spirits regardless of whether it's a technical lie
I sat there, cold, hurting in too many ways to count, enjoying the fact that I had just a few minutes before someone tried to kill me or do worse.
But all that being said, this is definitely a moment of "oh thank holy and unholy fuck"
I like that even blake's just taking a second to bask in it and chill, although it's interesting that we don't do a big time skip, suggesting that maybe we're about to put him through the ringer again
It was like waking up, and feeling a kind of tranquility where I was warm, comfortable, and all of the negativity of the past and responsibilities of the future had yet to spring to mind. There was just the moment.
Cherish these moments, steven. Cherish these moments
As was always the case with this sort of thing, reality began to sink in. I remembered Duncan and the kids. The effect that had kept people indoors would be fading, and it was only a matter of time before Toronto woke up and resumed business as usual.
Yeah, might not be the best idea to be laying in the middle of the street when that happens
I'm so paranoid about which of blake's many enemies is going to rear their head next. The NotSphinx? Jeremy "make sure blake never returns" Meath? Duncan "you just stabbed my uncle to death with a stick" Behaim?
Prolly not that last one
I searched around until I found where she was speaking from. A larger piece of my pendant-mirror, lying in front of me. I couldn’t imagine it gave her much room to stand. Maybe all the pendant-shards together? “You’re okay, though?” I asked. “Yeah. You? How are you managing after all that?” I couldn’t sum up the words needed to explain it. How did I convey how not okay I was, without inviting pity or giving her the wrong impression?
Oh Blake
buddy
take a nap
you probably don't deserve it in the eyes of the universe, but you deserve it in the eyes of me
speaking of eyes...
uh
What happens to mr eyeguy now that conquest isn't dead, but isn't exactly gonna be ordering him around anymore
?
“I killed Laird, I think,” I said. “Fuck, I said I wouldn’t hurt him too badly if I could help it, and- fuck.” “You broke a vow?” “I’m not sure,” I said.
Yeah, I have the magical ability to click "previous chapter" twice and go look at your wording and I'm still not sure
Evan began to pull himself together. He was still bloody, but he seemed largely intact. He experimentally fluffed himself up, relaxed, then fluffed up again. “Problem?” I asked. “Blood in my feathers. Feels weird.” “A bath might fix it,” I said, glad for the change of subject, the simple, implicit question I could actually answer. I was doubly glad that Evan was talking more or less normally to me. “That is, if being magical doesn’t fix it before then.”
Yeah, so glad for this little distraction from all the hurt in the world, Evan. You never fail to pull through......hey wait, uh, whose blood is that exactly?
Oh, the guy Blake murdered?
cool, cool
“Probably,” I said. “Not sure if it’ll come off, might have to wait until you molt. Again, allowing for being magical.” “Uh huh,” he said. “Or it could be my thing. Evan Matthieu, blood sparrow, biting out chunks of eyeball and fighting monsters!”
Not sure if I'd absolutely love or vehemently hate this
but I kinda wanna find out
“Soak yourself in blood probably would give you power of a sort.” “Cool.”
Okay now I definitely wanna see it
“I’m going to vote against the blood-bath strategy,” I told Evan. “Awww. Why?” “To be safe. And because we need to wrap this chat up and get down to business.” “Aw-” Evan started. He cut himself off as I angled my head, bumping him with my jaw.
Aw, look at this lil cutie, all he wants to do is bathe in the blood of his enemies? Is that too much to ask? (this scene is actually really cute tho, down to blake's head bump)
Too many close calls, situations where I was potentially breaking vows. This whole dynamic, it was perfectly suited to the cool customer, to the men and women, boys, girls and Others who were coldly calculating, unflinching, with strong memories and keen attention to detail. That wasn’t me.
But you know who it is? Probably Granny Thorburn's first pick for the house...who's sitting over there by Maggie
“About before?” Evan asked. I felt the emotion like a weight on my chest. “Yeah?” I asked. “Is that a serious rule against me doing the blood sparrow thing or is there wiggle room?” I let out a small half-laugh. “No rules. I said it was a vote, because it is. We’re partners. You make the choice, ideally with my input in mind.”
THIS IS TOO MUCH
(not really, keep going)
I love how...whiplash-y it is, that we (and Blake) are reminded of his trauma by just these words because it was that impactful, and then that Evan either heard a lot in that 'yeah' or just straight up wanted to do the blood sparrow thing
and Blake doesn't treat it as totally ridiculous and shut it down! This is every kid's dream: to be taken seriously and be treated as an equal by someone you really look up to. And also ride motorcycles.
“Uh huh,” he said, his tone suddenly cheery, “So… that means I can do it? Or I go do it and then say sorry after?” I sighed. “Rose and I are rubbing off on you.”
Whether he meant to or not Evan just friggin roasted both Thorburns so hard
and let's be honest
he meant to
“Seriously though,” he said, his tone changing. I knew exactly what he was referring to. He didn’t finish the thought.
AAAAA I THOUGHT THAT WAS AN 'OUT THERE' READ BUT NO EVAN REALLY JUST DID THAT
He saw what Blake was feeling and decided to undercut the tension by being hilarious because they understand each other and Evan's friggin smart
“Seriously,” I said, “You’re… putting me in a tough spot. I want you to enjoy the stuff you should be enjoying, as a kid-” “Dead kid.” “Yeah.” “Who’s a magic bird.” “Yeah. My point stands. I-” “A magic bird who could be a terrifying blood sparrow,” Evan said. “Evan,” I said, and my tone was harsher than I meant it to be. Sharper than it should have been.
Hhhhhhhh, and of course he takes it a little too far in the other direction, which is the flip side and just...so realistic. I love it. And also I hate it don't yell at each other be friends and live happily ever after and stuff
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m nervous and I don’t know how to act, so I’m trying to be me, but I guess I’m being a nervous me.” “I’m sorry too,” I said. “I’m- I guess I’m trying to be careful about what I say and how, and the interruptions aren’t helping.” “Okay, I’ll shut up, then. You, um, you know I wasn’t really asking about the blood thing, right?” “Yeah,” I said. “I wasn’t talking about it either. I want you to enjoy being a kid, whether you’re a bird or a kid or whatever else. You’re doing an awesome job so far. A ridiculously good job. But there’s stuff we’re dealing with that isn’t pretty, and that-” Memories flashed through my mind’s eye. “-That-,” I stumbled, my train of thought interrupted. “was some of them. The stuff we’re not exactly talking about.”
Gods, I really have to stop pulling out every single Evan line in the chapter but he's just the best and I want to spend all the time talking about him and Blake and this and how perfectly aware and not-aware he is in this really tough situation
It really tracks with a lot of kids I've known: some of them are extremely intelligent in specific ways, conceptually aware of and perceptive of things I and other adults sometimes don't pick up on. But depending on their background, they're not as skilled at perceiving the social "game" as well as adults are- which is because adults invented it duh- and they don't have a lot of experience, so they have trouble with ideas like consequences sometimes
But their inability to perceive some nuances of the game can be a boon as well as a curse
When you get into basic conceptual stuff, I find that kids are at least equal to and usually better than adults
gonna stop talking about this now because it's pretty dang off topic, it's just a part of life that this book portrays really well
Unhealthy, maybe, to bottle it up and slap a thin veneer of cheer over it, but I wasn’t sure there was a healthy way to deal with stuff of this caliber.
I don't know either...Maybe someone smarter than both of us should write a book about it.
and we could have these other two smart guys analyze the book, and it'd be a whole thing
“I got stuck in the woods because a giant monster and his ghost chew toys trapped me there. I’m not typical either. Life can suck, and mine sucked toward the end, and I’m sorta glad it stopped sucking. Not totally glad but sorta glad.” “Evan-” “No, nuh-uh. You said I shouldn’t interrupt you while you’re all borked. You also said we were partners, so that goes both ways.”
Hell yes, stand your ground, blood-sparrow boy. We're about to teach Blake the motherfucking meaning of healthy relationships up in this
“…I’m a freaking kick-ass magic bird. Most of the time the worst that can happen is you go kaput and I gotta go head off to the land of the dead. I don’t have to worry about stuff the usual way. Only thing I gotta worry about is helping you with the stuff that you worry about.”
That's an interesting take on what it means to be dead and also alive
something that has no relevance to any story that I'm reading right now
“The way you phrased that makes me feel kind of conflicted,” I said.
Me, too. I don't know. Evan matters as a person, and he should be allowed to grow and change and worry about himself...but also, he had his time, short as it was. He's here for Blake, now.
“It’s true! That’s the deal, isn’t it? You make my life better, you stop monsters with my help, and I help you through stuff.” “Yeah,” I said. “That’s essentially it, I guess.” “So,” he said, and his tone shifted. More careful. “That stuff.”
But I think that one of the many keys to healthy relationships is being able to accept help from your loved ones, so I'm mostly on Evan's side here
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JayManiac 05-Aug-19 04:29 AM
“I’m not majorly comfortable talking about it,” I said. I stuck my hands in my pockets for warmth. “It was what it was, and I can’t shake the feeling that people think less of me when they know, and I’d much rather be the guy with the cool friends and the motorcycle than… what you saw. And don’t tell me it didn’t change how you think of me, because it had to, and you can’t lie.”
And this is what gets in the way of being able to accept help. Which is difficult, because you can't just 'let go' of something like ego, especially when it's part of a system of defense mechanisms to distance yourself from your trauma. I can't tell you how many times I've turned away help I really really needed because I want to be the cool guy with the ideas and the zany antics who never gets hurt.
and we've hit a lot of beats across the book about Blake's appearance. He doesn't want to look like a runaway, he doesn't want to look homeless or ignorable or pitiable
hell, we've already had one this chapter with Rose
“Okay,” I said. “As much as you want to comment-” “I need to comment,” he said. “Because we’re stuck together. If I don’t say something, then it becomes this thing we don’t talk about, like the time my mom and my dad separated for a while when I was really young, and my mom had a boyfriend right away after my dad left, and my parents got back together and nobody ever talks about the guy that was around back then, like they think- thought I didn’t remember.”
YES. I'd like to thank (Ward Spoilers)Erin for giving me the terminology I need to describe what Evan's doing here: he's dealing. Which is just so incredible for someone his age, because without a lot of experience it can be hard to conceptualize that problems don't go away just because you can't see them anymore, that they can fester and get worse and the only way to stop that from happening is dealing with them on some level. And maybe he doesn't completely get it either, I don't think I completely get it now, but it's just such a wonderfully mature way of handling this issue.
Wildbow really coming in with these (ward) wise-way-beyond-their-years bird-themed bois
“Okay,” I said. “Channels of communication are open. Thank you for being honest. We should really hurry to the others and do what we can-” “Not yet. That other one, the second vision memory thing?”
Blake needs a little second to work up to that, though. For good reason
“I’m- okay. Right. But if you ever do want to talk abut it, we can, and the channels are open.” “I don’t think I ever will,” I said, “But thanks.” “And-” he said. I tensed. Please stop talking. “-I sorta get why Alexis is extra important to you. If something happens, and if I can, I’ll look out for her.” I let out a breath I’d inadvertently been holding in, and a small part of it was relief. “That’s it,” Evan said.
Evan, you are unequivocally the best. He understands what he doesn't understand, and just tries to do his best with what he does understand, and that's really just the best possible thing someone can hope to do
I could make her out, and it was my first real clear view of her since this skirmish had started. Her hair had been cut short enough that it hung only to the nape of her neck, and it wasn’t an even cut. Styled, it might look good, but it wasn’t. The bits at the back were shorter than the bits closer to the front of her face. In a way, it made me think of a bird’s wings.
That's some pretty Blake-specific imagery there, but I'm not sure exactly what to read into it other than that. It might be almost admiration, since he tends to describe people's imperfections endearingly when he likes them, but this doesn't give off that vibe. Filed away for future reference, I suppose
side note: she should totally go for the ghost in the shell cut
“Well,” I said, shaking my head until I was more focused, “Not the hard part quite yet. We just need to bind him without his cooperation, and without letting him go. Then we get to the hard part.”
What....what's the hard part? Am I gonna regret asking?
Also how do you bind something without its consent in the world of Pact? The only binding thing is consent
and like a lot of ropes
maybe they'll go with a lot of ropes
but even with ropes, they had to get the friggin HYENA to consent to be bound
“You could use hair from elsewhere,” Maggie said, arching an eyebrow, athame raised. I shuddered a bit. “Couldn’t resist,” Maggie said, as she got back to work. “That really bothers you?” “She’s me. It’s like you’re talking about doing something rude to my sister.”
Lords, I love Maggie
and by Maggie I mean...PADRIAC
bum bum bum
(I can't tell if I'm making fun of elliot's theory or slowly buying into it more)
Also: I'll be the first to admit that it's a weird context, but Blake explicitly thinking of Rose as his sister (the one family tie that might not be tainted for him), so soon after invoking the bird imagery is a touching and probably-not-horrible sign
I don't think he's ever done that, even if I've been referring to them as brother and sister since approximately 1.2
On the other side of the street, two houses down, the Behaim kids emerged. Duncan was leaning on the tallest one, his arms wrapped in bandages that were already crimson with blood where they had been cut to the bone, his hands dangling limp.
Duncan is officially in second-worst shape out of the Behaims. By a pretty good margin in either direction, I'm thinking
“About what you said before, theatrics are important. I don’t know for sure, but if the spirits are on the fence, and if I’m not sabotaging you by telling you this, well, it seems like they would be more inclined to take your side if you acted like you were right.” I nodded slowly.
She's probably not wrong, but...jegus. With the amount of not-right Blake feels about this, it's not going to be easy. And I've always felt sorry for the other Behaims, who I'm sure are gonna take this just...so well
They hadn’t budged from where Laird lay, Duncan now standing between the two teenagers, who worked together to support him. The younger ones stood on either side of Laird. One was one of his sons, if I remembered right.
Fuck
doing a real great job of patching things up between the families, Blake
I'm sorry that was mean, Blake didn't mean to except yes he did but hey I would've and I'm not helping my case much
“It’s over,” I said. “Please don’t make this any worse than it’s been. I’m… pretty fucked up, but you guys have Duncan to look after, I…” I was having trouble articulating why they shouldn’t hit me with their worst.
He has to convince the spirits, but he's so on-the-fence about it himself that I don't know if he's gonna pull it off
“You know what gets me?” he asked, tone dull. “English. The language doesn’t do us justice in situations like this, does it?” He met my eyes. Being so close to where I’d relived the memories, I felt like my mind was some sort of minefield. If I thought the wrong thing, or thought in the wrong direction, I might crack, or snap, or get pulled back into recollections.
Now that's some good irony right there: the Behaims pulling this after Laird was willing to subject blake to the unexpressable
“My uncle is dead. It doesn’t look like it was clean,” he said. “I could call you forsworn. The spirits will get around to it if it’s deserved, but I could call you on it right here, decide how it plays out.” I nodded slowly. The older girl said, “Nothing to say? No words in your own defense?” “If you’d name me forsworn,” I said, “I’d challenge you to walk through the last ten minutes in my shoes. See what I saw, feel what I felt, and then decide I was out of line and that I didn’t try.”
Blake, buddy. You're almost certainly correct here, but that is not the best argument, for the spirits or the behaims. That said, Blake's first instinct is to nod, because he doesn't even think they're all that wrong.
“I don’t think it’s worth the effort,” I said. “A whole lot of Others and powers that be who can see the future are telling me I’m due to bite it sometime soon.” “The Faerie told my father that one of his sons had only one year of life remaining,” the boy said. “And he was told he had thirty more years. Things can always be fudged. I’d rather be safe than sorry.” “How does that work?” I asked. “How were things fudged?”
Blake, grilling this kid whose dad you just killed for info on how to escape death is maybe not the best course of action...though I guess I don't want you to die, so go wild
“Fuck you. You shouldn’t be,” he said. “We were enemies before, because of what you are and the family you come from. Now, after this? Like my cousin said, English doesn’t give good enough words, sometimes. What’s worse than enemy?”
I'm just...sad about Aimon and Granny Rose. They tried so hard to end the cycle of violence that's just been kicked into eleventh gear again because Laird wouldn't stop pushing
“You killed my dad,” he repeated himself. “He was setting me up for a fate that could be worse than death.” “You killed-” he stopped himself. It was an eerie parallel to Evan. The singlemindedness.
I really think childhood and how children think is a theme of this chapter, and not just because it retroactively justifies all that time I spent talking about it. It'd be hard for an adult to grasp the nuance here, after their dad was murdered. Blake's not gonna convince this kid.
I can appeal to the greater powers and the least powers, and tell them that if you have upset things, if you’ve got something bad coming your way, then they should make you lose whatever it is that made you feel happy and- and safe.” With that last word, his voice finally cracked.
ah fuck. I think at least part of that is Evan, and this kid just appealed all the fucking powers to rip everything away and I get it and it's heartbreaking and it's so soon after we got an Evan beat and I'm worried
I swallowed hard. “I don’t blame you. I blame him, because I think he’s given you a pretty one sided version of things, but I don’t blame you.” “Fuck you,” he said. “Just… whatever you killed him to avoid? I hope you get worse.” I nodded.
Blake, these are true things. But they are the wrong ones to say, probably, right now. I don't know if there's anything you can say without risking forswearing
which is just what's friggin awful about Blake's reality
the world rewards not apologizing to the kid whose dad you just killed sometimes
the world rewards not admitting you were wrong
It was Rose who spoke. “Hyena, you’re done. I, um, bid you to collapse and be bound again, for it is a simpler form, and one you’ve committed to.”... ...The snow fell, covering the remains of the body. When it settled, close to the street, the sword stuck out of the thickest part of it, broken. “What the hell books have you been reading?” I asked. “I pulled that one out of my ass,” Rose said, “so to speak. Borrowing from you, really.”
But as we got all those horrible beats we also got beats of...Blake and Rose working together? Playing off of each other? Maybe this is all in my head, I mean none of these things are explicitly good, it's just the way I'm interpreting it. Also Rose just told the Hyena's corpse to turn into a sword and it was like "makes sense". Badass.
Like, Rose borrowed from Blake, and got a good result. Rose did things Blake's way, acknowledged that that was what she was doing, and was immediately rewarded
I don't think I'm crazy to think that it's maybe a positive beat
“I’m going to hold the paper down, and try to angle things so I can use the point of the athame. Use the sharpest point of the broken blade. We’re going to use two blades and work together to tie a very simple knot. Don’t put your hand inside the circle, or you might not get it back.”
Hahahahahahahhahahahaha this is a great plan.
I’d heard stories about how scientists gave games like Tetris to the recently traumatized, to force a change in brain patterns and keep the trauma from getting its claws in the psyche. I suspected I wasn’t so fortunate as that, but it was almost meditative. Not at all bad. I didn’t have the energy for impatience.
That's a really fascinating tactic that I've never completely parsed like that, but it works and I think I've subconsciously used similar strategies
The hard part came next.
wHAT'S THE HARD PART?
deciding a Lord?
Conquest’s champions knew he was bound, and they weren’t acting.
Forgive me if Eye'm still concerned
“Hey,” Ty said. “Hey little bird. I’ve got my console and some games in my backpack. Blake said that this next stretch might involve waiting?”
Ty is my favorite character after Evan and the Thorburns (just the two), so this friendship's existence is the absolute best thing ever
“Are- are you willing to watch a bird struggle to use gamestation thumbsticks and press buttons when he says?” “Willing? I don’t think you could convince me not to.” “Sweet!”
Like, look at it! Isn't it the most wholesome thing in the world?!
practically everyone I trusted was here. Which made it very concerning when I heard a knock at the door. Only the people I didn’t trust were left.
Hahahahaha, I love this framing
it's just clever and delightful
“Paige,” I said. “Hi, Blake,” she said. I looked at the woman behind her. “And Isadora?” The Sphinx nodded. “Everyone else will be on their way soon. May I?” Too speechless to respond, confused, I nodded and stepped out of their way. Last Chapter Next Chapter
What? WHAT!? Did Paige know the whole time? Does she still not know? Why is she here at what I assume is the meeting of the Council?!
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Elliot (Boy) 05-Aug-19 05:27 AM
Huh I guess that is weird
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JayManiac 05-Aug-19 05:27 AM
wow. Okay. That was a damn good chapter. I wonder where the hell this arc could be going next? Probably hell, now that I think about it.
Huh I guess that is weird
HHHHhhhhhh do not tease me
screw it I have time and I'm not gonna be getting anything else done tonight anyways
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Elliot (Boy) 05-Aug-19 05:31 AM
lol if Jay’s getting drawn in by this twist ending, it’s gonna be a quick few arcs coming up
lol 2
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JayManiac 05-Aug-19 05:31 AM
Nooooooooooooooooo
Hssssssss
at least I know I can click on that one in particular after....checks website
9 dot 3 (edited)
Anyhow, moving on, it's 7.9!
sharkhi 1
When we last left off Toronto itself was in a socio-political state not entirely desirable but not entirely undesirable and thus cannot say to be "screwed" exactly. No one's really certainly screwed. Except Conquest. But fuck that guy.
Paige was different from the last time I’d seen her. The clothes weren’t a new style, but I had the uncanny impression that she’d taken one step along the road to being more like Isadora. Same thing with the clothes. Her hair was styled differently. She stood straighter, more poised.
Oh. Oh no
she's become Isadora's ward.
did Isadora pick her because of the same reasons Granny Rose didn't? Or did Granny Rose not pick her because she knew Isadora had an eye on her? Does Paige know about the Practice? WHAT IS SHE DOING HERE!?
“I suppose introductions are in order,” I said. “But before I launch into those… I have to ask, Isadora, does she know?” “She knows some,” Isadora said. “Almost enough.” “That’s pretty vague,” I said.
god dammit
Blake asks the exact question we want to know the answer to and Isadora's like "kinda"
fuckin hell
“Most of you know Isadora. Joel, Goosh, this is the woman who cut me open the other night, nearly killing me.” I saw Paige’s eyebrows go up. She glanced at Isadora. Isadora didn’t offer an explanation.
Guess she didn't know that, then
also, what a banger way to introduce her to your friends. I know exactly why you did it, and it's perfect
“Isadora told me ‘there are no coincidences’,” Paige said. “Evan? As in the kid you were accused of murdering?” “Your cousin is sharp,” Ty said. “That means I’m right? It’s not a coincidence?” Paige said.
Will someone just tell her what's going on already? Smart people who are out of the loop are some of the most dangerous to leave unattended. Also people with claws.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “She knows some, but not enough? She’s a danger to herself, to the innocent, and to the rest of us, if the wrong thing gets said. She’s a walking minefield.” “You just asked a question and answered it in the next breath,” Isadora said.
She's a friggin political move? In the middle of deciding city leadership, contest cleanup, and with the way meetings have been going, probably whether or not to have Blake executed.
“This will go more smoothly with her here. Everyone will have to carefully choose their words, and nobody will pull out weapons with a relative innocent in the way. Peace, after a fashion.”
Oh my gods. This is the worst idea Isadora has had since that time she tried to kill Blake. And it makes the ensuing dialogue that much more juicy and interesting so I love it.
“She investigated on her own,” Isadora said. “Word was getting around about the altercation at the University, you and the drunkard’s friends. She heard, discovered it was you, and asked around. I was one of the people that she asked.” “That seems like an awfully contrived series of events for someone who was just saying there are no coincidences,” I said.
Well, but in Pact there literally aren't because it's a world that's being written metaphysically as it's being written about in the abstract
Paige blinked a few times. Then she took the challenge. “Imagine a stone, the stone is tied to other stones, all arranged around the edge of a pond, or on the side of a bridge. Throw it in, and what happens?” Maggie answered, “That’s a stupid hypothetical. It depends on the strength of the rope. The size of the stones, the number of stones…”
See it's sentences like this one where I'm like "that's not a Maggie answer, that's a Maggie way of giving a Padriac answer"
“Yeah,” I said, and I sounded angrier than I should have. “Now you’re all wrapped up in this, and the S- Isadora is trying to convince you it’s ultimately my fault.” “A great deal of this is,” Isadora said. “Fuck that,” I said. “A lot of what comes next will depend on your ability to accept that fact and pay attention to what’s happening and why.
That's an interesting take on it, if a biased one. Blake is could be to blame for not, i dunno, keeling over, eating a bit of karma, and dying when he had the chance, but I don't know if one can be blamed for that
“As I’ve been repeatedly trying to inform Mr. Thorburn, as ‘fucked’ as that might be, the alternative is uglier,” Isadora said. “In terms of how it involves those he’s tied to, and how it involves everything and everyone else.”
I'm really curious as to what this book is saying about these two approaches to The Good: Isadora's, and Black Lamb's Blood. They're not the only ones, of course, but they're the ones that the book has laid out for us so far. Karma is based on social convention, whether each action is "right" in the eyes of society, or "wrong". It works in a pretty "Categorical Imperative" kind of way, evaluating actions individually and without context. But Blb, among other things, is interested in rewriting those rules to allow for safer breaches of karma in service of the good. It, too, measures these consequences Isadora is talking about, but concludes that there is a way to do Wrong for Good
“Yes,” Isadora said. Her gaze was level and intimidating. “You wanted to avoid the plunge, to avoid being stripped of everyone you hold dear, Evan excepted. Which, I presume, is why you murdered a man earlier?”
Well, when you put it that way
Murder. Not fancy, not explainable by saying he was an Other. It was just a splinter of wood to the throat, an awful lot of bleeding, and a slow death of blood in the lungs or blood loss.
See, but that's evaluating the action without context, which is a Karmic way of thinking about it. Which is, of course, exactly how Isadora thinks and wants Blake to think (and also probably wants Paige to think)
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess so.” “Holy fuck,” Paige said. “Really?”
That was not the most convincing thing you could've said to get Paige on the side of 'not everything is Blake's fault', Blake
“You’re talking about pizza not two breaths after we were talking about murder?” Paige asked. “In this instance, Pizza could well be more important than one man’s life,” Maggie commented.
Yeah, especially that guy. I mean this meeting decides the fate of the universe and by that I mean the city, so yeah. Pizza's important. But is that something a Faerie would say!?
Paige spun on her, giving the girl an incredulous look.
These two are gonna be great friends
“Now you’re putting me in an awkward position,” Isadora said. “If I act picky, I’m being rude, but if I accept blindly, I run the risk of being offered the swill that the students at my University call ‘beer’.”
You could've just asked "what kind of beer", Isadora. All you had to do. Friggin dork.
“Can we get back to the topic of murder?” Paige asked. “Is this hypothetical murder, or-” “Paige,” Isadora said. “Everything in its proper order. You were asked a question. Do you want anything to eat or drink? Be honest.” Paige frowned, as if this were some kind of moral quandary. “A little bit of pizza and some water?” she finally asked.
Oh sure, when Maggie puts Pizza over murder you're about ready to throw a fit, when Isadora does it she must be hiding some Great Esoteric Wisdom
This is gonna keep being beautifully frustrating isn't it
“…Hurts, I can’t really stand up or bend over without help, but it didn’t hit anything vital.” “I’m not surprised. A shame that Malcolm Fell wasn’t rescued as well.”
Maybe if you hadn't also been there, shredding Blake's chest at that very moment? I don't actually blame Isadora for Fell's death, I'm just mad at her worldview and her "aw shucks, if only we coulda done somethin"
You could've
you were busy killing Blake
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spinagon 05-Aug-19 06:05 AM
Well, he's alive
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JayManiac 05-Aug-19 06:05 AM
he got better
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spinagon 05-Aug-19 06:06 AM
But people die when they are killed
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JayManiac 05-Aug-19 06:07 AM
your wisdom knows no bounds
“You know to not ask questions,” I murmured, as I opened the silverware drawer and found a serrated knife to cut the pizza with. “She’s more dangerous, because she’s unprepared and she’s still walking headlong into this. Because that thing is leading her headlong into this.” “Thing?”
haha yeah not comfortable with that at all
I'm mad at Isadora too, but like...never a good way to think about people? Even if they're Others?
“Casualties are to be expected. It’s not part of my makeup to mourn the dead, even the deaths of children or the deaths of thousands. So long as it happens at the right place and time, cleanly.” She looked directly at me as she said that last word.
And see, that's one of the many many many problems with the Karmic worldview, which is making it more and more difficult to see when Isadora has a point about Blake and where he's headed, and when Isadora's just being Isadora
Conquest, who was in an ignoble location, in the bottom half of my double-decker toolbox, not five feet from me.
Perfect. I think it fits him, don't you?
“Can I trust our other guests to not blow up the building or kick the door down and attack on sight?” “They can’t kick the door down if you leave it open,” Isadora said. I started to head for the door, but Joel was already going. Weird, that there was more security in an open, unlocked door.
I mean hey, that was the plan in Avengers: Infinity War, so why not?
I love thinking of the spirits talking in Waste's voice sometimes
and by Waste's voice I mean a super exaggerated, innocent version of that voice
"Why did you kick a hole in the wall? The door was open, there was a way in! Bad Astrologer! Bad!"
"He left the door open and you broke his wall anyways. Rude. Bad. Not like."
“You could say I’ve been kicking ass and taking names,” Evan said. Paige didn’t react. Evan’s voice went in one ear and out the other.
You could say that. It wouldn't be true, but you could say it. I love that Evan doesn't just 'say' "I've been kicking ass and taking names" because that would be a technical lie
"You have taken no names? And you have kicked eyes, but not asses! Bad bird!" - the spirits, if Evan had said that thing
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spinagon 05-Aug-19 06:15 AM
"From a certain point of view"
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JayManiac 05-Aug-19 06:16 AM
“In abstracts,” Paige said. “Metaphors about masks and icebergs, and the progression of man from being heavily confined by their own limitations and driven by base needs to being driven primarily by ideas, and how everything casts a shadow. Even man and what man is doing at the time he casts a shadow.” “Ah,” I said. “So you haven’t been filled in. Just the opposite.”
Interesting, both the fact that Isadora chose to do this, and that Blake thinks of it as not being filled in
personally I'd take Isadora's practitioning class but I'd interrupt her every five minutes with counterarguments and probably get mauled for being rude
Taking a quick break to walk before the sun goes down, be back real soon
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JayManiac 05-Aug-19 06:54 AM
Okay, am back to finish up
“Please forgive me for saying so, but I have a hard time believing this isn’t you trying to extort me, or hurt me in some backhanded way.” “I don’t blame you for feeling that way,” Isadora said.
Oh, how kind of you to say so. I love how polite and casual and Karmic this conversation is, it's tense but also a weird mix of relaxing and hilarious?
“Imagine that I’m holding firmly to a rock named Paige. When your stone tumbles into the water, dragging all the rest with it, Paige remains firmly in my hand. Maybe the other rocks dangle. Maybe the rope breaks, and they all fall. In both cases, there’s less of a splash, less upheaval, one less stone in the water.” “You’re laying claim to her,” I said.
Weird way of putting it, but I actually think this might be what's best for Paige, given the circumstances. After all, she could be the Thorburn Heir at some point, and if and when that ever happens, it's probably not horrible to have a Sphinx keeping you above water. Unless she just straight up murders anyone who's heir to the Thorburn name to keep them from becoming a diabolist, that is.
“What, then? This becomes some partnership? Master and apprentice? Something like I have with Rose?” “Rose?” Paige asked. “Or Evan?” I asked.
I dunno, I kind of want Blake to answer her here with the Rose thing, just because I want to see how he'd describe her right now. It's been a while since we got a beat of Blake and Rose on edge
He even says he doesn't trust Maggie earlier and doesn't jump immediately to "and I don't trust Rose either"
in fact, he just says: "and then there were all the people I trusted", which bodes well for that specific relationship
“Right,” Paige said. “I’m sorry.” “I believe you,” Isadora said. “Mr. Thorburn, the closest parallel would be to you and Evan, yes.”
ooooooo, that'd be an interesting mix, and would pretty much ensure that Paige doesn't become a diabolist
but it might be a briar girl type situation, where she's beholden to Isadora instead of the other way around
I can picture Paige just sitting there like "you think I'm gonna be like that bird?"
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A bird 🐦 05-Aug-19 07:03 AM
It's be tricky to keep a hypothetical Paige-as-sitting-heir from being a diabolist
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JayManiac 05-Aug-19 07:04 AM
I disagree wholeheartedly
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A bird 🐦 05-Aug-19 07:04 AM
Isadora would be a strong force for preventing it, but the lawyers and the contracts would be an opposing force (edited)
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JayManiac 05-Aug-19 07:06 AM
I think Blake wouldn't've become a diabolist if he had a familiar as powerful as Isadora in his corner from the beginning. He only started making deals with the lawyers and eventually Pauz when he was out of other options and being targeted from all angles. With Isadora there to protect her, she wouldn't have reason to use diabolism
which is why it's such bullshit that Isadora turns on Blake before he's even a diabolist; if she hadn't, he might never have become one. I don't think it's as simple as all that, of course, but this is where Isadora's hypocrisy lies
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A bird 🐦 05-Aug-19 07:08 AM
That's making a lot of assumptions of relative power
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JayManiac 05-Aug-19 07:08 AM
Potentially, yes
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A bird 🐦 05-Aug-19 07:08 AM
Isadora is very powerful, but is she untouchable?
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JayManiac 05-Aug-19 07:08 AM
No, probably not
but she'd almost certainly force Paige to swear off using the books or making deals with the lawyers anyways, so whether or not she's powerful enough to protect Paige, they'd sink or swim together
no road to diabolism with her involved, for better or worse
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A bird 🐦 05-Aug-19 07:09 AM
I don't think it's an accident that she is picking the Thorburn furthest from the seat of power
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JayManiac 05-Aug-19 07:10 AM
Cynically, it could be so that the others eat up their share of Karmic debt and she doesn't have as much of a job patching the bruise on existance that is the thorburn family
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A bird 🐦 05-Aug-19 07:11 AM
Or even that it gives her more time to empower Paige against it
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JayManiac 05-Aug-19 07:11 AM
Right, build up Paige's karma while it can be built
we already see her doing it here with things like "don't interrupt"
she's training Paige to be karmically perfect in the same way behaims train their kids not to lie
“Before you go further and inadvertently insult me,” Isadora told me, “Paige would be the ‘Evan’ in the partnership.”
Literally confirmed like two seconds later that she'd be the powerful one, and Paige is probably just really confused and/or insulted. Yeesh. I don't envy paige, but if I were Blake I might
“A pet?” Tiff asked. “Kinky,” Alexis said. I could see Paige going stiff, clearly uncomfortable, entirely off guard for the first time I’d seen her in… since she’d fled Grandmother’s room after their private interview, now that I thought about it. “I’m not a freaking pet!” Evan piped up. “I’m a kick-ass, eye-biting, giant-tripping, life-saving familiar.” “Not entirely inaccurate,” Isadora said. She seemed too happy, smiling, relaxed.
first of all: Isadora supports Evan and it's cute
second of all: Look very closely at who Paige can and cannot hear in this situation
Clearly, from an unawakened point of view, this is what happened in that conversation: Alexis: Kinky. Isadora: Not entirely inaccurate
Paige is having a great time here
“You do,” Isadora said. “But I think you’ll accept the offer.” Paige was flushed red.
Did she actually interpret the kinky bit? That was a joke on my part, but maybe it's what Paige decided to pull out there anyhow
As things went, it was affecting her too much. She was too bewildered, too upset, given her usual composure.
Well things are getting pretty kinky up in here
“I’m not following,” Evan said. “You’re gay, Paige?” I asked. “Ohhh,” Evan said. “Wait, nope, still not following.”
I swear the kinky stuff was a joke
also: with ya Evan
not entirely following
I love the "ooooohhhIstilldon'tgetit" moment from him
I could see the pain on Paige’s face as she averted her eyes. “You’re an asshole, just bringing it up like that. Show some damn class, Blake.”
Yeah, uh, especially in front of the arbiter of class
like
dick move, a little bit
“You caught me on a bad day. I’d be more gentle, otherwise,” I said.
Point.
however
don't be an asshole just cuz you had a bad day
even if it was a really really really bad day
“Do what he says. Blake’s been sliced, cut open, beaten, frozen, and nearly killed. All of us pulling together have had to fight and make huge sacrifices to keep him going-” “-and I know he cares about you. He’s told me about his childhood. Time spent with his cousins. When he tells you this, I’m convinced he’s getting the words from a good, well-meaning place, okay?” Those words seemed to reach Paige where mine hadn’t.
Ilovethis
“You’ve… you’ve hinted you’re older than you look. Blake’s reaction before, the way he thought you’d be like Evan… you’re more special than you look, too. You’re not human.”
She is pretty smart, after all. And so the masquerade is....unmasqued? a little?
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Elliot (Boy) 05-Aug-19 07:25 AM
god it's so good to be reliving all this post 9.4. also lol at Jay claiming Evan doesn't take names, with Maggie sitting beside him.
(sorry Jay I can't go into Pact spoilers to hide this from you) (edited)
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JayManiac 05-Aug-19 07:26 AM
Elliot you are killing me here
“Close enough. You can make that leap, or can you summon the courage to leave. But you should decide one way or the other soon. I’d remind you of the proverb of the ass, who died hungry and thirsty because it couldn’t choose between the water and the grain. If you don’t decide in, oh, the next three minutes, the decision will be made for you.” “I either stay with you and worship you? Serve you as a pet?”
I'm sure this is exactly the sales pitch Isadora wanted to give, and Blake has just played into it fabulously
“Both right and not right. People like you once bowed and scraped for favors from sorts like me. Something between the master-slave relationship, the master-apprentice relationship, and the stricter rules of hospitality. A form of sheltering, if you will. I’ll point you to the right reading material when the opportunity arises, if you choose to accept.” “Oh gee whiz,” Paige said. “Because it sounds so tempting.” Sarcasm was so refreshing, I had to admit. Lowest form of wit or no.
Hahahahaha she's reacting to this like a normal person. You remember when we had normal people in this story? Nah, me neither
You might find yourself at odds with Blake, Rose, and their allies, but I don’t sense a great deal of connection between you and them.” “You keep mentioning Rose.” “It doesn’t matter,” I said.
It kind of does, though! Describe your sister, coward.
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Elliot (Boy) 05-Aug-19 07:31 AM
“Why is Rose always angry at me?” “Rose doesn’t matter” 🤔
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JayManiac 05-Aug-19 07:32 AM
Is that better or worse than "Rose does matter because she's gonna try to kill me any second. Stay vigilant. Stay VIGILANT"
Probably about even
we haven't had a snide comment about rose in what feels like...chapters now
just indifference
hm
“Stop focusing on the details. Go back to normal life. Isadora isn’t mentioning that she kills the people who don’t work out. That’s why all her past subordinates are all happy. The unhappy ones get swallowed, they’re dead, they don’t exist anymore.”
Hahahahaha that was so bullshit for Isadora to pull. "Oh yeah they're all happy. The ones that lived." You also just told Paige "semantics and details" Thorburn not to focus on details
I saw Rose in the window.
Heyyo!
speak of the devil!
which is weird
because I was speaking about details right before using that metaphor
She stepped into the TV, appearing on the unlit, concave screen. She looked at me, and I nodded. The TV broke. Not an explosive shattering, but a crack, loud, with the sound of glass falling.
Alas. Goodbye, shitty TV. Evan won't miss you
We’d misjudged where she stood. She spun around, instead, reaching for Isadora’s hand, half protecting her, half seeking reassurance.
God fucking dammit. Well, if she's gonna be a practitioner, better this way than the other I guess
like literally, karmically, measurably better
which
as we all know
is the worst kind of better
The Shepherd entered the apartment, and my focus shifted away from Paige.
Ah, now we can really get the party started
I moved one of my dining room chairs to the living room. The Shepherd sat with his arms folded across his stomach, back straight, hair tousled by the weather. He looked intense, and somehow a little mad, in the less-than-sane sense.
Well better than the pissed-the-fuck-off-at-you sense. I wonder if he's more pissed about taking Evan, or..you know, making him expend a bunch of power and then also trying to kill him.
Diana the Astrologer was the next to enter, pausing momentarily as she saw me standing at the end of the entryway. Silent, she removed her shoes and entered. “Hungry?” I asked, “Thirsty?”
This is uh...really weird and fun
They might be the most powerful practitioners Toronto has to offer
but it's Blake's apartment they're meeting in
And they've all got distinct responses to being offered food and water and stuff
She lingered in the doorway of the kitchen even after I handed it to her. “I’m sorry I shot at your side,” she said. “I believe you,” I said.
Yeah. I can't imagine what Conquest did to convince her to fight for him. She's probably had it rough, as someone who liked Blake and wanted to be on his side
but probably couldn't for good reason
“Okay,” I said. “Thanks, I guess, for trying. I’m trying not to hold onto grudges, so I consider you absolved, as far as I can do that. There’s a girl in the other room, on the couch. It would be more appropriate to apologize to her.” “I’ll find her.”
And she's so..repentant, and sorry, and I just sort of feel bad for her. I was maybe a little mad that she killed my fav, but I forgive her.
“There’s also Fell…” “He told me to kill someone, or else, and I did. I made a call, and Fell was the one I knew best. The most disposable.”
Damn. Well, when she puts it that way, better someone you know.
that's actually kind of maybe noble, even
I wondered if she’d just needed to justify what she’d done to someone. If I remembered right, she didn’t have a coven or a circle. She had only her master, and he’d died for her sake. Lonely.
Well, maybe some people...aren't dumb enough to recruit a gaggle of friends to their side
pfft
idiots
my friends and I would bring ruin to at least part of our suburban town and then ourselves. We'd be the best cabal ever
Three of the Sisters arrived at the same time the Astrologer disappeared from view, their Elder Sister first among them.
I wonder if they're gonna thank Blake for removing conquest from the Elder Sister's immediate vicinity, or just flip Blake the bird (no not evan, the other one) for kind of knocking them out and generally being a creep.
The sidelong glance he offered me gave me chills. The creatures he had with him doubly so, now that I had an idea of what they were.
So Meath is still in the "gunning for Blake" circle, then. And he doesn't have to not interfere now that conquest's gone
but
but
Guess what just opened up?
New Lordship, up for grabs
who did that?
Blake did
Maybe sidelong glance isn't a bad thing after all? We'll see
Almost immediately behind them were the Knights. Nick reached out to clap one hand on my shoulder, but I ducked out of the way.
sharkhi
knights are back!
Blake doesn't like touching and that's valid and also the knights are back and I'm happy
“First thing you say is about beer and pizza?” Nick asked, giving me a hard look. “You don’t think we have other, more serious concerns?” “My gut told me beer and pizza first,” I said. “No kidding?”
Funny how the most normal people are the "Pizza before murder? Really?" types. Kinda places Nick on a very distinct side of the line here, and I like it.
“Fuck, if only you were born a woman, I’d trade in my wife for you. I’m still trying to get her to think like that.” His wife elbowed him, but she didn’t look too annoyed.
Aww, that's kinda cute
If couples can make jokes like that with no visible hard feelings, it's probably healthy
The Behaims were among the last to arrive.
Aw shit. They're here
They weren't at the last one! Do they have to be here?
“Hospitality has to be observed,” I said. “Food and drink in the kitchen, help yourselves. Make yourselves comfortable. I have no grudge against the kids, and no reason to act against you, Duncan. Everyone’s meeting in the living room, past the kitchen.” There were no answers as they walked past me.
"Make yourselves comfortable, sorry I killed your dad, wait I can't actually say that cuz spirits whoops. Beer's in the fridge."
“This is Emily, and she’ll be standing in for Malcolm Fell,” the old woman said. “I’m her bodyguard, and that’s all you need to know right now.” I looked at the little girl. “I’m sorry about Fell.”
No. Oh no, don't do that to me. Fuck.
Might wanna get Maggie to apologize for her dad, while we're at it
But also, this girl was never sworn into Conquest's service
Blake did that much for her, and for Fell, at least
That alone cements this contest as a good thing in my mind.
“We’ve eaten,” the old woman said. She stalked off to the living room.
I can get being mad, Blake kinda might be the reason your son died. But you of all people should know that Fell would be fucking thrilled at this outcome. He dies, sure, but the line is broken. She won't have to serve that fuckhead like he did.
By the time I rejoined everyone, the tension in the air was palpable.
Understatement of the night here
Ty had taken a seat at the end of the table, perched there like he was ready to spring off and leap to my defense, or the defense of Alexis. That was sort of how he always was. Restless, eager.
This is exactly how I sit all the friggin time. I relate to Ty so hard, forever.
“What we have now is a stalemate,” I said. “One I aimed for, almost from the beginning of this contest. I didn’t want to win, not explicitly, I didn’t want to lose either, obviously. Both involve ugly consequences.”
This. This was smart.
Blake handed Conquest a contest that metaphysically according to all known laws of everything ever, he could not lose. So conquest accepts the chance to conquer, and Blake yeets him into a mirror. There we go. Case closed.
Isadora spoke, “Do you know why he holds the position he does?” Is this a softball question? Is this Isadora ‘helping’ me again?
She's a professor, Blake. It's her job
“Let me take your question from earlier and turn it around on you. Are you extorting something from us, Mr. Thorburn?” “No,” I said. “I don’t think I’d get out of that alive.”
Almost certainly not. You still might not get out alive
“Do you want to depose him?” I glanced at the old woman with Fell’s relative in tow. “I wouldn’t mind,” I said. “I think he’s pretty toxic, pretty damn ugly, in terms of how he operates.”
sharkhi
Yay for fuck conquest
“Do you want to rule, then?” I almost laughed. “No. Definitely not.”
This, this would've been funny. I like that we so completely dismiss the trope of "oh no, since he killed the Lord of the City, he is the Lord of the City!"
Not that Blake killed conquest or anythign
“What do you want?” Isadora asked. “I want to be left alone,” I said. “This needs to end, but I’m not the person to end it. People have made that clear. I’m too… too questionable. So I’m leaving it up to you. I would hope that you decide on a new leader, someone who wants to be in charge badly enough to stick their neck out and risk getting hurt, but whatever you decide, I’ll hear you out.”
Meath. This is your shot, buddy. Blake's givin it to ya right now. I love that Blake puts his foot down here, lays out what he gets from this.
I’m sitting this one out. I’ve earned a break. I’m going to use that break to do some reading I’ve fallen behind on, I’m going to look after my circle, and when that’s done, when I feel ready, I’m going back to the factory.”
Oh Shit. He really wasn't kidding about that. I mean, I'd say that place is to be aVoid-ed, but who knows? I assume that's the confrontation at the end of the arc, then?
That's a perfect end to it
if it is
“That could be construed as a threat,” the old woman said. “It could be,” I said. “But it’s not intended as such. If I have to capture, I will. I’d rather eliminate the problem altogether. Scour the buillding. I’d appreciate help, but I’m not going to expect it.”
I love how fell's mom's just like "oh you're gonna sic that thing on us" immediately
I doubt he'll get much help though, even if Evan did call the Sisters out on their bullshit a while ago
“That’s it?” Duncan asked. “You throw everything into disarray, lure us all here, and then announce that you’re shirking the responsibilities that come with victory?” “I take it you don’t have any conception of what’s in that factory,” Nick said. “He’s not shirking responsibilities at all. He’s picking his battles.”
Yeah. Shut the fuck up Duncan. Just. For the rest of the book: shut the fuck up. Can you do that?
“Nothing more to say? I thought you would be making a bid for power here.” “No. Not like this. I know how things function, I am interested. In my own way, in my own time,” Jeremy said.
You're acting surprisingly pissy about finally getting the chance at what I thought you wanted, man
“We can’t have someone who’s just going to die five minutes after he takes power,” Isadora said. “Or we would have let Jeremy take the position when he last tried for it.
That's a fucking BURN right there, Isa
“Emily will be assisting anyone who looks like they can securely take the position,” the old woman said.
Serving the Lord of Conquest once again? Or maybe not. Maybe more of a partnership. Maybe things can get better, and cycles don't have to keep repeating themselves.
Laird? What do you think? Oh, right.
“We’ll be making a bid,” the Elder sister said.
Okay. Don't let these guys be in charge. Like, apart from the Shepherd and maybe the Behaims, I think I hate that idea the most
“I’d say it’s been nice knowing you,” Nick commented, “But… well, no.”
Hahahahahahaha friggin burn, Nick
This conversation is full of people roasting the shit out of each other
probably just a lot of pent up tension
they don't all usually have to be in the same room together, probably for the best
“The Shepherd, I presume, will be backing the Lord himself,” Isadora said. “Opposing Thorburn and attempting to wrangle the Lord’s release or kill Thorburn?” The Shepherd nodded.
Sweet jegus, this guy holds a fucking grudge. Such a dick. Such a dick. I hate him more than the Sisters, because he's the antithesis of what I think this book is aiming for: healthy, communicative relationships.
“Outsiders will turn up,” Isadora said. “It’s the way of things. But I suppose that doesn’t concern you, does it, Thorburn?” I shook my head a little. “Then I suppose that’s enough for now. We’ll cease intruding.” Just like that, they did.
Okay. Sure. That's it? People are like "fuck it, I don't wanna be Lord", two idiots decide yes actually they do, and then they're out
“Sorry to leave you out of it,” I told Rose. “It’s fine,” she said.
I'm sure it is
“Like working around the no-magic limitation, for one thing, in case this stalemate lingers,” I said.
Luckily, that's only in Toronto. I was pretty worried for a second there
I turned my attention to the Hyena’s broken sword. The Hyena was dead, the face on the hilt a skull now. “And,” I added, “If I can manage it, I could really do with an implement.”
No
Nope
Bad. Idea.
The implement is such an important, expressive, symbolic decision. Do you really want to associate you and Evan with the Hyena forever?
I want Blake to have an Implement, I really do. It's one of my favorite parts of the world that we haven't seen in detail yet and I'm really really excited for it.
But not that one
That said, I'm pretty hyped for Alexis's implement, if she manages to get that going. I just want to see how it functions, how it works, what it ends up doing. I wonder if we'll get to see the circle bind their own familiars, too
Anyhow, that's the chapter, it's later than anticipated, I'm gonna go to sleep now, night everyone! Hope you enjoyed!
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JayManiac 08-Aug-19 10:07 AM
I tried to come up with a highlight reel when Elliot first jumped in, and I'm sure it could be done if I had half an hour to skim through/remember stuff. Most of the stuff that's stuck with me has been the small things, like how the conceit of pact is that it doesn't use Vending Machine Magic (Magic in most stories, like mistborn, takes a cost and then produces magical effect [I select b6 for three dollars]. Magic in Pact requires dealing one-on-one with an Other that grants you that effect, no matter how sophisticated. Depending on the Other, that means it's a cost that can be haggled, outsmarted, subverted, interpreted, or Other-wise, and that turns this relatively ignored facet of using magic into something with an endless amount of potential variety and intrigue) (edited)
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JayManiac 08-Aug-19 10:16 AM
Re: The Sisters, I don't actually hate them all that much, I just think they use magic irresponsibly and their status in the mundane world (as this cool secret society who gets to peer behind the veil) gets to their heads and inflates their self image. That's fine, you can have a cool powerful secret identity that no one else knows about, but the Sisters' actions seem to suggest that they think they know a lot more about the Practitioner world than they seem to. Like, Evan points it out, they're not really all that concerned or knowledgeable about the current events or issues of the magical landscape, they don't go out and try to solve things, they just sit there and feel important. Tl;dr the little power they have inflates their ego and makes them...say...bid for Lordship despite obviously not knowing what that entails or being the best pick or even really wanting to do good with that.
Not worse than Conquest, obviously
but that's a pretty low bar
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JayManiac 08-Aug-19 10:27 AM
I'm reminiscing about four months ago now because I'm reading my own liveread this is a rabbit hole. And since I'm assembling some sort of brief little highlight reel...
does that mean
that I'm livereading my liveread?
lol 2
Wild.
Here's the time I met Blake's Tattoos
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JayManiac 08-Aug-19 10:45 AM
Hahaha I found the part where I found the part of Deep In Pact where I got a shoutout for my videos and it still gives me a warm fuzzy feeling just looking at my reaction.
This is my favorite pull to keep track of, and something I really lean into in my analysis: Practitionership as a metaphor for society, Blake as a young adult 'entering society', and the magic system itself as a metaphor for society's conventions (with Famimplemense having clear parallels to "get married, get a job, settle down). This quote is from a few chapters before we got the Pages on those three. I'm sure there's more, but I don't want to get too self-indulgent here and that seems like a good place to stop (they come in threes, after all). Also it's 1 in the morning and sleep is important.
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JayManiac 08-Aug-19 09:06 PM
I think Bird had the same thought, because they immediately went and convinced me to read Pact after watching that video.
And thanks! The parts I usually miss- that Deep In Pact helps remind me of- are largely the character-based ones, Blake's arc, Maggie's strangeness, Rose and Blake's relationship, etc. You always find something to pull that just never occurred to me because I wasn't thinking in those terms, and it's made me significantly better at reading this book, I think.
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Ishamoridin 08-Aug-19 09:08 PM
Yeah I'm the same there Jay, 2/3 of everything I draw from the text is going to be world-related rather than character-related. I've always just been more fascinated by the stage than the players.
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JayManiac 08-Aug-19 09:15 PM
That's a good way of putting it. I don't feel the same way about every story, but Pact has easily the best magic system I've encountered (and by that I mean the most fascinating to me) so I'm gonna be paying a lot of attention to it. For Parahumans, the divide is about 50/50, and for Twig it's about 70/30 in favor of character, because Sy is in my top three characters of all time.
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JayManiac 09-Aug-19 05:38 PM
Alright
it's Time
wait no actually it's just the perception of time
wait no actually actually I'm not even on the right homestuck aspect, it's Void 7.10
I'm sorry I haven't been able to read as much lately
but hey, if I'm reading three chapters a week or more than at least I'm not falling more behind Deep In Pact
The sudden shifts in weather had made for some spectacular changes in the environment. Ice had melted and refrozen into spiky groupings on branches, tree branches hung low, and a mist hung over much of the area. The factory loomed before us.
Oh fuck, it's this again. Urkel itself. I love the little scene setting before The Line. It's not much, but it's a great way of getting into Blake's headspace.
“This is it?” Ty asked, as if we hadn’t been staring at it in silence for several minutes.
Like, I totally got this vibe from the opening lines, that Blake is just sitting here and noticing literally everything except the factory for minutes on end because it's just that....hhHhhhh
“How do we do this?” Alexis asked. “Carefully,” I said.
God very literally dammit you really don't have a plan do you?
Ty smirked. “I think I was five the first and last time I found a line like that funny.” “It’s not supposed to be funny,” Rose said.
I like this line as a symbol of how Rose and Blake's relationship has progressed; I think they understand each other a lot better than they did a week or so ago and it makes me really happy to see.
Because last time they were at the factory Blake said something like "okay, signals. If we're screaming, that means something went wrong" and Rose was the one who accused him of trying to be funny. Now, here she is.
I'm sure that now that they're on better terms, the story will progress perfectly and with nothing wrong ever
“It eats your hand,” I said, “Then as far as you and the rest of the world are concerned, you don’t have a hand, and you never did. The past doesn’t get rewritten, but your brain will do its best to make sense of it, filling in the gaps.”
couldn't resist
Shadow People are, for the record, totally of the First Choir
“What if it can’t?” Tiff asked. “Make sense of it, I mean.”
I think you'll find we humans can make sense of a lot, if we set our bugs on- I mean, if we set our minds to it.
Alexis was smoking far more than she had before my bathroom mirror had broken and I’d made my trip to Jacob’s Bell.
We got the beat that Blake thinks he probably did more harm than good to these people, and here it is again, being a pretty good point.
I liked those knives. They were crap for actual use, apparently, an early experiment on Ty’s part with too low a concentration of something or other, but they were beautiful. Alexis was the same way, kind of. Not in terms of being crappy. The other part.
That's among the most roundabout ways to talk about the fact that you like someone. It's so adorable.
Too much to do. Pauz was out there. I fully intended to find and recapture him.
I like that the story still has momentum. We're out of the Conquest Arc at a little under the halfway point of the story and it'd be easy for the plot to lose some of its steam, but really what it seems to be doing is setting up Blake for a more active role in the conflict going forwards, trying to improve the state of the world. I mean hell, if we just got a few arcs of Thorburn Circle: Monster Hunters, i'd be all hells of fine with that. Deal with the Abstract Demon, track down Pauz, scramble for resources as the demons keep them on their toes, etc.
Things were moving behind the scenes, factions moving against one another, and I was staying largely out of it, hands off, while the locals decided what they’d do.
Don't know if that's where it's headed, especially since we've got the political situations in Toronto and Jacob's Bell to worry about.
Then there was this. One was the simplest and most pressing tasks of them all. All the more important because of how easy it was to convince myself to ignore it. The oblivion demon. We were scouting the location, considering what needed to be done.
There was one part of my liveread I was hesitant to pull earlier, when I was skimming it over the other day, but I think it's important to notice.
When they first went to fight the abstract demon, Blake and Rose were using Black Lamb's Blood in their arguments, and Elliot and Reuben seemed to think Rose fell more in line with the book's philosophies than Blake.
She was saying there wasn't a reason he had to do this now, that he could come back after they'd dealt with conquest and that he had more pressing issues to worry about, etc.
But as someone whose Instant Gratification Monkey is a daily pain in the ass, that doesn't always hold up. I could see Blake finding all of the other shit he's got on his plate more important than this "minor" abstract demon. But he doesn't. Like (ward)Rain O'fire Breakthrough, he deals. With this, at least.
And I'm so, so proud of him for breaking that Diabolist cycle, at least this one time.
“I’m thinking,” Rose said, very carefully, “That the graffiti surrounding the building is important.”
I mean, the Word of the Lord and all that. Not you, Conquest. The other Lo- no, bigger...bigger....yeah there you go. That Lord. I feel like there's something in someone's interpretation of the bible about Him speaking the world into existence, so the idea that words could be used to bind nonexistence makes a lot of sense
totally unrelated tangent: i'm reading Sandman (finally) and I love comparing it to Pact and 2016 Hellblazer and Swamp Thing and Bartimaeus because they all have this same kind of ethos, of reinterpreting the Urban Fantasy, but they all do it in such varied and interesting ways.
I mean seriously
we need some Tromos vs Dream of the Endless fanart up in here
“Hey,” Ty said, “That’s fantastic. We can just ignore it, and it’s stuck there, right?” “People are going inside,” I said. “Someone drew the binding and they aren’t around anymore, so they might have gone inside, only to be eaten. The building was built in 1910, and it’s only been vacant for forty years or so, but if you compare it to other buildings that have been abandoned just as long, it looks like it’s in worse shape. It’s degrading. You can’t see it from here, but a portion of the roof has already collapsed.” “The binding isn’t perfect,” Rose said. “It’s radiating out, eating at its environment.”
I love this, it feels so...inevitable. Insidious. Like entropy itself, which is also probably of the First Choir.
Also I love Ty, he's just desperate to kinda Not Do This and I don't blame him one single bit
hey
hey
guess who's not here
The Sisters.
Now I'm sure they're very busy with other important things, like power. Not enough time for acts of community service and whatnot. That's why they should totally become Lords of the city, because of their disinterest in public service!
“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe it’s the metaphysical equivalent of a vacuum. Nature abhors a vacuum, or something like that? He eats reality, stuff gets drawn in as a matter of course. Or it’s just a failing of the modern age. The era of the internet. You can divert people who might happen across the place, but when it’s featured on ‘abandoned building’ websites and the practitioners aren’t invested or savvy enough to take down the website or stick a big fat rune on the site’s homepage…”
I continue to be interested in how the internet has influenced the Practice- or rather, how little it seems to have influenced the Practice in the story so far. We as a society like to think that we're all new and savvy and modern, but at the end of the day we're still working with the same concepts, the same conventions, the same Names and the same allocation of fundamental forces. As much as we'd like to think we live Post-Cultural-Revolution, we still name our Spaceships after Sun Gods, because those remnents of society aren't as easy to let go of, especially when there are powerful people (or Others) that have a strong investment in keeping things the way they are, so that their personal seats of power remain undisturbed.
But we see the internet influence the Practice in small ways, slowly weakening old bindings, slowly pulling rugs from under the old ways, perhaps?
except here, it's not a good thing. If Urkel here gets loose, that's not a victory. That's dangerous for everyone involved.
which is an interesting concept to leave it on.
I wonder if you could bind an abstract demon in a website?
you could totally bind an abstract demon in a website
“Good flight?” I asked, holding him out in front. “Yep! I still like the motorcycle more, though.”
I love these guys.
“Flying has to be better.” “No it doesn’t. I’m small. Imagine riding on top of a motorcycle the size of a train. Makes my bones shudder and the wind blows through my feathers, and- I shook my head a little as he went on.
And I love this, too! Because all Blake wants to do, is fly. Be free, catch his Breath and ride the winds!
“Huh,” he said. “You know, this is just one more argument in favor of giving me special powers.” “That’s already on the metaphorical to-do list,” I said. As I’ve said a dozen times now. “Blood sparrow, box yet to be ticked off.” “Maybe you should put it on a real to-do list,” Evan said.
Ah, look at them, they know each other so well. Like Evan, knowing exactly what Blake has on his plate right now and being impatient as a small woodland creature.
“You know what could be even better than a blood sparrow?” Ty asked. “Considering the demon your practitioner wants to fight?” “No, Ty,” I said, before he could say anything. Ty ignored me. “A fire sparrow.” “Yes.” “Fuck you, Ty,” I said.
Ty 👏 is 👏 my 👏 favorite 👏
...except for Evan
and Blake
but hey third place is pretty good for a character who's probably had less than thirty lines in the story so far!
“Maybe you didn’t, because you’re not even half as excited as I am about the idea! Imagine me doing everything I’ve been doing already, except I’m on fire.”
I completely support Evan's desire to constantly be on fire. Maybe that's why he and Blake get along, they both just seem to want to be on fire all the time.
“He’s a kid, on top of everything else,” Ty said. “He gets bored, and he needs to get excited about stuff. You’ve got to give him that.” “Devil-bird? No, that might give people the wrong idea.” “Yeah, probably would, Evan,” Rose commented.
See this, my dear audience, is how you foster conflict within your readers' hearts.
Because on one hand, Blake and Rose have agreed once again, and shown solidarity as The Thorburn Heir once again, which is friggin awesome
on the other hand, we put them both in opposition to what is clearly the Greatest Idea in the Universe
“Cold?” I asked. “Yeah. You?” I touched my coat. It was hideous, a thrift-store buy, a down-filled brown corduroy coat with a folded-down collar, but it had deep pockets, it was warm, and it had only been eighteen dollars. “I’m warm enough,” I had to admit.
There's so much here
the fact that this is reminiscent of the 'girl and guy like each other and snuggle up close when they're cold' trope, but actually no Blake is warm enough...just kinda...by himself. And plus that would be physical contact which he's not okay with in the first place, and it just reminds you of all of those kind of tragic things about this relationship all at once. Plus there's his self-fashion roast again.
“No prob,” Ty said. He drew his phone out of his pocket. I saw it, made a mental connection, and moved my hand to stop him from raising it. In the process, I very nearly slapped the phone out of his hand. “What the hell?” he asked, as he caught it with the other hand, stopping the phone from dropping into the snow.
Really? From all the way out here, you think? I mean, wouldn't that mean it's bad just to look at the building itself? Also are we just gonna ignore the fact that Ty just straight up ninja'd his phone right here like a badass?
Ty frowned. “Because it doesn’t follow typical rules. If it’s reflected in our eyes, it’s in our eyes?”
I'm glad that was outlined right here, because I knew it was a rule and what happened if you broke it from last fight, but i'd forgotten the exact framing
“And if its image is captured in your phone?” I asked. He looked down at his phone, his forehead creased as he frowned. “Oh,” he said.
Remember what I said about binding it in a website? I mean not that it'd be bound at that point, just kinda...there. And also Not.
“We should meet up with Maggie, then start working on the plan to free up your ability to use magic,” Rose said. “If we can’t come up with a plan A, we’re going to have to go with her plan B.” “You know a plan sucks when it’s the plan B before you even have a plan A,” Alexis said.
No that just means you're double prepared before you're even prepared. And also that you have a really shitty plan A.
“Speaking of the one member of our group who seemed most uncomfortable with the idea of stopping by the factory…” I said, as we collectively turned to head in the direction of the car. I paused long enough to make sure everyone was listening, “…Anyone else have concerns?”
How much a member of the Thorburn Circle is Maggie, anyways? Is she still on board, now that the contest is on hold? She did do that whole "im not ur champion bye" thing right up at the end there
“Don’t know her,” Alexis said. “I don’t get a good vibe.” “You get ‘vibes’?” I asked. “Not really. Not usually. But I got one with you, I think, and I got one with her. Good vibe with you, but she gives me a bad one.”
Interesting, given that Blake's vibe is literally, Karmically bad
I mean, I don't think it was until he became the heir, so when they met he might've still been on good karma territory
“Maybe,” Rose said. “I see her sometimes and she’s lying there, just breathing… but then she gets restless and she starts moving around. Like she’s trying to pretend to sleep, but she can’t bring herself to do it for eight hours straight.”
I can't decide if this fuels Elliot's theory or not. On the one hand, Padraic seems like the type to get restless and bored just sitting there
on the other hand
Faerie are very...very good at pretending
“Because nothing’s suggested she’s not on our side,” I said, “I like to give people the benefit of a doubt until they give me reason to do otherwise.” “Noble,” Rose said. “Stupid as fuck, but noble.” “Not arguing that,” I said. I’m the fool, after all.
bulba
The first thing Rose says is Noble
I mean the next thing is "stupid as fuck" but I care loads about Blake and I concur with that so I'm gonna take it as a sign of their continuously improving relationship that's not gonna be ruined by anything ever.
“Just keep an eye out. Note anything unusual, report it when she’s not nearby. For now, we’re going to meet with some dangerous people, enact our plan B, and maybe if there’s any spare time to let our minds idle, we need to think about a way to produce as much fire as is humanly or inhumanly possible.” “Oh,” Evan said, hopping around on my shoulder. “Blake, blake! I know, I know!”
Hahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahah this is precious and I love it so much
oh yeah! This also explains Sandara's other piece of Pact fanart!
There he is. Fire sparrow indeed.
The drive was somewhat uncomfortable with Maggie in the passenger seat
Hahahahahahahahhahahaha
"hey guys you think she might be possessed? Yeah? Cool."
12 minutes later
Then, to top it off, she got in a long discussion with Evan about how one could theoretically pull off the ‘fire bird’ thing. Certain kinds of goblin and elemental, and how shamans could manipulate spirits into war paint to wear them, and other inane ideas that would be floating through Evan’s head for days to come.
Such a Maggie thing to do. And such a Padraic thing to do. But really I think we can all agree, the right thing to do.
The building was only one floor, squat, with a sloped roof. The snow heaped over it had greater dimensions than the building did. I knocked. The Astrologer answered.
!!!!
Blake might, for once in his short short practitioner life, have fucking Backup!
The computer monitors, even, were old CRTs, some black and green. The place smelled like tea, ozone and mold. The whole setup, including the vaguely rounded pile of snow above the building, struck me as being a kind of high tech hobbit hole. Not what I might have assumed.
But tying in great with what I'm now going to unilaterally decide is a theme of this chapter because I started talking about it and wouldn't stop: Technology's slow but sure effect on the Practice, on how we all think and conceptualize. Of course, this is just a new way of tracking the constellations, which are well-established concepts in the mind of society, but this is the first practitioner we've seen who takes that and modenizes it.
“I do too. Aesthetically. In terms of usability, though, a lot of it’s grandfathered in. My mentor was cutting edge, but cutting edge then is archaic today. I’m not sure if it’s easier to let go of the sentimental attachment or wizard up some kind of power up to the equipment.”
And even she thinks it's out of date, and she rolls with/against the likes of Isadora, the Shepherd, friggin "it's 2014 and I'm still a redcoat with a white coat" Conquest
then again, there's an ease to tradition
and sometimes you don't have the time or power or resources to be on the cutting edge of thinking, you've got your own friggin problems
“Yeah,” she said. “By the way, I really am sorry for shooting you.” “It was nonlethal, you were trying to help,” Alexis said.
Hahahahahahahaahahahahaha
I don't know if I headcanon that Alexis is just trying to be polite here, but I do notice that both of the things she said are true factual statements that imply but do not outright state her feelings on the matter
“Did you talk to Fell’s family?” I asked. I wasn’t sure if the old woman counted, but ‘family’ could just as easily refer to the little girl alone. “I did. They aren’t as forgiving as miss Alexis is.”
She seems a lot less cool than when we first met her...when her son was alive and stuff. I mean Fell's mom, not Diana.
“Maybe not. I felt some empathy for you when I realized just how much you’d gone out of your way to stop the Hyena, imp and the demon in the machine.” “Machine?” Rose asked. “I don’t think there were any machines in there. The factory was stripped bare.” “That’s not the kind of machine I’m talking about. I’m talking about reality.”
Ilovethis
an explicitly new, modernized, mechanized conception of the literal Oldest Thing In the Book...well in that book at least.
“I haven’t been sleeping, and I’m prone to go off on tangents when I’m on my own. The sisters are attacking in shifts, and the problem with my setup is that things are spread out. I won’t share details, I hope you understand why.”
Ah, so maybe not backup, per se, what with all that stuff that's kind of Rose's fault and will certainly have long lasting and probably not great consequences.
“You asked us to come here for more than a second apology and some company,” Rose said. “You want help.”
And you, Rose, should give help. You, who summoned the Arranger of Bad Shit who arranged all this bad shit! I think that if Rose hadn't pulled that Corvidae stunt, Blake probably would've actually lost the contest. She was right to do so (if not Right), but she should absolutely take responsibility for the collateral damage she caused in the process, now that the contest is over.
“I’ll trade a favor for a favor,” I said. “I’m listening.”
I mean sure, or just exploit the situation that's totally your fault to get something else. But if it's to fight the abstract demon I don't know if I can blame them. Starlight's as good as any other, after all. Except for christmas lights apparently. Those are a no-go
“Permission. I want freedom from the rules of the contest, to practice as I need to practice, to deal with the demon in the factory, and maybe the imp if the opportunity arises.”
Huh. Yeah, that's actually a really good idea, if she's authorized, which she's probably not.
Maggie was the one who spoke, “You’re Conquest’s champions, you’re his hands. In his absence, I’m thinking you could collectively be his voice. Blake would be acting outside the bounds of the contest, but this would give it tacit weight.”
As much as I want Maggie to be right about everything here just because she's that knowledgeable and savvy...she's totally, totally padraic.
“Earlier, we were talking about websites and cameras,” Ty said, with the next available moment of quiet. “Seems like you’d be the person to ask for clarification.”
Ha! Yes! It is a theme!
I'm not crazy
I'M NOT CRAZY!
-is what not crazy people say
“I’m not looking for a fast power grab.” “This is niche, unperfected, pretty out there by practitioner standards.” “It’s like you’re speaking my language,” Ty said. “You really are speaking his language,” Alexis said. “I can almost guarantee that I’d bore you if you let me get going,” the Astrologer said. “Bet you wouldn’t,” Ty said.
I'd say things about this quote that I just pulled here, but Ty's already saying all my things. I just relate to him so friggin much, it's really cool that there's someone like that in this book, because it doesn't always happen to this degree.
Diana smiled. “You don’t know what you’re doing, giving me a chance to talk about this stuff.” “Give me your worst geek-out,” Ty said. “And I wouldn’t mind your email, so I don’t forget.”
I want Ty to be one of these experimental, cutting edge, jack-of-all-trades kind of practitioner, and I really hope we get to see some of that in the course of this story.
Hell, I hope he's alive to be the protagonist of Pact 2
It was, in the end, not quite as boring as she’d said it would be, though it was pretty bad. All the same, Ty hung on every word. While I was thinking about implements, I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of implement a guy got when his defining trait was an inability to commit to a path.
Hahahahhahahah....ha...heh....he, oh.
Is it time for me to break down my implement for everyone?
I feel like it's time for me to break down my implement for everyone, especially since this comes at the end of a section break.
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JayManiac 09-Aug-19 07:32 PM
The Mechanical Pencil Declarative: The pencil emphasizes communication, knowledge and creativity. It is used to fabricate, to represent through language, symbols, or representations. A practitioner with this implement might have an endless flow of ideas, an abstract, fluid, versatile way of thinking, decent-to-strong hand-eye coordination, and is likely a spatial/visual thinker when it comes to the arrangement of concepts. The choice of a pencil over a pen may indicate a lack of confidence or decisiveness in phrasing, shaping, etc. since a pencil mark can be erased (though not fully). The act of writing, as well, is an inherently ego-focused pursuit. Unlike the pencil of olde, this newer variation might suggest a mentality of reinterpreting the old Practice with new— yet similar— tools. And where a pencil runs out of lead eventually, a mechanical pencil can always be reloaded, potentially suggesting— and I’m just pullin this out of my ass here— a deathly fear of ever confronting the idea that there’s a concrete limit to what they can do with their lifetime and that there are finite opportunities they can’t squander on writing youtube videos instead of getting a summer job. Or something. I dunno. (edited)
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JayManiac 09-Aug-19 07:40 PM
Authoritative: The pencil, writes. It outlines, it symbolizes, it draws on long-reinforced sources of power in order to convey its power. But it’s also a versatile instrument, used to draw and refine, to diagram and to stab people’s eyes out if you really really wanna. The mechanical pencil requires 0.7 lead and one of those eraser thingies, though not too often. It asserts its user, communicates to the world that it exists, but at a small cost.
Socio-cultural: ....
I dunno
who the fuck picks a mechanical pencil, anyhow?
Ahem
was I reading something?
Oh yeah!
The Sisters had a place that was as spacious as Diana’s place had been cramped.
Oh. Yay. These guys. HHhhhHHhhh. That was a Hhhhh of frustration this time. I love the contrast between these two.
The Sisters had no such delusions, and the architecture seemed like a pointed statement to that end. Not a homage to the past, whatever their traditions. Only present and future, here, in a church without religion, cherry wood with traces of gold, water running along gutters on either side of the hallway, almost gold as it reflected candlelight.
Specifically, the contrast between past and future. Diana has her mentor's newfangled, never-seen-before practitioner machinery, but she's living in the past. We see this powerful Astrologer surrounded by computers and math, of all things, but that 'cutting edge' machinery is a tradition to her. She doesn't want to let go of the past
the Sisters, on the other hand, are 'only present and future', but their headquarters is in a friggin wooden church. How much more archaic and appealing to the ideals of olde can you get, really?
I'm not entirely sure what the story's saying with it yet, but it's fascinating and maybe we'll get a bit of a taste in this next section
Every one of the Sisters wore a deep burgundy robe with one sleeve longer than the other, their faces largely hidden, but for their lips, which were painted red.
Le sigh
I may not like the Sisters
but I cannot help but admire their extra-ness
just a little.
I remembered what they’d said about being looked down on, before. That they were more powerful than most assumed? Seeing this, it was easier to buy.
Which makes it all the more unforgivable what they're trying to do and what they have to show for it. The Elder Sister may in fact make an effective Lord of Toronto, I'm not doubting her ability here, but I think she's in a little over her head in terms of the responsibility of taking care of a pretty fucked up city.
Like, I'm comfortable saying Isadora would be preferable
She's someone who understands consequences and the practitioner world, zero doubt. Her worldview on it is pretty black and white, but she spends a lot of time thinking about and paying attention to the universe with the intention to make things Right, which is better than the Sisters, who think it would just be so cool to be in charge of Toronto, better than Meath, who'd do it for power...and love, and then all of them would be better than Conquest, who's just...amoral.
“I can’t tell if you’re brave or stupid,” the Elder Sister said. “The two are so related you could say they’re inbred,” I said. “Desperation is a close cousin, but I wouldn’t say I’m desperate, either.”
Blake, leave the pRose to Rose, I think. Or Evan. I hope Evan's here to roast the sisters with their own torch again.
oh wait
corvidae already did that
“That you’ve declared you want to rule the city as Lord or Lady or however it works. I harbor…” I tried to think of how Diana had put it, “…no meaningful grudge. I can cooperate, I’m willing to let bygones be bygones and act toward the greater good.” “Define ‘greater good.’ Because we’ve had anonymous threats to our families. Others are settling in the city, and you’ve brought nothing but pain and chaos with your arrival in the city. To me, that kind of endemic problem suggests demonic influence.”
Plus, I don't think the Sisters are all that much better when it comes to worldviews that are black and white and leave little wiggle room for, I dunno, nuance. It's good to see the Sisters paying lip service to the idea of morality, but again I feel that they don't understand it, that they're working from a kind of limited perspective despite the power they've accumulated, easily scared by the 'big bad diabolist' because they don't really care to know otherwise.
I glanced at my friends. “You think I’m tainted?” “I think it’s inevitable, and I really don’t like considering what that means in the big picture. Even having you here, I feel like we’re hurting ourselves.”
He glanced at his friends. HHhh. Blake, buddy. Don't worry, you don't ruin the lives of everyone you meet. I mean look at...uh.....Evan! You didn't ruin his death! You made it better! You might ruin the lives of everyone you meet, but you haven't ruined their deaths yet, and that's something to be proud of!
“We’re predisposed to see patterns. One of the first things our initiates learn is how to tell the difference between a glimpse of a spirit in fire, smoke or running water, and the pattern we want to see. Even before they awaken, we want them to have that much.” “So, what, the universe’s vendetta against me is just a pattern I’m imagining?” “I wonder.”
This is the first inkling that maybe I'm wrong about the Sisters. Maybe they do know things about the practitioner world, maybe they don't let their status as practitioners inflate their egos beyond bel- okay no not that last one I think that's still true. This is a valuable sentiment, but I'm pretty sure the universe is against Blake. A lot of it's been Laird, but there have been just a few moments of "that was definitely a bit of karma right there"
“Everyone’s tainted, if you’re going to be that general,” Rose said. “Not by the demons. By Conquest.” That gave us pause. “You spent some time in his company, he’s bled out into you. You think it’s coincidence that you up and decided to form a killing squad of horrors?”
aHEM! It's called her monstourage and they just wanna help out. And stab things. And manipulate white men into fates worse than death. They wouldn't hurt a fly. Just you.
Interesting, though, the idea that Conquest himself carries a bit of radiation
It might honestly just be Rose, I mean she was chosen as Thorburn Heir, and I don't think you get that status without just a little bit of conquest.
“I’m not asking for servitude. The girl answers three questions, on top of the usual penalties, should you break the terms. No questions that would harm them or anyone they care about if they answer, and the questions are answerable at the time we ask.” “Deal,” Alexis said, “if and only if you back off the Astrologer, on top of the conditions Blake wants to name.”
I was absolutely wrong about Alexis, and now I love her even more for being willing to stand up so quickly for the woman who's sorry for shooting her.
She's just a really great person.
They're all just awesome people
except Maggie, who's still awesome....
“We know what the Astrologer has,” Rose said. “I can’t make promises, but we could see what it would take to undo the process. If you’re willing to hear out someone who’s tainted by Conquest.” The Elder Sister considered. “Let’s discuss, then.”
Yes! And look at friggin Rose go, all ready to start patching up, taking responsibility for all the shit she advertently caused
Tainted by Conquest. Note to self: Keep Rose away from the mirror.
Uh oh
I've been wondering which wrench, exactly, was going to be thrown into the relationship that we've established as going better now, and this is probably part of it. Either Conquest actually is seeping out into her, or Blake will think so and start applying all of that pattern recognition that The Sisters have been talking about
also let's talk about whether Rose knew
Because as I was rereading my liveread, I figured out that Rose absolutely definitely knew Blake was gonna die
There's this part- I can't find it right now- but Rose and Blake finish each other's sentences and Blake is all happy that they're finally getting along and then Rose just kind of looks down awkwardly like 'don't get too attached he's gonna be dead soon'
it's just so heartbreaking on reread
and then the distress that she displays when Blake announces that he's destined to die- he interprets it as a little self preservation because he's a little manipulative shit sometimes- but there's none of that, of course, if she knew. She was just genuinely distraught at the idea that Blake found out he was going to die, and that reminder.
So if I ever wonder whether- on some level- Rose really cares about Blake, that's the moment I'm turning to.
My chest was still wax, and I wasn’t the only one who was less human than when all this started. Even Rose, who had arguably been inhuman to begin with, was traveling that road.
And now they travel together, for be- no, it's almost certainly for worse.
“It’s clear how badly you want that spirit back,” I said. “Let me start off by asking for something you should be giving for free anyway. We should get rid of that demon in the factory, and to those ends, we need fire.” “A lot of fire,” Maggie said.
Aw Hell the fuck YEEAAAAHHHHH!!!
I mean i do think the sisters should be lending Blake some firepower for free
but I also think that Rose should be fixing her corvidae mess for free
so I think this is a good balance, in the end, if not the best, most altruistic way of getting there
The Shepherd took ten hours to find, even with the ability to follow connections.
In the words of the great and powerful Wardprotagonist: Fucking Why!?
doesn't he wanna
like
kill you
How did one negotiate with something that didn’t speak?
You dont'
that's why he's such a friggin prick
“You deal with memories. Echoes, permanent impressions. The creature we’re talking about, it eats memories. It eats everything about a person, including the connections. So if you had someone die, driving you to-” He was shaking his head.
I think you just get stonewalled by this guy who has a grudge against you for like 12 different reasons already, Blake
“Conquest wanted to stop it, I want to stop it. Are you telling me you want it to keep doing what it’s doing?” He didn’t move.
Maybe he does! Maybe he's just that much of a dick! Maybe we move on and do something useful?
“You’re the guy that didn’t collect me,” Evan said. “You just left me there.” The Shepherd didn’t answer. “You’re a pretty shitty person,” Evan said. “And you know what? You didn’t get me. You won’t. I’m an undead sparrow, I’m awesome, and you suck. You’ll keep sucking unless you listen to Blake, because he’s kinda awesome in his own way.”
Nvm I changed my mind this is the absolute most useful and awesome thing we could possibly be doing right now and I love it.
“I won’t come after you,” I said. “I won’t do anything direct, unless you give me reason or excuse to. But so long as I’m around, so long as you’re stonewalling me? I’m going to screw with you. I’ll take your ghosts out from under you. You’ll have competition, which is something I’m thinking Conquest was helping you with, giving you a monopoly. And if there’s a ghost you’re looking for, if there’s something you want? You’ll have to worry now. Maybe there’ll be other Evans…” He stared. “Or you can give me permission to use magic outside of the bounds of the contest, and I won’t. And there’s even the chance that I could die and be erased…”
Ah, he has to get permission from all the champions, to build a case against being forsworn for using magic
or, I'd guess, at least three
which is what he just did
The Hyena’s hilt was a weight at my side. We have a majority opinion, no use asking the Eye. “Let’s get me my implement,” I said. “And then we’ll get in touch with the Knights and talk about the attack on the factory. No holds barred.”
Hell yes. Hell to the fuckin fuck yes.
But not that
Not that Blake, choose somethin else
Hell, can a motorcycle be an implement? Probably! Just do that!
You can even pull a Laird and start wombo-combo-ing your shit, motorcycle as an Implemense
granted, that conflates work and home, which is not as bad as what Laird did but I still wouldn't feel good about it
but you know what?
i'd feel a little better about it than implement-ing the friggin Hyena
anyhow, that's the read, I think I dug into some really good stuff there
which is good, because this took me like 2 and a half hours
see you next time, when we wrap up void, hopefully by wrapping up some void!
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JayManiac 10-Aug-19 02:11 AM
Evan would be a fair and just ruler. Long (semi)Live the Phoenix King!
I'm glad you guys enjoyed, because I'm reading the next chapter!
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Elliot (Boy) 10-Aug-19 02:12 AM
Yay!
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JayManiac 10-Aug-19 02:12 AM
I haven't been able to say "when we last left off Blake was screwed" in a while, which is strange
it was our catchphrase for...the book up until a few chapters ago
So when we last left off, Blake was gonna take the dead hyena as an implement like a friggin idiot
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Elliot (Boy) 10-Aug-19 02:13 AM
Which IMO is a kind of screwed
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JayManiac 10-Aug-19 02:15 AM
Yeah, but no one's making him do it you know? It's not one of those "we'll kill you and use you as a demon machine to conquer the universe" type things, it's just: Blake! Stop it! What are you doing!?
for once, he might actually have no one to blame but himself
lol 2
Dinner simmered on the stove, the pot lid didn’t match the pot a hundred percent, and the rattling was a constant background noise. Everyone was gathered in my living room, waiting for me to speak.
"Or did you think I was too much of an idiot to know what a eugoogly is?"
on second thought I hope this isn't a eulogy
not that they were gonna be in the kind of danger where you throw funerals afterwards. Because you don't know who you lost!
I had an impulse to drive them out. It was dumb, running contrary to things I’d decided, said, and done before.
Uh, Blake? Are you alright? I mean, I get the need for a little alone time, but that's uh...I mean, as long as you acknowledge it, it's the second thought that matters.
or lack thereof, in Blake's case, usually
“So,” I said, “Alexis, Ty, maybe even Tiff, this might a moment that your entire life has been leading up to.” “All moments are moments our entire life has been leading up to,” Ty said. “I know,” I said. I had to suppress a sigh. “But I wanted to be dramatic and clever, and there aren’t many ways to do that without lying.”
Hahahahaha, I love this
I mean it's a bit unsettling that he doesn't want them here but seems to be enjoying having them here so far
“You’ve gone to a lot of galleries, you’ve done your own art. You’ve offered the critiques for good ideas and bad ones, and you’ve trained yourself to interpret.” “You need the power of bullshit interpretations?” Ty asked.
OOooOOO!! Pick me! Pick me! I can bullshit interpret all day!
“You’ve each read the basics regarding implements. Symbolic meanings and interpretations go a long way. Here, I have the Hyena’s corpse. I’m considering it for an implement. Anything you could say, positive or negative, would be a help.” “It’s metal,” Alexis said.
Lords Dammit, that was inevitable wasn't it?
wait
is it metal?
what's this thing made out of anyways?
knowing goblins, probably solidified blood and human feces
lol 1
If I had to say… I don’t think it suits you from an aesthetic perspective.” I nodded. “Thanks, that’s the kind of thing I need to hear. That’s not as minor as it sounds.”
Oh thank the demons Alexis is here to talk Blake out of this. I hope. I mean, we know how much Blake cares about aesthetic (while still keeping it definitely above the practical) especially when it comes to practitionering
Last time something like this was brought up, it was that Rose and Midge didn't quite fit together
then, if you recall my good(?) Blake,
She tried to kill you all
“I do. Goblin sects have traditions,” Maggie said. “Taking the form of a weapon started off, if I remember right, when goblin warlords dueled the toughest bastards on the battlefield, and offered a choice between servitude or death. But even bound goblins wanted a chance at shedding some blood and furthering their reputation, especially when the binding was short-term. Becoming a weapon became a way to achieve that, while the conquering goblin got a symbol of victory, something he could hold in the air to convince the defeated goblin’s followers to follow him.”
Ahahahhahaha this is some pretty awful socio-cultural implications, Blake. You may be many things: Diabolist, Motorcyclist, Amature Shaman, Professional Almost-Die-er.
But a goblin conquerer you are not
like as in a goblin who conquers things. He is technically a goblin conqueror but not a goblin conqueror you get me?
“Why the spikes on the handle?” “That’s kind of a fudge-you,” Maggie said.
Ah yes, practitioners with this kind of implement may have the quality of everything trying to screw them over
as you'll see, their tool itself, tries to screw them over.
Alexis leaned forward, looking closer at the sword. “What does it mean, then, if you’re carrying something that has a metaphorical ‘fuck you’ as part of the design?” “Could mean something bad,” I said. “Could mean I don’t give a damn what others think, I’m moving forward all the same.” “Could mean both,” Alexis said.
Yeah, it could mean both. Not giving a damn about what others think works for some people. It works for Spider Jerusalem and Han Solo and Not You, Blake. You give so many damns the friggin sphinx pays you a visit to tell you to quit it.
besides, sometimes what others think is important
Do you really wanna be carrying around "I don't care what others think", having asked people whether it was a good idea to do so!?
“What do you want it to mean?” Alexis asked.
Yeah, why is Blake so stuck on this thing in the first place? it's not like he had the greatest relationship with his dear deceased champion or anything
“I look at it, and I think of one time when I acted to better the world and I did. Undeniably, even. I think of victory, and I think I could maybe achieve more victories. But it’s not just about me,” I said.
Oh Blake
don't you see?
The representation of that victory, of that undeniable time you removed evil from the universe, is your Familiar.
Make that victory about the person you saved, not the violence you out-violenced to do it.
Ilovethis 3
If you wield the Hyena, then at some level you unleash that bad upon the world, even after having removed it
and when it comes to implements, every level matters
“Implements are supposed to be badges,” I said.
No
Not a badge, a uniform. A tool. A job. A purpose. It's not a trophy, it's a representation of what you do, physically and metaphysically.
do you want to be one of the young men who chooses a weapon only to end up regretting it later?
I looked down. “The lawyer strongly suggested I take something powerful as a familiar, something ugly, and ignore the fact that I’d have to live with its company for the rest of my life. I took Evan instead.” “Damn straight,” Evan said. “Felt right,” I said.
And I think that's the kind of choice that's paid you back sevenfold, ninefold. You were told to choose something ugly and powerful. You took something weak, but human. Human, and free. This is a weapon of blood, not breath. It's the weapon of something that couldn't even yield to you in words, something that was once human-like, but fell back to four fucked up legs. You. Don't. Want. This.
“I think the lawyer was wrong about my choice of familiar. I’ve walked a fine line, getting further away from being me, and having a good companion, having you guys, it’s a way to hold on to myself. Connections. But I’m not so sure she’s wrong about my need to grab power sooner than later.”
I think Blake should get an implement, but I don't know why he's stuck on this one. I wasn't kidding about a motorcycle, and I'm sure he could find something to express himself through that emphasizes the healing, the good, the salvation, the escape...instead of just the victory.
“Do you want to compromise?” Alexis asked. “Yes,” Rose said, before I could answer.
Good Lords of Gimel Rose you scared me there for a second but you're absolutely right and I'm glad to have you aboard. Compromise, but don't become too compromised, Blake.
okay, actually
I misread that, and I'm not happy to have you in this argument anymore Rose
you're biased. You think he's gonna die and this decision isn't going to affect him for the rest of his life. Shush.
“What I was saying before, about the familiar and the meaning of the decision? It applies here. Choosing an implement means deciding the one tool you’ll define yourself by for the rest of your life. That adage, ‘if all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail?’ I think that holds true with implements. This is a kind of commitment to a path in life, so maybe that’s what feels wrong. I’m committing to something… less than pleasant.”
Yes, friggin finally. Prove that you can be the diabolist that binds the bad for the sake of healing, not the one that commits themself to a life of violence for the sake of victory.
“Yeah,” Ty replied. “I’m not sure if I like the implications. A sword’s a phallic symbol, right? The equivalent of great gleaming steel penis. The bigger the sword, the more they think you’re overcompensating. And a broken sword? I’ll be blunt. You shouldn’t define yourself like that.” Ouch.
This is exactly the line of thinking in that comment DiP pulled out, and thank you Ty for saying it. I think this, if anything, is gonna be what convinces Blake not to take this.
“It would be a lot easier if this was the answer,” I said. “But?” “But it’s feeling less like that’s the case,” I said.
sharkhi
“Can I butt in?” Rose asked.
No
shush
“Books on shamans talk about the value of trophies
SHSHHSHSHHHHHHH
(edited)
Powerful shamans wear the furs of defeated enemies, to retain a share of that enemy’s power. You can go pretty dark-side with that, wearing finger bones or dismembered body parts, on top of everything else, but you could also find some use in a trophy like the Hyena’s blade.”
Wow what an awful, awful, awful idea. Power? Dark-side? Use?
Do not reduce your existence to its use value Blake
Right here, you’ve got something that could be powerful. Tricky, yes, but powerful. Tap into what the Hyena could do. Strength, durability, inspiring fear…” “There’s the Conquest bit again,” Alexis commented. Rose shot Alexis a glare
Remember when we thought these two were gonna get along?
yeah me neither
The problem with Rose and I being so similar was that we thought in similar ways. I could see her level stare, as if she were seeing straight through to what I was thinking.
The reason I derive things like the Blakian and the Rosian ways of thinking, is because they're so similar that the contrasts are that much starker between them. They're constantly dancing just out of getting-along reach and it's fantastic
“The Hyena wounded spirits,” Rose said. “It left scars on them. If you tap into that, you could do the same with your workings.” I shook my head. Not selling me there.
Aaaaa
that's a really uncomfortable thought for Rose to be having
“Okay,” Rose said, “Fine. Let’s assume you don’t want to go down this route. When and where do you make your next grab for power? Do you want to establish a demesne?” “No,” I said. “No, it’s… god, I hate that idea.”
Not really the settle down type, is he?
Look, my comment about making your motorcycle your Implemense was a joke at the time maybe, but I feel like it's got some potential.
I touched my heart. “-I feel like I could panic. Like I’m making some decision and I’ll never get away from this, if I confine myself to one place.”
I feel the same way sometimes, Blake. It's kind of insane to ask someone so young to claim a demesne...but then again, asking them to pick implements and familiars is a bit much too.
“Like I’m confined?” Rose asked.
Ooooo, yeah. And we just had the beat about her and Blake thinking alike
“This isn’t smart, throwing away ideas out of hand. Getting me out of here happens in one of two ways. Either you get power, which a demesnes or a strong implement would help with…” “…Or I die,” I said.
Yeah. Wow. It's almost like Rose and Blake just collectively threatened him. But I don't know, maybe the answer is to help the other members of his circle become more powerful. I'm thinking specifically of Alexis: if she knows what she wants as her implement, why not freaking go for it!? It doesn't help Blake or Rose directly, but it probably helps him stay alive and maybe bind a few more Others he can derive power from once he does decide on an implement. I feel like that was mentioned and we're never thinking about it again, which is a complaint I've never had about a Wildbow story. I mean, I'm sure the characters have a reason, I just don't know what that reason is.
and hey maybe in thirty seconds Alexis is like "well imma go bind an implement and see how it works i'll check back later"
I shook my head. “I’ve thought about tools, something like the hatchet, but a mallet or something. I’m looking for something that… how did you put it, Maggie?”
We often forget Blake's literal job as a carpenter, and it could be a useful line of thought when it comes to implements. Sure, it can be used as a weapon, but it's primarily a tool for making, a tool of creation. I'd be all heavens of up for that.
“I’ll do without,” I decided. “I’m not making the call when I feel this ambivalent, and not wanting this as an implement doesn’t mean I can’t get some use out of it. It’s still a possible trophy, and I could get something out of it.”
Yess! Victory for not being a victory loving maniac!
which is ironic only now that i type it out loud
“Nah,” Maggie said. “I’ve dealt with goblins for a while. I’ve seen how bad they get when they’re bad. If he wanted to go for it, I’d back him up. If he wanted to go for it. But I’m not a dumb- I’m not stupid. I’m not going to force the issue. I recommend you do the same.” Rose frowned.
Yeah. You heard her. Sit back down, and stop pushing for Conqueror implements. Ain't no Wildbow Protagonists becoming Tyrants.
lol 2
“Okay,” I said, grabbing the broken blade. “That’s off the table.”
This is a fun bit of wordplay and I like it
“Everyone has something to read?” I asked. “You guys know what your jobs are in the next, uh, sixteen hours?”
He's gonna fight nonexistence itself in sixteen hours
this is a great idea
“Let’s eat, then,” I said. “Sleep, then break away, do what you need to do. We’re all in top condition tomorrow, or we don’t do this. Above all, we do this smart.” “With a lot of light and fire,” Ty said.
Hell yeah! Light em up, Phoenix King! And also yay for..being smart, I guess.
Wow, fighting the battle on Blake's terms is a welcome change of pace.
I'm gonna take a quick break now that it's the end of a section.
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JayManiac 10-Aug-19 03:26 AM
I had to wonder if the first hunters felt this kind of trepidation. How often did a person experience this quiet kind of terror?
Oh, what an opener to this section
The hunter knew where the wild beast rested, though he would be flying blind when he crossed the threshold and entered the lion’s den. The hunter knew that he was outclassed in strength, in toughness, and in size. All the hunter had were the piecemeal tools they’d been able to put together.
And he extends this metaphor a few more paragraphs, serving as a really great way to open things up and establish the overwhelming-ness of the situation. "Flying blind" is such a great word choice, considering what this thing is, what it does, and the Birdblake motifs in the book
Floor plans loosely sketched out, displayed on Ty’s laptop. We’d checked the compass points and the point and time of sunrise and sunset, to judge when we’d have the most light filtering through the windows.
I love this as a recursion of the beats we got last chapter. The stars and the sun are celestial beings and with the kind of technology we have to day, easily trackable. I love that it's Ty who's doing this, as just a little reminder of those ideas.
The other Others were broken and slain.
R.I.P. The Monstourage ~ with the way Rose is looking, it's probably for the best
One halogen light for each ground floor window. The sun would be pouring in through several windows and the hole in the roof.
They're going all out: smart strategy, maximizing light, going in prepared, having escape plans. It's such a stark contrast to the last time Blake faced this thing, just a week ago.
I frowned, “That’ll have to do. I wish there were more definite points in the midst of all this.” “Nothing’s definite in life,” Nick said, behind me.
This is fun because we had a beat of Rose saying this just an arc or two ago, and Blake coming back with this response, and also because it just highlights the utter realism of the magic system.
“If it was easy to puzzle them out, humans would have worked it all out a long time ago. But no, you wind up with stuff like this.”
And working within my interpretations, it's saying that we haven't quite worked ourselves out in any definitive sense, and it's good to remember that sometimes.
“Maybe that’s a good thing,” Maggie said. “Maybe you should reconsider.” “But what happens then?” I asked. “How many years or decades is it before someone else makes a genuine attempt at stopping this thing? Everything I’ve read on demons suggests they’re a rot that eats at reality. Things become worse. A bite here and there, a chunk elsewhere, a major loss somewhere else entirely.”
See!? This is the kind of thing I've been arguing for! If he doesn't do it, this world is chalk full of people that...won't do it either. They let problems fester for centuries without doing anything about it until they have some canon fodder they expect to die and can toss at it. Instead of being dealt with, they only fester. And for being the one to step up here, Blake is a hero, whether he likes it or not.
“I like you, Thorburn,” she said. “Not like-like, though I wouldn’t mind, if you didn’t-“ She paused long enough to leave me thoroughly startled, but continued on, casual, like she was talking about the weather, “But I think you’re interesting, at the very least. The world might even be a better place with you in it, and there isn’t enough of that these days.”
Part of me hopes this is actually Maggie, so that the Blaggie ship could get its toes in the water (ships have toes, right?). I'm not a huge shipper there, but it's kinda cute. However, I think this might be Padraic, saying he wouldn't mind, if Blake didn't like girls. Though it could be a socially conscious Maggie noticing that he likes Alexis...I dunno. Dangit Elliot you've got me all paranoid now!
“So why is it your job? Why are you going in there alone?” “Isn’t it my job because I’m the only person stupid enough to do it?” I asked.
Brave, Blake. Not desperate...pretty stupid. But Brave.
“I appreciate the company,” I said. She nodded. “This isn’t my thing. Being on the sidelines, being the side character.”
But if this is Maggie, that's such a great line. She literally wants to get back to being the main character again
(edited)
I mean I bet in Pact you can tell who's the main character
One thing at a time, starting with the girl next to me. “Maggie?” I asked. “What’s up? I didn’t weird you out before, did I?” “No,” I said, “Just… are you okay?”
YES
I love that this is how the resolution of Blake's concerns start
Because it's with care and communication and concern, not paranoia and hatred, and that just warms my heart to see, whatever Maggie's deal ends up being
She shrugged. “Thanks for worrying about me. But you should focus on this right now.” “Should I?” I asked, making it a pointed question. “You’ve got help here that you might not have if you wait a few days. The Sisters, the Knights, you can’t back out now, or this won’t work.”
Yeah, I'm kinda with Maggie on this one a bit blake. If you're gonna do it, do it now
“You were among the first people that were decent to me when all this started.” “I was.” “And you came here to back me up, you made a difference.” “I did,” she said. “I’m allowed to show concern for you,” I said. “Even if there’s something going on that I don’t fully understand.”
AWW MY HEART!!!
I love Blake so much
He may not like people very much, but he cares
She gave me a look, and there was a bit of sadness in her eyes. “What?” I asked. “I really want to give you a kiss on the cheek,” she said. “But I can’t, can I?” I shook my head. “Give him heck,” she said.
Ilovethis
It's a bit bittersweet, since she doesn't actually get around to letting him help
but it's also touching
I could feel the ghosts within. The Shepherd was volunteering aid?
Woah! That's a damn quick turnaround on the whole "fuck Blake" angle he seemed to have going. I mean I guess we'll never know the inner workings of the Shepherd's mind, since he never talks, but this is a step towards maybe he's not the worst in my book
“You guys have one job. Approach from an angle where the sun hits the windows. See if the windows have paint on them. If they do, it might be part of the binding, and we can’t break that. Find open windows. Toss in the gas cans, toss in the rubbing alcohol, toss in the kerosene. If you can reach, dump it in, but don’t put your hands inside the building”
This feels really good, the plan, the working together, the resources, the support from everyone
we're gearing up to something absolutely awful aren't we
“Rose?” “I keep track of the time. I’ve got notes in front of me. Whatever happens, when the time runs out, we burn the building.” I nodded.
Oh. Oh. No escape routes then, this is an all-or-nothing kind of thing
Would burning the building even work? I guess it's their last ditch effort
I took a bit of a breath. “But what we’re really hoping, is that it’s one lifeform, and if anything’s lurking downstairs, we can cut off everything above from what’s below, with a strong blaze in the right place.”
Hell yes! That's a great plan that nothing's gonna go to, but it's alright let's do this
The silence yawned, and for a moment, I felt utterly alone. But Evan settled on my shoulder.
spoop Ilovethis
“Thanks for letting me come.” “Didn’t want to go in alone,” I admitted. “We have company,” Evan said. I looked. Four dolls.
Okay Sisters, Shepherd. You've won points in my book, for sure.
“I’m not sure they count.” “They count if you let them count,” Evan said, in a tone that suggested he thought he was being wise. “I’ll try,” I said.
I'm picturing a kid version of the uncle iroh voice right now no matter who tries to tell me otherwise
“Now!” I hollered the word. I was afraid to stop, because I wasn’t sure I’d be able to start again. The halogen lights flickered on.
This is exhilarating to read, I love it I love it I love it, I'm just so pumped.
“Ghosts, draw circles in the floor with fire!” I shouted. Burning footprints drew circles in the darkness. Places where I was safe.
And he's such a badass. A dorky, terrified badass. I mean, look at him! He's been in action like two seconds and he's already
...on fire
Looking where I was going was something of an art form. The lights were brilliant, threatening to blind, and looking at darkness threatened to let the demon leap into my eyes.
And the scene is built with the rules again, but it's so different with all these new factors
Windows here and there shattered. Thumps marked the arrival of the bright orange gas jugs. I saw fluid spilling out. In two spots, people were pouring gas through the window. I watched to make sure there was no danger. Zero movement.
But the fact that he hasn't seen or heard a peep from this thing is...unsettling. Like the quiet, musicless moment before a jumpscare
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Fursuit Lightsaber 10-Aug-19 04:02 AM
sharkhi spoop
I fell off following your livereads Jay. I'm glad to have a chance to be back on them
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JayManiac 10-Aug-19 04:02 AM
sharkhi sharkhi sharkhi
I'm glad too!!
“Hey,” I said. “Girl, I don’t know your name, but-” The ghost stopped in her tracks. “Right over there, light a fire. Only over there.” She ran, that full-blast panicked run, stumbled, and landed belly-first on the rubble. It ignited, and I squinted against the force of the flame.
I don't know who this ghost girl is but that was god damn adorable. I know she burned to death and that's kind of unsettling but look at how cute that was.
Squinting, I almost missed it.
😈
here we go
The demon, fleeing from the safety of the shadows that the rubble created. Slithering out in every direction, like a carpet seeking to cover every available expanse that the light didn’t already claim. I saw bits of it creep into areas where the light touched, and I saw those same parts fray and decay, crumbling away. Glimpses of limbs and other things, all a mucus-covered black, scrabbling for a grip on the hard surface.
I forgot how much I hate//love reading about this thing. IT'S JUST SO COOL
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Fursuit Lightsaber 10-Aug-19 04:05 AM
This section, much like the first time with Ur is spoop as fuck
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JayManiac 10-Aug-19 04:06 AM
Yeah! Every Other has just enough Human in it to be heebiejeebieinducing
I drew a loose circle with splashes of gasoline on the floor, then leaped from the long triangle of light to the burning circle. I nearly lost my balance and stumbled straight through. I heard flapping wings at the same moment I managed to right myself. I couldn’t find the words to thank Evan.
Evan is clutch! Hhhh I'm getting goosebumps and a maniacal smile reading about this it's a really good action scene
Sparks made contact with gasoline. A fire erupted, and before I could even find my footing, the fire found the nearest gas can. The demon immolated itself, vast amounts of flesh tearing away from the wall as it burned.
Wait what!? Hot diggity damn, Blake, that doesn't seem to make sense
I turned to the window. Escape only feet away. But I could see the arms and tendrils reaching out from the dark spaces between the glowing rectangles where sun shone through glass. They lurked in the cracks in the glass, where the light refracted away. A spiderweb ready to catch me. He’d slithered around.
It's insidious, again. Just, so clever and evil and horrifying
Another gas can exploded, closer, and rubble fell alongside great swathes of flaming demon flesh.
What's its friggin game!? Have they misunderstood what it was about all along?
“Fly for the opening in the roof,” I said. “But-” “The rules, Evan! If something happens, you’re supposed to go!” I grabbed him and threw him.
What!? But Blake, if you die, he's not that much better off!
Maybe it's in your best interests to stick around each other?
I saw the tendrils snap out, arms reaching, burning as sunlight touched them. I saw just how dangerous the escape route was.
Has Blake's priority switched to escape now? Already?
I didn’t make it halfway to the door before I stopped in my tracks. Smoke, in its way, held darkness. He was in the smoke, roiling, twisting, thriving.
It's like when you notice that that black stuff all over your desk is moving and then you see one individual ant and then you see that it's just a blanket of crawling, writhing ants
I could hold out. Wait for help. Couldn’t I? The demon, Ur, was asking the same question, it seemed. The demon had an answer. It bit.
AAAAAAAUUGHH
It tore not through me, but through the ribbons and cords that extended between me and the individuals just outside the buildings. I saw what was happening, and felt only stark horror at the realization of just what it meant. The back window. Through the spiderweb. With the flare gun, I could break the web. I ran for it, giving it my all. I didn’t make it. ■
WAIT WHAT THE FUCK!?
Did Blake just die!?
“Stop, Alexis!” Ty shouted. He grabbed at her arm, pulling hard. Alexis stopped dead in her tracks. “You remember what we agreed to, right?” he asked.
Wh
what
“Abandon the mission,” Rose said. “But-” she started. “Wait for the fires to die down, abandon the mission,” Rose said.
Does Rose know!? DOES ROSE REMEMBER!? I don't know if I'm supposed to read this as sinister or not!
Did Blake actually just DIE!?
The others joined them. The Knights and Tiff. Watching the smoke rise. Watching a sparrow travel a confused path through the sky. Rose settled a hand on Alexis’ shoulder. “We can’t do anything more here.” Last Chapter Next Chapter
What the actual fuck. Is Evan still...Evan? He's still a sparrow, but if blake dies he moves on? But maybe since the connection was cut the rules change?
I don't know
did blake just die?
uh...
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Fursuit Lightsaber 10-Aug-19 04:17 AM
ohno
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Funky 10-Aug-19 04:17 AM
Who?
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JayManiac 10-Aug-19 04:18 AM
I'm checking the list of things that are funny
lol 5
Okay, that wasn't on it, you're under arrest
lol 5
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Fursuit Lightsaber 10-Aug-19 04:18 AM
Yeah Jay, I encourage you to think about the effect of Ur, and consider how that will affect what's happening outside here
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JayManiac 10-Aug-19 04:19 AM
Effect #1:
I am sad
agree 2
Effect #therestofthem:
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Wildbow 10-Aug-19 04:20 AM
Did you catch that last line?
lol 4
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JayManiac 10-Aug-19 04:20 AM
OH FUCK
AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH
It took me more than a second to get it
I was like "what? Physical contact? Blake's problem wit- OH YEAH SHE'S PHYSICAL IN THE FIRST PLACE"
That's so...creepy somehow
like it doesn't fit
It's like a horrible monster who's been limited up until now, has been released upon the world.
Which is not how I thought I felt about Rose until right this moment
ohno 1
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Fursuit Lightsaber 10-Aug-19 04:24 AM
I am SO GLAD I came back to catching your livereads for this chapter Jay
It's a fucken
It's a fucken chapter and a half
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Ishamoridin 10-Aug-19 04:25 AM
Used to be two chapters, but Ur got loose (edited)
ohno 2
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JayManiac 10-Aug-19 04:25 AM
ahhhhhhhhhh
im still kinda reeling
I was so in the scene
it's like when you have a hot dog, and you associate the feelings of your finger with the hot dog
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Ishamoridin 10-Aug-19 04:26 AM
Was it you I told to pay attention to Blake's phone Jay?
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JayManiac 10-Aug-19 04:26 AM
AND THEN AN ABSTRACT DEMON DEVOURS THE HOT DOG
lol 1
uh no I don't think so
because I Didn't Do That
I know DiP did
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Ishamoridin 10-Aug-19 04:27 AM
Yeah he had a phone at the start of story, then suddenly he's never had a phone and isn't even the kind of person to have one
Best bet is that he used it as a torch in the first encounter with Ur
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JayManiac 10-Aug-19 04:27 AM
We had a blake at the start of story 😭
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Ishamoridin 10-Aug-19 04:28 AM
He'll always live on in your heart
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JayManiac 10-Aug-19 04:29 AM
BUT NOT HIS CLOSEST FRIENDS' MEMORIES
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Fursuit Lightsaber 10-Aug-19 04:29 AM
I suggest looking at the DiP channel around about this time, following Elliot's read
It's a brutal damn chapter
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Ishamoridin 10-Aug-19 04:30 AM
Could be tricky finding that without being spoiled on stuff
agree 1
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JayManiac 10-Aug-19 04:30 AM
Yeah, as much as I'd love to, I'm gonna try to catch up with DiP before I enter the channel for the first time
agree 1
But man, consequences. Fallout. If I'm remembering right, Rose gets Blake's connections, so I'm guessing the Thorburn Cabal is still a potentially functional unit. Rose takes things in a wildly different, probably more evil way. Evan might even be her familiar now? I think that's likely, especially since he seems to still be alive. I wonder what they think the story of how they met is?
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Ishamoridin 10-Aug-19 04:31 AM
You're only two arcs behind now, you're getting there
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JayManiac 10-Aug-19 04:32 AM
Soon
Soon...
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JayManiac 12-Aug-19 09:39 PM
So I'd like to think I've mostly recovered from the hullabaloo that was our friggin protagonist dying
that's a lie I haven't recovered at all I'm still heartbroken
But you know what?
it's fine
everything's fine
fine
We're just gonna roll right on into 7.x and pretend that we haven't been just repeatedly stabbed in the emotions
When we last left off...
Blake was nonexistant
He wasn't screwed
but that's just because he wasn't
like, at all.
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spinagon 12-Aug-19 09:41 PM
sharkhi
👋 1
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JayManiac 12-Aug-19 09:43 PM
Demons of the First Choir are the counterpoint to the forces that brought the universe into being.
So is this Histories...Ur? It'd make a lot of sense to end off an arc called "void" with the history of void.
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spinagon 12-Aug-19 09:45 PM
I wouldn't count on Blake being less screwed just because he doesn't exist
stare 1
Wait, what is this Blake person? Is it someone we knew?
disdain 1
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JayManiac 12-Aug-19 09:46 PM
There is no telling the damage they have done, but Bartholemew Peck’s Abyssian suggests a dark possibility, that the universe as we know it might be the leftovers of something far vaster. That the materials and elements that gathered to form stars and planetoids are merely the crumbs of a feast. If this were true, it would be the demons of the First Choir that did the feasting.
This, this is fucking horrifying in the best way. I also feel like this is more of a Pages than a History, just from what I can glean from this narration. I suppose they've overlapped before (our very first gathered pages was Rose Sr.'s History) but this really feels Page-y. There's references to other Practitioner-written books, and it would seem to be in the vein of an essay or something.
This passage in particular reminds me of a John Dies At The End quote, lemme go find it
Here it is. I suppose it's not too strange that the idea of dark matter pops up so often around void-beings who can eat something away from time and memory.
Though it’s scarcely more than speculative fiction, it illustrates the nature of the First Choir for the seventh of our nine chapters here.
See? It is a chapter of a book, so why is it called Histories instead of Pages?
My only jguess is that perhaps we're only gonna stay in this particular chapter for a little bit, before moving into POV of either Ur, the Knights, the one who first bound it in the factory, or something to that effect.
The vectors by which they act take all forms that we know to destroy things – tooth, claw, bludgeon, coil, frost, and even forces such as lightning and flame, which might well seem ironic for the Choir of Darkness.
I know I'm pulling every single paragraph here but it's all so interesting, like in this one we get a reason why Blake could even perceive Ur as having a form other than pure darkness.
(edited)
Above all, you will read about the consequences. The aforementioned venom forces the victim to destroy all relationships to others by unforgivable means if he does not wish them to be inflicted with the secondary effect after he is entirely removed from the world, this effect being a pining so intense that they will never move of their own volition again, only staring into the distance. Shabriri’s blindness and deafness ultimately leaves one so unable to see or hear that they will perceive absolutely everything that doesn’t exist in that space and time, as their eyes and ears are opened ever wider to true void.
I both love and hate to bring up homestuck again, but the idea of eyes opening wider to true void is very in line with the classpect system (wherein one can be a hero of void, and thus command and understand and know by void's power). This also creates a bit of tension for Blake's circle, seeing that the void's effects aren't nessecarily limited to the consumed. I mean, we haven't noticed anything awful happening to the Knights, but perhaps it's just a matter of time. And with these things, who knows what we would be able to perceive of the problem anyways?
The focus of this text remains the identification of that fine line that separates demons from those Others which are foul but not true fiends. In this, I must stress key points.
Fascinating, especially because the book has kind of led us to believe that categorizations such as this aren't so very black and white (if you'll pardon the pun). Even the fact that there is such variation between the methods of the first choir leads me to believe that there will always be fringe cases, things that defy this easy categorization. Because society may draw its boxes, but they are never ever ever drawn perfectly around a concept. Always there will be a cultural difference, a distinction of thought, a reframing that tips the line of what makes a demon and what makes a fiend. I imagine Corvidae himself feels the movements and fluxuations of that line.
Unless otherwise noted (as in the Lonely Man’s subsection), that which is destroyed can be replaced, but it cannot be retrieved.
I can't decide if this kills any hope we might have of Blake coming back, since things cannot be retrieved, or if it gives us a little smidgen of hope (I doubt we actually get to read the Lonely Man's subsection, but the mere fact that there are otherwise noted cases means there's gotta be at least a shot). Perhaps someone who has learned to persist without many connections could escape, as what tethers them to the world is not what the demon ate.
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spinagon 12-Aug-19 10:06 PM
we haven't noticed anything awful happening to the Knights
Well, there was that one girlfriend
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JayManiac 12-Aug-19 10:06 PM
Yeah, but I don't think any of the party are so interwoven with Blake that they would just fall through the cracks at his non existence
The only viable one for that would be Rose, who seems to be doing more than fine at the moment, so I'm gonna tentatively call that unlikely
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spinagon 12-Aug-19 10:08 PM
I can think of one flighty boi
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JayManiac 12-Aug-19 10:08 PM
Right, that's the thing though
I'm surprised that Evan seems to be...around at all?
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spinagon 12-Aug-19 10:08 PM
He was around even before meeting Blake
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JayManiac 12-Aug-19 10:09 PM
But he also promised to move on, should Blake die
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spinagon 12-Aug-19 10:09 PM
But he doesn't remember that now
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JayManiac 12-Aug-19 10:09 PM
So is Evan Forsworn, then? A ghost again? He seems to still be a bird, so perhaps he's become Rose's Familiar?
Strange, but worth thinking about
I'm not sure how thorough an effect the "slide Rose into all of Blake's connections" thing was
A ‘statue’ left in the place of a destroyed man (See Bazuili, below) is not created by the demon, nor by transmutation, but other forces filling the resulting vacuum. In this case, it is the nearest available force of substance -the ground- seeking to repair the damage, at reality’s behest.
This is so freaking cool, how different effects can be derived, not from the void itself, but from reality warping around it. It makes it so versatile while not technically betraying their nature as absolute destroyers. In Homestuck, there is a void player who can 'rob the nonexistance from an item' and thus conjure that item in the world, which- while not the same thing by any means- is what this reminds me of.
A chaotic and tumultuous morass of connections remain after Coronzon destroys a group of people by addressing them thrice, but again, these connections should be said to be the fallout. Remove a stone from a wall, and the stones around it will fall to a new configuration. Those stones may face undue stresses, and the gaps will exist between them, but the gap nonetheless exists. We’re predisposed to finding patterns in chaos. That is all this is.
Fascinating, again, since the book is about to move to what I expect is probably the fallout, the "morass of connections" left by the abstract demon. We'll get to see all the stones in their new positions and maybe we're able to find a pattern in it. Maybe not.
When the First Choir takes away from existence, nothing is created to replace it. At best, we find a pattern in the chaos that is left behind. – Excerpt from ‘Classifying Others: Fiends and Darker Beings’, by R.D.T.
First of all: That's deep, yo. Hits home particularly right now.
Second of all: HOLY SHIT IT'S ROSALYN
But she's been the "classifying Others is dangerous" woman this whole book? How exactly does this slide in with that?
Isadora – 2:41 PM
Oh
Oh
So this is what we're doing. It's a post behemoth one, guys! Let's see the aftermath.
Smoke billowed.
Ash fell from the sky.
He was trying so hard. She’d gutted him to buy him time. Inversely, she’d given him karma to support him, and it had led him here. Would it take away his remaining time?
Oh!? ISADORA WAS SNAPE THE WHOLE TIME!!!!
Lords, this chapter is gonna make me take back every awful thing I ever said about her isn't it. I'm already feeling it, already growing to like her, though I already loved her as a character. I don't even know if this is something I considered, when it happened. I don't know why I didn't think something along the lines of "why didn't she finish the job?"
needless to say, I'm feeling a little bit better about Paige's apprenticeship.
Riddles. She had yet to fully grasp the way the world worked.
Because it's this. This was what I never understood about Isadora. I thought she was one of those people who think they have the world all worked out, but of course not. Of course not. This is making me love her a lot more, just because it slots so well with who she's always been, but adds this layer of conflict and nuance in how she sees herself, that we didn't pick up on before.
This is one of those twists that I'll keep in mind when I reread Pact
She wanted to learn, to understand. As a result, she existed wholly for the riddle. Puzzling out reality as reality was understood, framing it, supporting it. When she asked someone a question, she challenged them to either justify their relationship to this fathomed reality, or to die. Everything in the context of the asked and the answered.
It's almost like she's a college professor because she seeks to learn from her students how the world works, not because she wants to indoctrinate them into the Right (although I think it's a little bit of both). Some of my favorite people in the world espouse this philosophy, and they've been some of my most effective teachers.
This adds a whole new layer to me wanting to be in Isadora's class. I still want to, but for different (similar) reasons.
The Fool in the Tarot deck frequently depicted a boy with a dog at his heels, staring at the sky while he walked blithely off a cliff, burdened only by a bundle on a stick. The diabolist had admitted a relationship to the card.
No Thorburn would be caught dead with a dog familiar. The Thorburns are cat/bird people.
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spinagon 12-Aug-19 10:30 PM
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JayManiac 12-Aug-19 10:30 PM
I did go look this card up, when it was first mentioned, and I was struck by how it aligned with blake in some places. Even more so now, with the added detail of how exactly he walked off the cliff
I think we all kind of knew that he was the type to do so, but now it rings all the more heart-wrenchingly true.
No single detail was quite right, but much as something might appear similar if one were to unfocus their vision… The young diabolist walked with the sparrow at his shoulder, eyes on the windows without looking through the windows, walking forward as if he were afraid to stop. His burden here was the gas containers. No, he was burdened not just by the gas containers, but by some notion of responsibility.
Ilovethis
Because in the end, that's what archetypes are in storytelling
they guide the story, they reflect the story, they symbolize the story
they do not write it detail for detail, even in the most archetypical of tales
And here's Blake. He feels human, nuanced, with a history and a life and desire, but he has the hints of this archetype, this everlasting trope, within him. I think that in the world of Pact, this identity is subject to change. You may not line up with the same archetype all your life, but it would be foolish to say that we never build our notions of self upon the sum of all stories society tells us.
She knew he sought to do good and to vanquish evil, and she could surmise that both good acts and the existence of evil had touched him deeply.
Isadora's so much more perceptive and nuanced than I ever gave her credit for. I think we knew she was perceptive, that she looked long and hard at the world around her, but she's also someone who doesn't conflate good and evil with right and wrong. I think she values what Blake has brought to bear in their arguments, and she really did try to help, through pain.
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JayManiac 12-Aug-19 10:46 PM
The Fool was wrought with air – the clouds he gazed at, the void beyond the cliff, the feather in his cap, even the dog could often be found mid-step, bounding, just above the ground. He was a Fool wrought with a different element. The familiar didn’t quite fit for the departure from the air, but the traditional dog didn’t conjure ideas of air right off the bat either.
Doubly fascinating, considering
This is actually an interesting point, seeing as Fell compared Blake to fire, Isadora thinks air might not fit him, but...neither of them have to be 'right'. It's just interesting to see their various thoughts and interpretations on the matter.
One of my favorite things Wildbow does sometimes, is make characters that just "barely" don't align with their own metaphors and comparisons. It hammers in that metaphor exists as derived from the world, not prescribed to it. The example I'm thinking of rn is in twig when Gordon compares himself to fire, and Sy to water, Mary to metal, and Jamie to stone. He admits that Helen to Air is a bit of a stretch, just as any five man band or five element ensemble is going to be an imperfect comparison unless they were written to fill those roles.
Others wished people luck, she gave it to him, transferring it from reserves she’d saved for special events.
This is utterly heartbreaking, to see this character we thought had it out for Blake really was trying to help him, even now giving her support in the most tangible way she can, and it's not enough. We finally see her do the thing we always wanted: help Blake. And when she does, when we can see her doing it, she fails. He fails. It's not enough.
It was as though the cables had been cut. She dropped to the ground hard, wings still partially extended at her sides, then folded one front leg over the other, trying to find some poise. Poise was important in moments like this. The ones outside were scrambling, running.
And we see her struggling, physically struggling. Isadora has always been put-together. Everything she states as wanting to happen, happens. Things go as she says they will, and it's sometimes hard to empathize with a character like that. Here, it's all the more heart wrenching
Getting closer would be dangerous. At worst, she’d disturb the binding around the exterior of the building. She’d hurt herself much as someone like Blake might hurt himself while standing too close to open flame. At best? There was no best. There wasn’t much she could accomplish here.
I'm feeling really bad for the shit we've all been giving Isadora now.
It really didn't seem like she was doing all she could, and now it's abundantly clear that we just didn't give her enough credit
All the gasoline in the world might not make a fire great enough to bring light to the bottom of that pit. Did the young diabolist comprehend that the floor he stood on might as well have been paper thin, given the distance that the pit extended below?
And here's the confirmation of something we suspected all along. That this was no "minor devil". This is a full fledged demon of the first choir, a primordial force of anti-existence, a burrow of Nothingness loosely bound in the middle of the city, relegated to feasting on the souls that wander into its domain.
We were almost tricked, by the daylight, by the support, by the tools Blake brought to bear, by the fact that he had the best possible odds.
But really,
She felt the moment he ceased to be.
He never stood a chance, did he?
The wrongness reached through each and every one of them. It lanced through Isadora, and she did what she could to distribute it, to break it up so that it would damage every part of her a little, rather than deal a grievous wound. It didn’t wound her awareness as it did the others.
She remembers? SHE REMEMBERS!
She remembered, at least in part. One of her duties was to remember, and here she could retain the fragments she’d held on to, the ideas she’d established.
This is the first note of hope we've had all chapter and I love it. That she can believably mitigate the demon's effect on her memory is something I never saw coming, but it's just so cool. She's above this force of the anti-universe, a little.
It helped that she hadn’t maintained a close connection, that she hadn’t been on a first name basis with him, and that the impact she had made on him had already been partially erased, the scars filled, then smoothed away. The ripples that extended outward had less foundation to travel across, and were easily shored up. She no longer had his name, but she knew who he was, and she could identify him as Thorburn, as the diabolist, and put the rest of the pieces in place.
I wonder if this connection still can be said to exist, damaged but not torn, and if by pulling on that connection Blake can be brought back?
Maybe I'm just desperate for any chance that we might get him back, any indication that he's not as dead and gone as he seems
At the same time, though, what if this is the Lonely Man? Someone whose connection to another person isn't super strong, and thus can conduct only a little bit of void-ness that can be easily defended against.
I hold out hope. Maybe this isn't how Blake comes back, maybe Blake's never coming back, but I hold out hope.
She’d tried to tell him that a clean death was the best path available to him, but it seemed he wasn’t built to go down quietly. She’d called him the little warrior, and the idea fit.
It's smart that we get her perspective first, as the one who 'almost' remembers Blake. Kind of eases us into the perspectives of people who've completely lost him, and eases the writing into it. She can still meaningfully reflect on this development, where Alexis and Ty and Rose(?) might not be able to.
With the resettling of reality, Rose appeared. A damned shame, quite literally. This wasn’t clean at all, as exits went.
It's really fun that Reuben called this the cleanest possible way for Rose to slide into Blake's place, when Isadora sees it as carrying this demon's influence everywhere.
Rose, not even aware that she’d crossed over, reached out to stop Alexis, who was still running, caught up with emotion, even though that emotion no longer had a target.
I'm gonna cry, guys. She doesn't even know why she's feeling.
But also, Rose apparently doesn't remember being in the mirror at all, which is unexpected but makes a strange sort of sense. I hope we get her perspective before the end of the chapter.
The familiar was coming to pieces. A deal forgotten, it stubbornly refused to move on. There was no power to feed it but the spirits that had impregnated the ghost prior to the familiar deal. Nothing powerful, only spirits of freedom, air, yearning. These spirits would be spent in a matter of minutes, and the familiar would cease to be.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
NOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!
Evan had better not slip through the cracks he's all we have left of Blake
No I can't lose Evan too you'd better not do this to me book
The young man, Ty, who’d called Isadora beautiful, was standing stock still, caught between confusion and a desire to give strength. He was caught in a mental loop, akin to obsessive compulsive disorder, or a dream where one repeated an action over and over again, getting the same result, dozens, hundreds of times over. She could see him reaching out for a connection, finding the wrong one. Trying to think of a friend, thinking of someone who’d recently left the group instead. Not that person. Someone else. Reaching out, trying to think of the right person… and so the repetition continued.
AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH I can relate to this sentiment so hard. I know what it's like to feel this way, and pairing it with just the overwhelming sensation of loss and wanting to help is just..heartbreaking, heartbreaking.
If they needed it, Isadora would explain what she could and help them fill that void. But if they decided to fill it themselves, she wouldn’t be able to. For now… She stretched her wings out. It remains to be seen what damage is done.
There's a Blake shaped hole in the world's heart.
It makes me think of what he said the first time he went to face the abstract demon, before the contest.
His worst fear is the void: not being remembered, not leaving a single trace. He wants the world to miss him when he's gone, he doesn't want to be subject to the void.
because in a strange way, that prophesy both did and didn't come true.
Blake is gone, literally to the void that was his worst fear. None of his friends remember him, the world moves on as if he was never there. But at the same time
I wanted to make a disturbance. If the universe maintained a balance, then I wanted to leave something of an imbalance in the grand scheme of things, to be big enough that the world would hurt a bit for my passing.
I think we can say that Blake certainly made an imbalance, if Isadora's words here are any indication. The world is hurting for his passing. It might not remember him, he might be in that void, but unbeknownst to the world at large, it has been disturbed. And as awful and dreadful as that makes me feel, there's a bit of satisfaction there. He did it.
The Eye – 2:46 PM
Oh. Okay, that's a weird pull
and judging by the timestamp, it's five minutes after Isadora's interlude, meaning that Blake is likely dead by now. I wonder what the point of showing us the Eye's passages is going to be?
The crackling of flame was a mask, just barely covering an ocean of screaming heads, arms and bodies thrashing in pain. Raw-throat screaming, the kind of screaming that hurt, that happened because there was no other choice. Burning to death hurt.
Holy shit
if the point is to show us this, just to show us the Eye itself in a way that this story hasn't had the opportunity to in the past, I'm all hells of down for it.
One eye stared down and saw visions. Memories and echoes, brief stories of human struggles ending in failure.
It almost makes me wonder if the Eye is some combination of elemental force, and ghost. The concept of the Eye being in the perpetual suffering and tragedy of its disaster seems very ghostlike from what I've seen, which is if nothing else a good way to relate us to this new kind of Other.
A crunch, as something burned enough that it broke. A car crash, bones breaking. Symphony. In time, humanity as a whole would succumb to this kind of fate. It was inevitable. With every creation came a destruction. A new scientific achievement, a new weapon.
And here it feels almost reminiscent of the opening to the chapter, comparing fiends and demons. While the Eye is no devil, by R.D.T.'s standards, he's a force of destruction, obliteration, death. I can't help but draw the connection.
especially the line of "with every creation came a destruction". It's a summation of entropy, which is what the First Choir is.
Conquest would deal with Blake Thorburn. When that was done, he would signal the Eye, and the Eye would attack once more, and people would burn. A chill wind passed, something unnatural. Conquest would deal with… With what?
And I love love love that even the motherfucking Eye, the most badass weapon of destruction in Toronto, feels the Demon's influance--that of true destruction-- as unnatural. It's exactly that. Chilling.
Conquest would… …Done, he would signal the Eye, and the Eye would attack, and people would burn. The Eye shifted position, uncomfortable. The thoughts didn’t connect. Simplify. Reduce.
Uh oh. I just realized what the reduced form of that is, with all of the Blake removed from it. I guess this is what Isadora meant when she talked about the damage he's done. This particular stone is about to fall on a whole lot of people.
The Eye would attack once more, and people would burn.
Dammit, dammit, dammit. How the fuck is Toronto gonna survive without Blake Thorburn to deal with (and to be fair, cause) all of its problems?
(edited)
A gauge in the nearby traffic light shorted out. People would later blame it on the blackouts that had afflicted the city earlier. That’s how they operate. Blame. The Eye felt uncomfortable. Old memories were stirring, and it didn’t know why.
This chapter has gotten me excited for the rest of the story in like twenty different ways and this is one of them right here. Blake's absence stirs things that were once thought forgotten. His true descent into the void threw the almost-void things into stark contrast, and brought them to bear.
The main computer would give the wrong instructions to the system. A subtle change. Change enough that the Eye would hear the sounds it needed to hear.
My current theory seems pretty sound. I think that, where ghosts and the echos like the ones Blake dealt with are made of one single suffering. Wights can identify with a suffering and add it to their being, from what we've seen. But take enough of it? Harness enough of the same kind of suffering, all at once? That's how you get something like the Eye. Something that persists on death and pain and fiery demise.
Because things like that do hit the universe hard
they persist in memory, they're sites of awful, awful emotion
practically the perfect recipe for an Other.
The Astrologer – 2:47 PM
Here we go again. I wonder if we're getting Blake's death earlier and earlier in the section, and if we're eventually gonna get it at the very very start. Each section so far has started with an opening introduction to the character, before the change that is Blake's passing hits them, so we can see the effect. It's such an awesome, efficient way of doing this chapter. (plus it reminds us that we're reading this story for reasons other than Blake).
Diana shifted position, head smooshed against the pillow. Why was it so hard to sleep now that she finally had an opportunity? There was a limited truce in effect, she was safe…
Insomniacs unite! I'm so happy we're in a more human perspective again.
Her eyes began to drift shut. It hit her like a niggling worry, but swiftly spread.
Is this the moment? I almost don't believe it, it's so small and close to the start of the chapter
(edited)
When her eyes opened, she felt a kind of horror over the fact that she’d almost let herself drift off. Her labs were in danger.
Okay, yeah, that was it then. Blake's agreement to placate the Sisters is forgotten, and now Toronto enters its small, continuous war once again.
The dread is building, more and more and more.
She checked the cupboard for a mug and found it empty. Another little heart stopping moment. There should be one mug in there. She didn’t keep many. If she did, she was liable to let it slide and let dishes pile up.
And scattered throughout are these little incongruities. I love it.
Except there was one mug too many. Right. They’d been going to the factory. Oh.
The first we get of someone who knows why there's an incongruity, but isn't "I can cheat the mind erasure" Isadora. I'm so eager to see how she reacts, what she makes of the knowledge that someone was consumed, whether she connects it to the incongruity of going to sleep when the battle with the Sisters was ongoing. It might never occur to her.
A fear grew in her heart. One last mug.
I can imagine finding this, knowing this, so clearly. I started a joke with my friends when we kept getting seated at tables for six and there were only five of us, and when a waiter said we'd paid for an extra salad that no one had ordered. I started the joke that it was "Tommy", who'd been eaten by the Abstract Demon (as a part of trying to get them all to read Pact, of course). Mostly, it was all in good fun, but then I started to notice things, my mind going wild with little implausibilities. Even if I never let myself slip into belief, a part of my imagination did, and that part can put me right in Diana's shoes now.
She didn’t know who it had belonged to. She wouldn’t have given up the mug if she hadn’t liked the person. It was how she operated. She was sentimental like that, she knew.
Oh, this is all the more awful, to have tangible evidence that whoever was missing was someone she cared about, instead of pretending that it was just another member of the party.
That same uneasiness that had woken her up settled into a feeling of loss, and the only face that fit the feeling was Doug’s. Her mentor’s.
😢
With an edge of desperation to the thoughts, she started thinking about how she would protect Doug’s legacy.
Oh Shit
So not only did it not occur to her, the loss just made her resolution to continue the feud with the sisters that much more...uh..resolute, I suppose.
Behaims – 2:45 PM
Ah, see this is an interesting one, especially since it starts before the Eye and the Astrologer's chapters.
We're gonna get a little more time with them before It Happens
“Are we fighting?” Owen asked. “Maybe,” Duncan said. “It depends on who needs help and why, and if we can do what we need to do to deal with Blake.”
Here's the moment of truth: will they forget their feud? Or will it still be there, festering, boiling up with no release, until they all decide on a target to point it at? Probably the latter, since I wouldn't expect Blake's death to solve anything, least of all the Behaimburn rift.
Now things were on hold. They couldn’t stay at the house, and she didn’t want to stay with him. He suspected he knew where things were going. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. He smiled.
Is this a kenzie smile? Because it's kind of creepy if it's not. There doesn't seem to be much of a reason to smile here, unless...
Tick. Tick. . Tick. His eyes opened.
Ahh, and there it is.
At least, I think that's where it is
“Get everyone packed up. We’re going back.” “Back?” “To Jacob’s Bell. It’s done, I’m fairly certain.”
Well, that's a relief, at least. Duncan doesn't remember, does he? Unless he used his powers to skip over the moment at which his connection to Blake was cut, which would be so awesome if it actually happened.
The Sisters – 2:40 PM
The fact that the Behaims mark when the timestamps start going in reverse is just the perfect 'blink and you'll miss it' bit of meta-storytelling.
Her office overlooked the hallway, just above the altar where she could address the lesser Sisters. Candles burned around the window, making the aperture look like a gate lined by flame.
I wonder if this chapter's going to turn me around on the Sisters. I somehow doubt it, but as Isadora's chapter proved, anything's possible
(edited)
They would be eased into this. The blindfolds would come off. Later they would see a practitioner at work. Later still, they would be awoken, then the rings would be granted. Hopefully they would have the torch spirit back before then. It would be embarrassing if they didn’t.
She at least seems to be half-aware of the Sisters' place in the magical world, as was potentially shown last chapter.
Success or failure hinged on her reply. “I’m on your side, Mac,” she said. “If I disappoint you, I hurt myself, and I hurt my own employees. I’m speaking to you from the heart, and I’m going to help you, if you give me the chance. T.O. Plow will become part of the city services, and they really need better plow services after this last storm. Nobody else in Toronto is positioned to deploy in numbers like you can. You stand to make a small fortune.”
And I could still be wrong about Elder Sister's care for the city, desire to help. I think my concerns are valid, but the fact that this is the conflict of this section of the chapter says to me that things aren't as Light and Void as they seem.
“It’s very simple,” she said. “All those thoughts you’ve had but haven’t followed through on? That you’ve grown too fast, and it’s crazy to lay people off when you’re growing as fast as you are? The employees are thinking it too. The worst employees are thinking it and taking advantage of it. You’re going to look at the books and see the problems pop up almost straight away, I think. It’ll be a relief.”
But this has turned me right back around. It's just too neo-liberal and impersonal and corporate. I don't know if that's what the book is trying to do with her, and there's nuance to what she's saying, but she's a bit too much of a practitioner here.
Thorburn was dealing with the demon. It was win-win, wasn’t it? Either they didn’t have the diabolist to worry about, or the demon was dealt with.
Thinking in win/win scenarios, in values and yeses and nos.
Problem was, the concerns about taint and the general fact that she couldn’t predict him went further the other way. Unpredictability was scary when someone could tap the kind of power he could. It was easier when things were predictable. So long as things stayed predictable, she saw a fairly clear, straight road to the Lordship of the city, temporarily or long term.
Yeah, this isn't gonna turn me around on her at all, is it?
The candles across the entire great hall flickered, as if a draft with no substance had passed through. The shockwave from a distant event. She shook her head. A disconnect, a momentary lapse.
Then again, maybe getting to see her after It Happens will be...different. Some characters tend to be more introspective, more reflective after the break. I mean, Rose got significantly less reflective if you catch my meaning...
It reminded her of the nightmares she’d had for years after leaving University, the idea of something critical that had been forgotten. A major exam or assignment that her entire degree hinged on, except it was a little more profound.
But this is what it hinges on, her mindset. It's about competition, value, goals like "degree" or 'Lordship" that don't leave any room for the unpredictable factors. That don't leave room for something better or worse to come along because she's so dead-set on what she wants.
She's reduced her fear, her desire, her dream to a single thing, and of course blake isn't going to budge it. Of course consideration for people isn't.
“How many dolls do we have?” “I have no earthly idea.” “Find out and get back to me. We need to handle this business with the astrologer before we do anything else.” “Yes, Elder Sister.”
Gods Dammit
yeah, that was to be expected
The Shepherd – 2:47 PM
OOOoooOOooooo I was wondering whether we'd get him
Maybe I'll turn around, if I get to hear some words in his voice
which is hard to do otherwise
because he doesn't fucking talk
The Shepherd felt the recoil, reality reacting. He was sensitive to such things. A silenced scream. If the universe worked as it was supposed to, such a scream would be heard across the city.
Oh we're starting with It, with the Event now.
Okay, arlight
This time it was just the one. He had a vague sense of who. Two of his ghosts were nearby, even.
I like all the different ways that people try to make logical progressions of It, find those patterns, try to subvert It or get a vague sense in their respective manners. Isadora took it head on and redistribute it. The Shepherd feels a sense of presence due to his Other-y nature and feeling through ghosts which might not be affected in the same way as people. Duncan might've tried to jump ahead, so that it wouldn't affect him.
For being a Void Demon, this effect isn't nearly as black and white as it might've first appeared, and that gives me a bit of Hope.
It always made him think of Bennie, and Laurel, and Andrew. If the feeling behind a scream was what determined how loud that scream could be, his scream would be heard across the world.
This section is so short, but it's already making me empathize with him a little bit, even without all the context.
It was good that he didn’t speak. He told himself he’d look for the children until it was dark. If he’d said it aloud, it would have been a lie. Every time, he lied to himself. ■
Great Lords of Gimel
Fuck
it just gets me in that last line, recontextualizes everything I thought I knew about the Shepherd. It's so great, it's so great.
Okay I basically missed lunch so I'll be back in a bit to wrap up this chapter
...like a chicken wrap
I'm hungry.
lol 3
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 12:54 AM
I'm Back
Listened to Walking Disaster by Sum 41 during lunch, it made me think of Blake
Rose – 2:47 PM
Alright! Here we are, at the moment It Happens!
I'm gonna make an edjucated guess that this is the last perspective we're gonna get in this chapter
Unless we get Blake or Ur or something
but otherwise, this would be a good one to end on, lead us into the new phase of the story.
Rose’s heart was pounding. She felt like she was on the verge of a panic attack, and she couldn’t make sense of why.
How did I not realize I've been waiting for Rose's perspective this entire time
agree 2
Once upon a time, she’d gone on a camping trip with the school, her parents had hoped it would help her make friends. They’d hoped, too, that making friends would help her build up her social skills. Rhetoric and understanding people would only help with the inheritance.
And that is just awful, that this is how her parents framed going on camping trips, making friends. That they had it all in the context of the inheritance. All in the context of monetary, material gain. Being raised this way would be awful, and it kind of makes sense for who we know Rose to be. She's got that Blakian instinct, she's just got a lot more practice suppressing it, grinding it under her shoe in the pursuit of the goal.
When she’d returned home, she’d hopped in the shower. The hot water had felt alien, painful. Everything felt that way now.
To finally be real, physical, and for it to feel wong and alienating is such a relatable and tragic feeling. I love Rose so much. I feel like we've only seen the surface level of her, and that scares me. What will she do, with Blake's legacy?
Everyone so far (save maybe the Shepherd but also not really) has had a negative, ominous reaction to Blake's death, and I'm just waiting for Rose's other shoe to drop
It jarred with… with this. The smoke, the fire, the fact that someone had just died and she had no idea who, why, or how.
Despite everything, I really did hope to any gods powerful enough in this world, that Rose would be the one to remember everything.
It's like we've lost a core part of how we define her. Who is Rose, without Blake?
The others were similarly lost, similarly distraught. Reeling. She felt no particular connection to them. They were, what, one step removed from her?
Oh no. So she doesn't slide right into Blake's relationships with them. I don't know whether I'm relieved that nobody takes his place or whether that just stomps my heart that much further into the ground.
They are, after all, the people that are in charge of reining in Rose's...tendencies. Keeping her on the Right side of Diabolism, if possible.
If they don't feel much for each other, I'm afraid of what that might lead to in the future. I miss having a team that cared so much for each other. We only got it for one or two chapters, but while it was there it was beautiful.
Feeling a chill, Rose put her hands in her pockets for warmth, and found a note there. She read it over five times before it sank in.
Rose is clever, clever and prepared, that's for sure.
I wrote this to myself, and I was supposed to explain things, so I wouldn’t be too lost if it goes wrong. Except it’s better if we don’t know. Burn what you can. We promised we would. We have a connection to those people. I’m not positive about what’s going to happen if it goes bad. Either way, they should be yours. You can manipulate them using that, using the chaos that’s going to unfold now. That doesn’t mean you should. If nothing happens, well, there’s no need for this note, and I’ll look stupid. Ha ha. There’s nothing here for us. You know what the next step is.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
This is so great, I love it
because we're in Rose's head, but it's not our Rose, the one we've been with throughout the entire story. It's a Rose that doesn't know Blake, and that makes her a different person, fundementally.
What this does, is bring back the words of our Rose, so we can see a little hint of what she was thinking during these final moments, and it's perfect.
She's so complicated, and these beats echo what we've been doing with her in the story so far.
First of all, she prepared it in the first place, which is perfect. Blake wouldn't've written himself a note, I think.
Second: she thinks it's better if she forgets, which is just so sad because it echos the fact that she knew, that she spent the book basically trying not to get too attached to this person she genuinely started to like and care about. Now that there's the chance to forget it ever happened, though, she takes it. She thinks it's better if she takes it.
Third: she thinks about manipulation, of course, because it's what's been trained into her. But she also has that note of humanity, a recognition that that power maybe doesn't have to/shouldn't be used.
And, this might be a little bit headcanon-y, but it almost feels like a little bit of relief, that the Rose that's writing isn't the one that has to decide how to play that.
And then there's that second to last beat, written pretty much for no reason since she doesn't have to write it if nothing's gonna happen, but that she does endears me to her so much.
I’m such a bitch.
I love you, Rose. You're just...the best.
The fourth best, that is, after Blake, Evan, and Ty. But still, you're up there.
“I’m going back to Jacob’s Bell,” she said.
Yes. Yes
I'm so ready for the story to come back to Jacob's Bell. I've loved Toronto, I've loved all the different players and contests and demons and ghosts, but I think there's a lot of unresolved shit back home.
“What?” Alexis asked. “I’m going back to Jacob’s Bell. You can come, that’s fine, or you can stay.” She saw the expressions on their faces.
Ilovethis
She doesn't seem to be manipulating them, or at least she doesn't go into it with the intent to manipulate yet, and just that little Blakian resistance means so much to me.
Feathers were falling.
EV🐦
The feathers almost reminded her of something.
Oh, this is kicking my heart repetedly in the dick.
“Hey!” she screamed. “Bird!” The bird descended. She held out both hands, cupped.
YES!!!! DON'T LET HIM CEASE TO BE PLEASE DO SOMETHING ROSE
“Hey,” she said. Just like the others, it felt like it was hers, but not hers. One step removed.
Rose and Evan are Team Thorburn now and I really need them to band together again.
And if she fixes her relationship with Evan, maybe she can do so for the rest of the cabal, too
“Hey,” the bird said. “I’m not sure what’s going on.” “None of us are,” she said. “Why don’t you stick with me?” “I think I’m dying,” the bird said. “We can fix that,” she said.
YESSSSSSSSSS
I'M SO READY TO KEEP GOING WITH THESE TWO
it's gonna be a rocky- no, more like a turbulent relationship that I'm so very here for.
Ur – 3:17 PM
Oh shit. Here it is. Guess I was wrong
But of course I was gonna be wrong. Of course this chapter would end as it started, with the First Choir.
As if they were some magnetic force that had hauled him up from darkness, now absent, Ur settled back into the shadows, contracting himself. Here and there, pieces of rubble were dragged into place. Things were propped up.
I wonder if we're showing that this force of destruction isn't completely that, by having it prop things up, drag them into place. That's not reality warping to fill the void, it's just the demon putting things back together
One section of wall was cracked, and in time, the wall would break free. With more time, the binding that encircled the building would be broken.
o_0
so maybe Blake was right to try to deal with this thing before it broke free
even if it was quite impossible
With care, Ur moved a metal beam, winding around it, manifesting limbs to grasp at it, tongues to encircle it, until it had the leverage needed to lift it clear off the ground. It placed the beam so it sat diagonally against the wall, reducing the stress that would be placed on it.
Yeah, this is careful, it's deliberate and creative.
all the things I don't associate with the first choir
This has to be saying something, right?
That even our purest conceptions of void don't completely follow its rules?
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 01:36 AM
Everything in place. Everything, in time.
I love this, because it's this phase associated with order, creation, Right-ness
and then contrasted with the implication that everything will be destroyed in time
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A bird 🐦 13-Aug-19 01:37 AM
I'm curious what you think the difference between demon ranks would entail
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 01:37 AM
The obvious thing would be power, right? But the less obvious might be cohesion
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A bird 🐦 13-Aug-19 01:37 AM
But that can wait til the end
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 01:38 AM
the higher ranked demons might be more in line with the concepts they're a part of, where the lower ranked ones might deviate. With demons in particular, that might even play into how much power they have.
A tiny hand attached to a tiny form, three-quarters of the way complete, eyes shut. Two more were pressed against it, part of the same growth, the three compacted so tightly together that the shape of them distorted. All in the form of human babes, with jet black skin. One with horns, one with tufts of spiky fur, the other smooth and bald.
Oh shit.
Those are imps
The binding would break in time. Ur would bear its motes first. The hand dropped the rebar, and the metal sang as it clattered. Ur was already gone. The factory still.
HHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhh
what an end
the creation of little gremlins of decreation, only given form by the idea of destruction itself.
That's utterly horrifying
it could also be based on birth, on first
which demons were the first of their kind, and which were the child-demons of the first? It's another guess, but I don't know that I'm gonna get very far along that line of thinking
except to say that when it comes to demons and ranks, it's probably both. Or all three, in my case. I suspect each of those factors plays a part in the ranking.
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A bird 🐦 13-Aug-19 01:42 AM
Birth could tie into the "breaking the cycles of power" themes in Pact, in that they're the reverse of that
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 01:42 AM
Very true
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A bird 🐦 13-Aug-19 01:42 AM
Power is a tricky one, because what does power mean in Pact?
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 01:42 AM
exactly what it means in society
duh
s/
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A bird 🐦 13-Aug-19 01:43 AM
Ur is described as being minor by people who know that it has an almost absolute effect
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 01:43 AM
Not necessarily
the one who called it minor was conquest
the word doesn't even seem to appear in this interlude, and you'd think Isadora would classify it as minor if she thought it was. I don't think anyone who knows what they're talking about ever classifies it as such.
Then again, it's in a pretty powerless state, for the meantime. It's bound, and that limits its control, influences what power it can possibly bring to bear.
That, in and of itself, could make it a minor threat, and thus a minor demon
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A bird 🐦 13-Aug-19 01:46 AM
Compare and contrast what you know of Pauz and Barbatorum?
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 01:47 AM
True. But Barbatorem is still in a position to be used by the bloodline who bound him
if Barbatorem was confined to the circle for all eternity, or for long enough, some dumb conquest-y type might consider him "minor" despite what he could do if he could break free
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A bird 🐦 13-Aug-19 01:49 AM
I don't think Conquest was necessarily dumb, but I see your point
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 01:49 AM
I don't think it's a very useful term when considering the abstract demon (Ur) anyhow, since its very nature is unknowable, unanswerable. Of course you can't put it into boxes or define it, its nature is to disorder, to void those definitions. (edited)
things are best defined, in my estimation, by quality, not quantity
what is it, not how much is it
and what Ur is, is described right here
and I don't care how major or minor that makes it
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A bird 🐦 13-Aug-19 01:51 AM
A large part of granny Rose's pride was in naming Barbatorum, so you can put it in a box, a little
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 01:51 AM
because that makes it god damn terrifying
agree 1
Oh yeah no I meant Ur when I said the abstract demon
Barbatorem's nature isn't unknowable, because he's not as in line with the first choir, with the unknowability
Barbs can be put in a box a lot easier than something which keeps eating the label
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A bird 🐦 13-Aug-19 01:53 AM
Do you think that if MirRose happened to know Ur's full name she could use it?
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 01:54 AM
I think it's better for everyone if we never find out
(but names are powerful things, after all)
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 03:09 AM
Hmm
I don't know if I'd say that she "worked out" what he can and can't do, as much as she cemented what he can and can't do.
As soon as she observes his capabilities, interprets them through her rosian lens, and then writes them down for the world to read, those are his capabilities. Who knows what might've been, had Barbatorem been approached with a more blakian perspective? (edited)
Listening to Deep in Pact, really enjoyed your discussion of Xenofiction, @Elliot (Boy)
It's always really fun to listen after a read, because you guys pull out/emphasize such different things from the text, which is becoming clearer to me the more I think about it.
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A bird 🐦 13-Aug-19 03:31 AM
As soon as she observes his capabilities, interprets them through her rosian lens, and then writes them down for the world to read, those are his capabilities. Who knows what might've been, had Barbatorem been approached with a more blakian perspective?
Interesting. Do you think that'd work with Ur or Pauz?
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 03:48 AM
Yes?
Possibly less with the more material nature of Pauz. I think there are abstract limits to what demons can do, but whether there are concrete ones depends on the demon and how they've been observed, conceptualized, seen.
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A bird 🐦 13-Aug-19 03:50 AM
Can you take that train of thought to a prediction or are you just rationalising what you've seen so far?
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 03:51 AM
those aren't mutually exclusive thoughts
that said, I'm not sure what prediction I could make
Especially since Rose is about to blow all of this out of the water with her "scientific understanding of Others"
Speaking of, let's get into Signature 8.1
CharmanderHi 1
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A bird 🐦 13-Aug-19 03:53 AM
Yeeessss
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 03:54 AM
Signature is an interesting title, especially as a contrast to the last one. From it, I pull the ideas of Signals, Communication (lightly), expression of self, and foremost: Identity
Buttsack had this down to a science.
I'd like everyone to give a very warm welcome to Pact's new protagonist! It's been a wild ride with Blake, but I think our newest hero: Buttsack will be just as if not more interesting, compelling, and emotionally relatable.
Also how's that for thematic resonance, eh bird?
😄 1
'down to a science'
Once they were inside the building, the humans were supposed to be safe. The doorframes, the windows, the plumbing, all were made of refined metal, ‘stainless steel’ they called it. ‘They’ were fuckholes, as far as he was concerned
Hell yes they were, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. I'm actually kind of enjoying this goblin's uh...goblin-level-intelligence attempting to figure things out, to whatever level of success he can get to.
Goblins as a whole came in all shapes and sizes. Some were fat, some were skinny, some were furry, others scaly, others still had skin. They could be no larger than a squirrel, or five times the size of a man, in all colors. Certain rules held true, though. All were ugly.
As ridiculous as it may have been to suggest thematic resonance with what we were just talking about, I think there's a real exploration of that theme taking place here. What makes a goblin, a Goblin? It's not height, weight, size, shape. It's the ugliness, first and foremost. In Buttsack's esteemed estimation, there's at least one axiom of goblinhood here, and I'm interested in exploring that, especially because the idea of what is "ugly" is so vague and nebulous and individualized to us humans to begin with.
One piece of knowledge Buttsack had picked up had been from a scrawny little bitch of a goblin that called itself Scuzzwick.
This knowledge-sharing, a culture of goblins, is really disgustingly interesting. They're so human, but the dumbest, most horrid, rancid, crude parts of humanity.
Catch the wind and ride it through the door the man was opening. Drifting inside. “Do you smell something?” a bystander asked. The dumpy looking fuck shut one of the metal cabinets, then hooked a lock onto it. Buttsack hurried off to take cover before he became fully material again.
I love when Wildbow does this, makes the initial transformation kind of unclear, gives us hints as to what's going on, and then resolves that little mystery. It's just one of those things that keeps you reading. Along with the comical narration. "dumpy looking fuck", like, Buttsack is a great storyteller.
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A bird 🐦 13-Aug-19 04:08 AM
🍑 💨
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 04:08 AM
lol
Our maturity astounds me
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A bird 🐦 13-Aug-19 04:08 AM
Hehehe
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 04:10 AM
The goblins shared stories between one another about what goblins were and why metal was so problematic. The usual story was that when a Wise man drank from a cup while dining, the bits of food that got into the cup and lingered after the drink was done accumulated. Except it was workings, not drink, and bits of self, not food. Greasy fingerprints left behind when touching something beyond the veil. Bits of skin that should have grown and the hairs that should have fallen from one’s head, that didn’t, because they were wearing different skin or hair, and the stuff that wasn’t had to end up someplace.
See it's weird, they have their own mythology, their own reason for why they are what they are, and this is one conception of where goblins metaphysically come from. If demons are creation///destruction, then the faerie and goblins are beauty///ugliness, in accordance with the one axiom of goblinhood that Buttsack elucidated for us.
There was another story that said that the unfair folk were people once, and they chopped off all the bits they didn’t like, and those bits became goblins, but Buttsack didn’t like that version.
God dammit. If I had a dollar for every magic system I came up with only to find that it was already in Pact (even as just an idea)...well I'd have about three dollars. And when you want a bag of sour patch kids as badly as I do now, that just might mean something.
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The High Paigestess 13-Aug-19 04:12 AM
oof, you may need a fourth dollar those are some expensive sour bois
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 04:14 AM
(I made a world where humans cut away their greed- which became goblins, cut away their childhoods- which became faeries, repeat ad nauseum until they were nothing but stone. Thought it was a cool origin for magical creatures, and apparently it was, because it's in this book)
lol 1
You right, I guess I'll have to keep reading before I can snag some soury snacks out of it.
Fuck the unfair folk. Being magic hairballs for humans, fabricated of their dust, scum, grease, pubes, and stress, that was one thing. Being of faerie? Fuck that idea sideways and backward.
The fact that faerie are referred to as the "unfair folk" is just so perfectly fitting (especially for the theory that they were practitioners who wriggled out of contracts via self deception)
Whatever the case, many stories had one or two common elements. The goblins were leavings, discards, scrap given form.
I equated the fae//goblin distinction to Homestuck's Hope and Rage, and it's interesting to see how I'm being proven wrong and right and where.
Pact certainly has a slightly different way of conceptualizing it
The earth called to them, to decompose them like it was meant to devour and decompose all leavings, and the metal was the earth in distilled form. Or maybe the process that made goblins was
I think it has more to do with the fact that we purify metal, we make it pretty and shiny and non-ugly. Thus, it's the goblins' perfect opposite.
Could also be a reason the holly bushes worked; the idea of beauty
see? pretty!
“Oh man,” the boy that stood above him whined, “I just got a whiff of something rank.” “You’re too close to the bathrooms,” his pal said. “You’ve gotta change lockers.”
I love the idea that when you smell something just absolutely awful, it might be a goblin wandering through your school
also: I just realized with these lines that Buttsack is in a school
I wonder if he's gonna run into Maggie? Probably.
Some bitch sat on the windowsill, while her cankled friend smeared powder all over her face. The one at the windowsill wasn’t looking at anything, and her lack of focus was exactly the sort that could see something that was walking the fine line he was, wanting something to catch her attention.
First of all, I love how Buttsack describes people in a quick summation of their worst qualities, with an unhealthy dose of cursing to bear. Secondly, this is a detail that's been hinted at, that the unWise (as Buttsack might call them) can half-glimpse Others as they truly are, if they're paying the right amount of unattention.
A small pouch with writing tools – he broke the nicer looking ones, and scattered the remains inside so they’d leak their ink.
You sunuvabitch. I bet you steal my socks too. Dickwad. Oh wait, not you Dickwad, sorry. I was talking to your cousin, Buttsack. I know, I know, I'll be more careful next time.
The bitch focused on him right away. He moved his hand, ready to divert her attention and head in the other direction, but she didn’t budge. Blond hair, long and silky, a nose ring and more rings in her ears, with bright green paint around her eyes.
It's a Duchamp?
One of the Duchamps. She wouldn’t say a thing. The goblins left the families alone, kept it all on the down-low, the families left the goblins alone.
It's a Duchamp! That's kind of interesting, I wonder if it's an actual oath, or just an unspoken thing. Makes a difference in how Maggie can use them as regards Duchamps and Behaims.
(edited)
I also wonder if "the families" includes the Thorburns.
The girl headed to the furthest bathroom stall, giving him a warning look. He had to admit disappointment, and briefly considered peeking all the same.
And I suppose goblins display ugly qualities too: greed, lust, gluttony. Oh wait, those are the seven deadly sins, nevermind. That would be the domain of the seventh choir...
but also very much the domain of the goblins
huh, sure there's nothing to it
after all, clearly there are demons, and not-demons, right R.D.T.?
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Ishamoridin 13-Aug-19 04:30 AM
They're only gluttony of shitty things
lust for degrading others, etc
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 04:30 AM
hmm maybe
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Ishamoridin 13-Aug-19 04:30 AM
greed to deprive
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 04:31 AM
does that track with the desire to go all peeping-buttsack on ms. duchamp over here?
Find the papers with no markings, toward the end. Find other papers to get clues. Best if he did it clever-like. Make it make sense. Sometimes a nice colorful threat to the teacher, referencing an old mark if they were low, or drawing a picture at the edges of the ages, Allusions to violence and guns worked well. Something suitably strange, even, like a bit of blood used to draw a heart. Get dumb humans sent to doctors to have their brains poked and prodded and their bodies looked at.
And he just exudes this ugliness, this problematic-ness and stuff that we don't want to look at, that we want to condemn and alienate and cast aside. I wonder how close Midge was to goblinhood, all things considered?
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Ishamoridin 13-Aug-19 04:35 AM
it does, he only wants to violate her privacy
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 04:35 AM
Gotcha, that makes more sense
so there's overlap, but it's not the same framing
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Ishamoridin 13-Aug-19 04:35 AM
goblins are the embodiment of trolling imo, they're whatever most bothers people
demons are only hostile to humans because they're hostile to reality, though
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 04:36 AM
Buttsack didn’t always understand their ways, the language or the changes from yesteryear. He did understand the ugliness that came natural to them, and he could figure stuff out fast when it made him better at what he did. He understood how easy it was to mess them up, to push them off course. One incident, an oddity. A string? A bit of drugs, a cheating allegation? People would worry, they would stay away from her, they would-
Goblins are such an awesome metaphor, because they're this insidious, blink-and-you-miss-it kind of ugly. Just like you said, the trolling. I mean, if any Other has an internet presence, it's got to be these guys, right? Exemplifying the worst parts of humanity?
Well, some structures of thinking place humans as the epitome of creation
and if some people think that way, I think it's a sure bet that some demons do
but yes, it's because of creation, not because of human
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Ishamoridin 13-Aug-19 04:37 AM
Yeah goblins are human-centric though
agree 1
which fits the idea that they're the leftovers from fae, since fae aren't considered human at all so they'd have had to shed humanity along with all the rest
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 04:38 AM
I think they're equally human/inhuman
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Ishamoridin 13-Aug-19 04:39 AM
The only thing inhuman is the proportion imo, everything they have is sourced in humanity
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 04:39 AM
and I think that however it may have happened, goblins came about, became more powerful, as Faerie did.
Right, but I think that of every Other, so I'm a smidge biased
that theory did come about as we were talking about Padraic in the first arc, though, so maybe it's especially true here
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Ishamoridin 13-Aug-19 04:40 AM
Even if you're right, goblins are at least more overtly human focused and that has to mean something
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 04:41 AM
Well demons may be human-focused, but they're derived from other-ing, from an attempt to distance them from humans
goblins, meanwhile, have a lot more to do with how humans see each other constantly
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Ishamoridin 13-Aug-19 04:42 AM
I don't think demons are human focused, humans are just one of the most effective ways to influence the world
like saying that carpenters are saw focused
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 04:42 AM
Goblins have to do with how we see the reddit trolls, the neckbeards, the undeniably human yet in society's eyes wretched beings that we hate.
And you're right, it's not that I think demons are human-focused
just human-derived
and humans focus on things other than themselves every once in a while, so Others can be focused on that stuff too.
But often, when humans focus on themselves, it's with the lens of beautiful vs ugly that we see here.
I don't think we disagree, in the end. I think it's more that I use words less good.
ohno 1
He ducked his head low to crawl under the stall door. A chain settled around his neck. “No!” he shrieked, clutching at the metal loops. “No, no, fuck you!”
Oh? Well if the Duchamps have a relative peace with the goblins, then you know what that means...
“Shh,” the practitioner said, tightening the chain. Her dark brown hair was cut short, pushed out of her face by a metal hairband. She still wore her winter coat, alongside a checkered scarf.
It's Maggie!
sharkhi
He could feel his essence draining out of him, bleeding into the metal. This was what dying felt like. Except he wouldn’t die. He’d become less, he’d take years to recuperate.
Given the relative shitstain that this guy has been all chapter, seeing him get his just deserts right here is quite satisfying. Bind this pencil-breaking, bug-placing, social-shaking asshat!
It's also a cool parallel to the hyena, with the binding around the neck type deal
Maggie finished tying up the goblin, then dragged it out of the stall, slinging it over so it skidded off to one corner of the bathroom, chains scratching against the tile. “You’re one of the gross ones, aren’t you?” she asked, as she bent over the sink, washing her arms up to the elbow.
there are, by definition, no not-gross ones. I'm glad that Maggie is our actual protagonist, instead of Buttsack. Now for timing-wise, I'm guessing this is before her jaunt to toronto? I don't have very much evidence to back that up, but I guess we'll see if Blake is mentioned and work from there.
Lola went to the sink two spaces away from Maggie and began washing her own hands. The goblin, unable to speak, resorted to pelvic thrusts in their general direction. Lola glanced down, then looked away, disgusted.
I really hope we get a little hint of this urban fantasy high school drama where Lola's the powerful, popular, rich enchantress and Maggie's the protagonist that binds goblins. I bet that's a major selling point of the Maggie Holt books. in the trailer and everything.
Like I've never actually seen Mean Girls but I get the vibes of the general tropes I associate with that movie
“There’s a deal in place,” Lola said. “We don’t mess with the goblins, they leave us alone.” “You guys have a deal in place,” Maggie said. “I never agreed to anything, and I don’t benefit. Am I missing something?” “It’s the way things are done here.”
HHHHHHHhhhHHhh we've been in a room with Lola for like twenty seconds and I already want her to shut the fuck up.
“Consider me an anarchist,” Maggie said. She finished washing her hands and shook them dry. “Anarchy doesn’t work,” Lola said. She picked at a fleck of black near one eye with a fingernail.
This is where I'm sure we're supposed to be drawing these tropes from this interaction. Maggie's motions are crude, splatter-y. Lola's are precise, appearance-conscious, prim and pretentious. I already want to say "Anarchy doesn't work" in a really whiny voice just to piss her off already.
This isn't any personal vendetta against the duchamps here (well, maybe a little) I just think this is how the book is supposed to make me feel.
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Ishamoridin 13-Aug-19 04:56 AM
Their magic is explicitly manipulative
That's not an endearing quality
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 04:58 AM
Plus she's specifically kind of arguing for upholding the same status quo that's fucking everything up, which is also not quite endearing
“It doesn’t work for countries. As personal philosophies go, it’s fantastic.” “Until you realize you’re utterly alone,” Lola said. “Are you happy being alone?” Maggie shrugged. She walked over to the window, tested her ability to touch the metal, then used the scarf to insulate against the cold as she hauled it open.
I mean, from a certain point of view she's even kind of right here. Maggie's kind of a loner, and various levels of okay with that. But she's such a friggin bitch about it (pardon my goblin). I love Maggie's response here re: anarchy. She's so fun to read.
“You two should be in class,” the woman said. “I’m new,” Maggie said. “Still learning my way around town.”
Maggie vs Teachers is such a quintessentially Urban Fantasy thing that I can't help but love every second of it. Wildbow is working in a pretty different tone than your typical Teen Urban Fantasy, but here he gets to just lean into those tropes and it's fantastic, right?
I mean, I'm sure there are going to be very Wildbow twists in the future of this arc, if this is a Maggie Interlude Arc, but for now we're in Randy Cunningham/Buffy/Star Butterfly/Blue Exorcentral here
The woman took a sniff, then recoiled. “Good god. Wash your hands.” “I did.” “Wash your hands again,” the woman said, irritated, “Then go to the office, get a late slip, and get yourself to homeroom. Lola Duchamp?” “Same thing, I get it,” Lola said.
I mean seriously, she doesn't even have to do the breath test. Maybe it's because she's magically secured all of her connections with the teachers and staff but hey maybe it's just because we're in story world I'm kidding it's both it's always both pact's universe's very nature tends towards the occurrence of stories just like this one and this is one of the many reasons I love the book that maybe I should stop talking about and actually friggin read.
“It’s probably in your clothes,” Lola commented. “Mine too. Come with me to the office? I’ve got something to bring up.”
This is maybe a good sign? I dunno, as hateable as the Duchamps are, I kind of jump onto any potentially redeeming thing about them. I've empathized with Penny and Sandra already, so it's kind of an in for wanting them not to be assholes.
“Are we friends now?” Maggie asked. She let her shoulder bump Lola’s. “Partners in crime?” “No,” Lola said, without humor.
Please? Your dynamic is so much fuuuunnn.
come on! I want to see more of it.
what could go wrong? The family that deals with faeries and the girl that binds goblins. There's even some alliterative synergy in that statement! Spirits eat that shit for breakfast
“If we’re talking about dangerous company, practitioners that make stupid mistakes like giving away their ability to swear have to rate somewhere up there.” “That’s not exactly what I did,” Maggie said. “But hey, excellent banter. I could convert you yet.”
I love this entire conversation, it's so fucking fun to listen to, in a similar yet very distinct way from (ward) the TattleToria dynamic
“Oh? Do tell. How long do I have before I’m killing people in cold blood, Maggie?” The words were like a physical blow. Maggie managed a fake smile, “As banter goes, that’s a little too direct-to-jugular to fit in with the flow, FYI.”
FUCKING JEGUS, LOLA
What the actual fuck, that was just a horrible wrench thrown into all that fun we were having
plus it was the Behaims, and the Duchamps that coerced/tricked her into killing Molly, so don't wash all that blood from your perfectly manicured hands, Lola (edited)
“I’ll keep that in mind. While we’re trading tips, if you want to pretend my words aren’t affecting you, you can’t have that telling pause before you respond.”
She's such a freaking bitch
Sure enough, Lola seized the chance, “We’re civilized, we’re building something. You’re, what, doing the metaphorical equivalent of grubbing in the dirt for cockroaches? I can’t even think of a good metaphor for what you did to the last Thorburn heiress, but it’s lower than that. The fact that it needed to be done doesn’t diminish the ugliness of it at all. We’re not ever going to be friendly, understand?”
YOUR FAMILY WAS INDIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THAT CONNECTION-CHAIN OF EVENTS YOU BRAINWASHED LITTLE- Oh, see now why'd you have to go and do that? Now that she's drawn such a line in the sand, I want her and Maggie to become friends so badly, if only to prove her wrong.
See that's what this would be setting up in any other book
I'm not so sure about this one, but Lords, I hope so.
“My metaphorical cockroaches could slit your throat and drop a dookie in the wound,” Maggie said. The look Lola gave her was priceless. Shutting up a Duchamp? “Could, not will. Just saying,” Maggie said, before Lola could decide on a retort, or escalate this into a problem. “Not to worry. You might not be friendly, but I’m a lot nicer than I look.”
Ilovethis
Pacifica Northwest!
That's the kind of payoff and character development I'm desperately, desperately striving for.
“You’re more energetic than usual.”
See now I can't even figure out whether I love her or hate her stupid guts. It's perfect!
“You’re in Jacob’s Bell. You murdered a girl. You’re happy?” Lola kept bringing that up. Lola had to know the effects the words had, and it rankled. She had no idea what was involved, the sleepless nights, the shame, and yet she threw it out there.
It's kind of like even the enchantress can't help but attack with the crude. Not that the Fae are much more nuanced.
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Wildbow 13-Aug-19 05:22 AM
Worth saying Lola has dyed hair and piercings, so she's not quite Pacifica
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 05:23 AM
True, true. See but remembering that only makes me like her a little more.
I've found a better ratio of friends among people with dyed hair, for some reason. It's one of those things that irrationally endears me to someone.
Maggie took a breath, then exhaled slowly before replying. “Pretty happy, for lack of a better term. I’m in a better place mentally and emotionally, even literally. The damn nightmares have stopped. I’m meeting people and making sorta-friends.”
Hey, that's really cool! It sounds almost well-adjusted and healthy as any practitioner-- or typical teenager could be! And I kind of hope that opening up, being vulnerable with the nightmares, even in this little way, helps Lola to see Maggie as more of a person, you know?
“Sorta-friends like Mr. Wrinkles, the bathroom goblin?”
Or not
Maybe she's getting there
“Because he’s a better choice for a friend than Blake Thorburn.”
Wh- hey! Don't talk about my dead protagonist like that!
Also that there confirms that this is pre-void
“Blake gets a bad rap.” “Maybe. But I still don’t know how you can interact with him. Aren’t you scared?” “Nah. Look at where we are right now. What could be worse than high school?”
And thus, the premise of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was born. I finally started watching it because I caught a cold and was basically dead in the water the whole weekend. Also Hell yes for defending Blake! He does get a bad rep. And for what? Spitting blood in the face of a friendly overtur- oh yeah probably that.
“I know where it is. Whoever finishes first waits for the other, we walk back together.” “Going back on the ‘never be friends’ bit?” “No, but I need to run something past you, and-” Lola paused as someone walked by, “we can’t do it here.”
I think they're totally gonna be friends. We'll make you an anarchist yet, Lola Duchamp. The revolution begins with...well it technically kind of began with Aimon and Rose like a whole lot of years ago, but it continues with us!
Lola didn’t break eye contact as she passed, intimidating as all get out. Even her walk was graceful. Take away the makeup and the piercings and she was such a Duchamp. It was so disappointing. The style could have been a small rebellion, but… no. Can’t help but wonder how that works with the whole arranged marriage thing, Maggie thought. Is it by choice, and she goes back to normal when the Duchamps want her to, does she define herself the way she wants, and they find a partner willing to take her, or is that look purely because the Duchamps wanted a girl with a particular style for a particular husband? Whatever the choice was, it was gross.
This kind of echos my inability to parse that particular distinction, and I like it. I hope we get to explore the Duchamps more individually than as a family, because they've each got to have a kind of attitude towards their situation, and towards the endless cycle. It'd be cool to get inside more of their heads.
Maggie waited patiently in line, trying to zen away the frustration and the urge to say something. That would be giving them what they wanted.
I love Maggie. She reminds me a bit of my eighth grade self- and who my high school self would've continued to be if I'd been forced to deal with public school through those four years too. It's this kind of mindset it can suck you into, an us-vs-them, the-system-is-fucky mindset that it's hard to disavow even sitting here writing this. I slip so easily back to that place, back to wanting to turn every interaction with authority into a competition and a total resentment-fest. At the same time, I think some of them were kind of dickish, and liked to lord their power over us, and probably shouldn't've been in the education biz in the first place.
Maggie’s interest was diverted by the arrival of another practitioner. Her head wasn’t the only one that turned. Blonde, but with features too sharp to fit a Duchamp, not pretty and maybe a little underweight, she was dirty to the point that you could tell from the other end of the room.
It's our girl BG!!
this is such a good way of reintroducing us to the residents and status quo of Jacob's Bell before Rose gets there to start fuckin everything up.
I mean, for some crazy people who read this as it released it's been months since we've been in Jacob's Bell.
Luckily, nowadays no one would read it that slowly
“You haven’t attended school all semester.” “I’m not attending school now. I want to meet someone. If you can tell me which class-” “If you’d please step into my office-” “No,” the Briar Girl said. “I don’t like confined spaces. Stop asking.”
She's actually freaking enrolled in the school?
That's news to me
I'm gonna have to take a quick dinner break, be back in a few!
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 06:03 AM
Okay, so Briar Girl is back, and she wants something with someone, her familiar is nowhere to be seen, Lola and Maggie are caught in the middle of it, and we don't exactly know where anyone stands. Let's do this
Then Lola said something to the principal. Enough power was spent in the process that Maggie felt jealous. If she had that much power… she’d hoard it. She’d have no choice. But Lola could fritter it away. Maybe under the expectation that someone would pay her back, maybe because she really did have power to spare. The Duchamps really were a step above.
Aw, Mags, don't get so down on yourself. You're a powerful up and coming Goblin Queen with grit, gumption, and gross underlings. You are valued. And plus, those other families pay for their power in blood and servitude. You wouldn't be one for that kind of strength anyways.
The connection that extended from him went nowhere, like a ribbon with a frayed end. A wild goose chase. He’d reach the end of it, then find himself unable to recall why he’d left in the first place.
Enchantresses do this to me all the time. You get used to it.
I wonder if there's a little ADHDemon bouncing around me with scissors, snipping all my important connections.
Maggie watched Lola’s furtive discussion with the Briar Girl, their furtive glances her way.
Uh oh. I hope that she's not the one that Briar Girl is here for. I hope that Maggie's not the one they're targeting for whatever reason
There were two Duchamps and one Behaim in her class. She could feel their stares, each carrying the weight of Lola’s words, compounded by the grade and the fact that they probably knew what the teacher had said. Accusatory, condescending. All thinking the same thing. Murderer.
Do these kids not know the roles that their guardians played in this whole situation? That Maggie was paid in not-quite-full by their parents to do the dirty deed, and all?
The capture was a good distraction, Blake wasn’t a bad distraction, and the murder was. Killing Molly was like all of the horribly embarrassing and hurtful things she said and did when she was a kid, bundled up together in one.
Aw Maggie. You kind of maybe deserve a little of this, but it sucks. I also like seeing that she's warming up to Blake more, it kind of makes me think that maybe all that stuff in toronto was actually her.
But it was getting better. She had an ally now. Allies. Sorta-friends. Blake was one. He could still offer her books. Even though he’d just left, dashing off to Toronto, he was bound to come back. When he came back, fixing his problem with the barrier, he’d give her access to books, with access to the books, she’d step up her game and prepare for trouble, and she’d beat it and everything would be okay. ■
This is what it is to be Maggie, and it's pretty bad. Waiting, knowing that trouble finds you, needing to be prepared but not knowing how, not having an in. Made even worse by the fact that we know...Blake isn't coming back. Will Rose be as open to Maggie, as open to the deal as Blake was? I hope for Maggie's sake she is, but ending this section on this note doesn't exactly bode well. We don't exactly know how nothing will be okay, just that it won't.
“Thorburn probably isn’t coming back,” Lola said. “I can’t tell you the key details, but four separate divinations or powers are saying so.”
Hahahahahahaahahaha I forgot that the world itself knows Blake isn't coming back, and we can smack Maggie with this immediately
Lola was here, a senior, one year older than Maggie, joined by Penelope, Joanna, Chloe and Lea. Not all of the school-age Duchamps, not even half, but enough. Gavin, Owen and Craig Behaim were here too, as were the Briar Girl, Patrick, Evonne, and Keller.
Woah, the Junior Jacob's Bell Brigade, almost half in full? How often do the families meet together like this? I mean we have someone from every major power save Johannes and the Thorburns, and that's pretty damn significant.
They were deadly serious, and whatever they’d discussed, they’d shared with each other, but they wouldn’t share with her.
I guess this isn't the first time, then.
I wonder if Briar Girl is included in that sharing thing
“You guys are jerks,” Maggie said. “Why would you tell me that?”
Yeah, they kind of are, aren't they. Especially since blake doesn't even know it at this point, if the behaims are still kickin around
“Gotta say,” Maggie said, sticking her hands in her pockets, “didn’t appreciate you voting yes on my execution.” “I was trying to make a point, a tangent to the greater point. You came after me-” “I played a prank.”
That's a pretty dangerous prank. But still, voting yes on execution? That reminds me, Briar Girl is the other one who voted yes there, so they aren't gonna be on great terms.
“With the Thorburn thing happening, we can’t have too many wild cards in play. This thing, right here? It’s the next generation of practitioners. Except for your goblin there, and Patrick and his group who invited themselves-”
YES, it is the next generation of practitioners, which is exactly why it shouldn't be doing things like the current ones. What's a few more wild cards when compared with endless metronomed drudgery!? Give me goblins any day!
“We’re part of the next generation, and we’ll be part of the generation after that, and so on, barring strange circumstances,” Patrick said, “and believe it or not, we’re relatively young. We’re perpetually current. I’d like to think we count.”
Thanks Padraic. You're doing great.
Penelope continued, “We leave you alone. We leave your family alone. What Gavin was saying, in his roundabout way, is you could be our enemy, and stuff like the vote will edge closer and closer to putting you in a bad situation, or you can take this deal. You do what you need to do, and you do it without any hassle from us, provided you keep to the terms.” Maggie pulled her hands from her pockets to fold her arms. “Lola said something like ‘we’ll never be friends’.” “We won’t,” Lola said. “But we can leave each other alone, and we can exist in the same sphere without being at each other’s throats.
Oh Lola, you're coming around. This is an interesting offer, and it shouldn't sound as bad as it does. I mean, what could go wrong with an offer of peace, right? But I also wonder if they're just trying to pin her down, keep things running smoothly, the way Laird and Sandra want it.
Penelope spoke up, “It’s not going to change things overnight. It might be a little clumsy, while we work out the details, but we can keep our parents from giving you a hard time, stop further execution votes from coming to pass. As our parents retire and we take our spots on the town council, we can raise you up with us.” “With enough time, you’d have as much of a say as the Crone, the Faerie, Briar Girl or any other local powers,” Lola said.
Then again, that sounds pretty good, and maybe you've gotta change the system from inside. But I can't shake the feeling that something's the matter, that there's a loophole they'll exploit to screw her over anyways, that this'll only lead to Bad.
“I don’t like you either,” Gavin said, “But I can play ball if it means you don’t screw everything up. We can send help your way. Resources, knowledge, individual lessons, if people feel up to it or if you want to bargain for it. If you want to focus on the goblins, we can change the way things are done. Powerful goblins go to you instead of getting killed, we tell you if there’s something going on goblinwise.” Maggie double checked there were no funny connections. No obvious manipulations at work. “But there are conditions?”
And that sounds really good. Private lessons? Powerful Goblins? What more could she want? I mean, it's probably in part a ploy to keep her away from the likes of Blake and Rose, to keep her from looking for trouble in the interest of harnessing it, but isn't that what I argued they should've done with Blake? Give him actual options so he wouldn't have to resort to questionable methods when threatened? This seems like a play I'm willing to back.
“I’d rather say you become more powerful, with our backing,” Lola said. “We’re not asking for slavery. You’d have free will. You could be a pain in our backsides and vote against every idea we raise, so long as the core rules are maintained. So long as you’re hands off when it comes to the ‘throne’ and letting Jacob’s Bell become something better.”
Personally, I vote go for it.
“You can’t go and help the enemy,” Gavin said. “If someone intervenes at the right time, then things get more complicated.”
EXCEPT NOT ANYMORE, FUCKHEADS
HHHHHHHhhhhhhhh I should've seen this coming a mile away, friggin diabolist-hating kool-aid-drinking sons of behaims and duchamps and all kinds of other bullshit that comes with
“The only lump knowledge Blake can offer that we can’t is knowledge on diabolism,” Gavin said. “And if you’re going there, we’re going to have a problem, I’m sure you understand.” Maggie nodded slowly, considering. “Meaning that if I can’t come up with a good argument as to why I’m not accepting your deal, you’re going to assume I’m a wannabe diabolist, and I’m public enemy number two, after Blake himself?” “No,” Penelope said. “I can’t speak for the others, but I wasn’t after that sort of ultimatum.” “I was. Her answer should clear stuff up,” Gavin said.
Hahahahahahahahahaha that's pretty fun
but we've just shown that she kinda likes blake, thinks he gets a bad rep
maybe it's just wishful thinking, but I don't think she's gonna take this deal.
“You want to know why I sided with Blake before? Because he’s made wads more sense than a hundred Lairds or Lolas or Patricks have. He’s fudged up, sure, but as I see it, that only makes him more legit. I see people who are ‘normal’, and you know what? I don’t respect them. Either they’re oblivious and useless to me, or they’re just plain lying. We’re all a little twisted.”
YES!!!
You tell em Maggie!
Ilovethis
“The abnormal stuff isn’t deep inside Blake. It’s exposed to the world. Everyone with a clue knows why, mostly. Demons and black tomes. Anyone who’s spent more than an hour with him, me included, can figure out most of the rest. He came from a bad family and a bad place in life, and at the end of the day, I think he’s more genuine than any of you.”
Yes, yes, three times three to the third times yes! That's what Blake and Maggie have had in common this whole time. They're genuine, they're in fucked up situations and they're doing their best. They were doing their best.
“Sorry, but I have to ask. Is this a romantic attachment?” Penelope asked.
You stupid shit did you actually listen to anything she said?
Maggie shook her head, “If I had to put my finger on it… he’s like a dog you find by the side of the road. Scruffy, quirky, you know it’s got a story. It’s nice enough, plays fair, and I’m not about to let a bunch of idiots say it’s dangerous when they don’t know.”
Perfect. Just perfect. I mean it kills the Blaggie ship but I'm alright with that.
“You think the scruffy dog isn’t going to bite back when threatened? No, you’re not being fair. That dog had no dratting choice in what happened to it, and I respect it for not being worse than it is. I’ve seen stuff too, and, well, that so-called dog has every right to hate me, and it was darn fair. But even if I respect it and don’t mind its company, there’s no frigging way I’m taking the pretend dog home with me, you get what I’m saying? I’m talking about a whole bundle of issues. Fleas, dirt, bad habits, I dunno.” “Yeah,” Joanna said. “He could have been meaner, when he beat Letita. He scared me though. Him and the woman he was with.”
Yeah! He could've been absolutely awful, but he settled for just spitting blood in your general vicinity. Blake is a good boi. Was a good boi.
Dammit.
Maggie drew in a deep breath, then exhaled. “Write up a contract. If it’s everything you’re presenting it as, no tricks or anything that I can see, and you guys sign, I’ll sign too.” “After saying all that?” Penelope asked. “He’s in trouble like you said? I’m not interested in sticking my hand into the middle of a dogfight. I’m not interested in acting against him, either, but I’m not under any rules or oaths that say I have to help him. You guys studied me, you figured me out. What I want above all else is power, knowledge. I’ll take what you’re offering, if it’s legit.”
😔
Yeah, I get it.
But it still kinda hurts, so soon after...
my Blake shaped hole isn't exactly healing here. It still sucks.
Patrick fell into step beside her. Evonne and Keller weren’t around.
Oooooooo
Is it time to prove Elliot right or wrong? I mean, not yet, but maybe soon?
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 06:43 AM
A teenager’s face, decidedly Faerie with a slant to his features and ears, wild dark hair, and a sly, almost condescending half-smile perpetually on his face. There was an art to it all that was pure design, raw nurture, with no nature in play. This was the face he wore for her. Every part of him promised a subtle sort of danger, and even now, Maggie couldn’t tell if it was the sort of danger someone experienced while skydiving, controlled, measured, or if it was the sort of danger one experienced when they leapt out of an airplane without a parachute. She wasn’t sure which idea appealed more. The former was tantalizing, the latter offered a kind of freedom.
Whenever we describe the faerie it's just beautiful and dangerous in the best way. I kind of picture Patrick as being right at home with some of the Heartbroken, or I picture the Heartbroken with a bit of faerie.
“If Blake is a stray dog, what am I?” Jealousy? Feigned jealousy? Where did the game end and the reality begin? Or was he all game?
The answer is yes. To the faerie, it is all a game, tricks, traps, pieces, players, and more. Always a thrill to play with them.
“You’re… the kitten in the shelter. Giving me that big-eyed look. And I know it’s calculated. Everyone and everything is telling me it’s a bad idea, but here I am. I haven’t walked away.” He smiled. And if I ever took that kitten home and let my guard down, it would kill me in my sleep, then curl up on the corpse.
Meow
Even this has its place in tropes, with the suave, cool, dark, and dangerous boy waiting to faerie her to her doom. If there's anyone she shouldn't be fooling around with, it's probably him.
She had no illusions about the monster Padraic was. Even if he was damned attractive.
His hotness may have metaphysical power, but you must not succumb. I'd be head over heels already, but you have to be better than me, Maggie!
“I can,” he said. “But I have to demand a favor, in compensation.” She tensed a little. “When you’re done, you let me teach you another trick with glamour, convincing spirits, and the objects they represent. It has its uses in a melee, and I know you like the ones with uses in a fight. I’ll even forfeit the glamour you need to practice.”
Ohhohohoho that's playing dirty. I can already tell that Patrick's gonna win this long con, and it's so unbelievably thrilling. He just jumped back onto the favorites roster, which somehow has a large, inexplicably sad hole at the very top of it
“If it sounds uneven, remember, I need your continued silence about the lessons I’m offering. If we get caught, we’ll have the Queen’s Riders after us.” He managed to make it sound so alluring, the idea of them sharing a secret.
Gods, he's so friggin hot isn't he. I'm getting spirited away, and I'm just reading.
lol 1
👅 1
Maggie drew her Athame.
We're gonna have to talk about the implementimplications of this when I'm not so tired.
so I guess we'll stick a pin in it.
📌
Can't actually pin it, this is not my server.
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Ishamoridin 13-Aug-19 06:52 AM
Stick an athame in it
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 06:52 AM
Precisely!
The ghost absorbed the offered energy, growing strong enough to be seen. The echo of the departed Molly Walker stood amid the token offerings that family members and various residents of Jacob’s Bell had left near the site of her death, hugging her arms to her body, face hidden by hair.
Oh gods, of all the jguesses to be right...
The literal ghost of what she did
how the hell could it not haunt her?
Maggie’s inverse. Molly had never fought. Maggie saw no option but to prepare for war, to face it head on. Even as an echo, she continued to defend herself, retreating from this hostile, unfathomable world. Maggie stared at the ghost, trying to interpret details, to come to grips with what it meant and represented.
This is a tragically interesting way of exploring Molly again, this girl who seems to have been cannon fodder for Granny Rose's plans. I'm dreading it, but I'm excited.
She began what she considered her penance. A way of reminding herself of what she’d let happen, so she wouldn’t do it again. Every day, an offering to help keep the echo alive, and- “It was a pretty slow day, I guess. I captured a goblin, but I’ll get to that in more detail in a bit…”
OH MY GODS
SHE'S WRITING THE MAGGIE HOLT BOOKS
I don't know for sure that I'm right, but it's such an awesome detail if I am, that this colors everything in that series
It would make sense with why the books don't contain swear words, how it's maybe a bit of a maggie-ified version of it all, how it avoids saying goblin names, because she nicknames them things like Mr. Wrinkles...if she's orating the story to Molly, that just...it's so awesome.
I'm so very ready for my very own Maggie Holt Arc. Especially since I'm sick so I'll be reading a bit more this week.
Planning to finish this arc by the time I'm better 👍
see you next time!
sharkhi 3
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A bird 🐦 13-Aug-19 07:52 AM
Maggie drew her Athame. We're gonna have to talk about the implementimplications of this when I'm not so tired.
You mean why a practitioner who ritually offers a blood penance to a spirit would have a sacrificial blade as her implement?
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 07:52 AM
sOMETHING LIKE THAT
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Wildbow 13-Aug-19 08:33 PM
Right after finishing Pact I had a brief fling with a girl named Elspeth, actually. >_>
lol 1
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 08:33 PM
ohno
I hope it was brief enough that she didn't get to this part
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Wildbow 13-Aug-19 08:34 PM
I am/was a little biased against the name because I know an Elspeth IRL who is pretty ugly inside and out, really the worst kind of Christian.
Which might have colored the writing and commentary on the name.
Then I go on to meet an Elspeth who is actually pretty cool. Oh well. Goes to show
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 08:36 PM
Yeah, I think that can happen, where you attach a personality to a name because of one bad namee. I suppose it's something I'll have to battle through if I ever meet a cool person named "Sebastian".
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David Hunt 13-Aug-19 08:37 PM
Reminds me of a story I heard of an elementary school teacher having trouble naming her own child because any name evoked horrible memories.
ohno 1
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 08:38 PM
Pre-changing-my-name I had someone tell me "I've been wronged by two ___s so I refuse to let you be the third by befriending you".
“Creepy, something as old as him sleeping with a high schooler,” Elspeth said. “I felt that way once. Then I adjusted my perspective. Years are to a Faerie what dollars amounts are to a priceless artifact. You could do your research, find experts to help figure it out, cross-check facts, but it doesn’t really matter in the end. The priceless artifact costs a lot. The Faerie are timeless.”
I mostly agree with what Maggie says, and I understand why Elspeth wouldn't, considering that she's a behaim, and thus thinks in terms of time.
I actually think it's creepy for Patrick to sleep with high schoolers for different reasons.
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Wildbow 13-Aug-19 08:40 PM
Oh?
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 08:41 PM
The reason it's generally not okay to sleep with high schoolers (if you aren't one yourself) doesn't actually have too much to do with hard numerical age, it's mostly about power and maturity. And while I wouldn't say Patrick is mature by any stretch of the imagination, he absolutely lied, coerced, and manipulated this guy into sleeping with him, using his vast knowledge and power to literally tug on connections and make Duke be attracted to him.
And that's pretty morally not okay, if you're gonna judge him by human standards of morality.
And if you aren't gonna judge him by human standards, then maybe he shouldn't be fucking any humans.
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spinagon 13-Aug-19 08:44 PM
By this point question becomes "whatcha gonna do about this"
Report him to the police?
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 08:45 PM
That would be more useful in this particular town than in most
but not by much ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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spinagon 13-Aug-19 08:45 PM
Does it really matter if it is wrong from our point of view to him?
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 08:45 PM
I mean if anything, I bet he gets off on the fact that it's "wrong" by human standards.
all part of the thrill, part of the drama
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spinagon 13-Aug-19 08:46 PM
The other guy is flensing skin from living creatures and no one does anything about him either
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David Hunt 13-Aug-19 08:47 PM
Maybe the seduction of high schoolers is an evil that we can actually relate to and, therefore, become more disturbed by. Just a quick thought.
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 08:48 PM
I agree with the Mattian viewpoint here, mostly. Patrick's just doing what's in his nature, it's pretty useless to condemn him from afar about it, but now that we've agreed something's the matter, we should try to get him in a position where he doesn't do things like that anymore, change his variables so he doesn't have as much reign to fuck with everyone.
I only say mostly because morally condemning something as Wrong does hold a bit more weight in the Pact universe than it does in ours.
But hey, guess who's weighing in on our little discussion here?
Padraic didn’t eat or drink in the conventional sense. He supped only on entertainment, and he’d been hobbled when he’d been sent here. He was fighting and endless battle to stave off that ennui that would turn him into a monster that ranked up there with the worst. All Faerie were. On a level, it meant he wasn’t evil. He was just… working with a different set of sliding scales. On another level, fudge that. He was evil.
The idea that the wrongs Padraic is committing now are acceptable supplements compared to what he would do if he really got bored is equal parts conflicting and horrifying.
“Don’t get involved. They’ve probably anticipated what might happen if any of us stepped in. If you try to intervene, they’ll get you wrapped up in the game or the drama or whatever they’ve got going on here.” “Yeah,” Maggie said.
But it makes this notion all the more maddening, because what the faerie are doing to these people is actually horrible, and the Behaims and Duchamps, by letting it happen, are kind of complicit in everything. Maybe, if they have power, it's kind of their duty to get involved.
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spinagon 13-Aug-19 08:57 PM
In world of Pact having more power is just inviting more problems
Unless your problems are prepackaged, like for Maggie
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 08:58 PM
She’d left a note in the locker of the diabetic with the cocaine-tainted insulin, and discreetly removed the gremlin bait from her math teacher’s keychain, keeping it for herself. Something told her that Buttsack hadn’t shared every victim of his.
And here we have Maggie, who's trying to make a bit of a difference at least on the goblin side of things, who's being a good person, who's not just falling in line with the mantras that every behaim and duchamp is hard-wired to repeat. It's really cool to see.
The Faerie were active, the goblins allowed to run rampant so long as they were minor goblins. Bogeymen and boggarts lurked in the outskirts of town.
I wonder if it says something, that humanity in pact is plagued by beauty and ugliness in roughly equal measure (that we've seen)
The council was letting bad things happen to innocents because it was, in a roundabout way, a path to power.
This is where the societal metaphors start to ramp up to full drive. Too often in our society, it becomes monetarily beneficial to let people suffer, to let bad things happen. We're complicit in a system that rewards the ruthless and alienated and unempathetic. And to be the Maggie of that system is sacrifice, because she's got her own friggin problems to deal with, she shouldn't have to deal with the problems of everyone the duchamps and behaims let down.
A seeing man is king in the land of the blind. Protect your own eyes and let everyone else get blinded, and you rise to the top of the heap. The dynamic here was toxic.
Right!? It's awful, that the Blakes of the world are erased while the Roses are left to slip further down their slopes, to establish status quos and have their mirror-demons run around with scissors, cutting everyone else's eyes out.
How was she supposed to help Blake if she was this powerless? How was she supposed to face the blood, darkness, and fire that was inching her way even now? Padraic was taking his leave.
Putting this line right after that one is perfectly unsettling. How do you help more people? How do you rise, for the greater good? Just give the forces that are hurting people a little more access to you. Just deal with the beautiful, the enticing, the thrilling.
Owen was being an idiot over a senior girl, and she’d turned him down despite some shenanigans affecting the connection between them.
Okay, what the fuck, Owen? That's not only a pretty selfish waste of power, it's also more than a bit fucked up. At least Padraic doesn't see people as people, what the fuck is your excuse?
The silver lining here being that she turned him down anyways because he's such a creep that not even magic could get him what he wants. Good on ya.
She made a long list of mental notes. Weaknesses, ideas, clues, identifying details. Whether or not she accepted the contract, they could easily become enemies. Any information was a possible vector of attack. Even romantic entanglements, even doubt over some distant boyfriend or family member. She’d learned that much from the goblins and Faerie of Jacob’s Bell. ■
HUH. YEAH OKAY WE'RE REALLY JUST GONNA DO THAT NOW
Oh Maggie
"man these guys are awful, just the worst...but they've got some reliable fucking-shit-up tactics, lemme just.."
Had Buttsack found a way to curse her? Or was she just being influenced by the goblins, seeing rude things when they weren’t there? “I know it’s not your favorite,” her dad said.
There've been all these beats of Maggie maybe being dragged down to the goblins' level, and it worries me. They describe things like she describes this dinner, focusing on the ugly, the rude aspects...troubling.
Full disclosure. It was part of the deal, for her being allowed to practice. Not that she was telling them everything, but she had to make a good faith effort.
What'd family dinner look like when she killed Molly Walker, I wonder? This is a good system, generally, but I somehow doubt Maggie's holding up her end of the bargain as well as she could. It's interesting for a fantasy protagonist to have parents who are aware of all the urban fantasy shit going on
hell, it's interesting for a fantasy protagonist to have parents, at this point.
Her dads had been introduced to this world, they were scared of it, and they were vulnerable, even if they hadn’t awakened. She didn’t have the heart to share her thoughts on just how overwhelming the problems here were, the number of lesser Others who were preying on people.
No, but that's the thing, you've gotta talk to them. It's not advice that works with every parent-child relationship, and sometimes talking isn't gonna do any good. But Maggie has a pretty supportive family, and I think they'd wanna know, and I think they could help.
Working from the metaphor here, every teenager thinks that their parents wouldn't understand, that since their problems are of magical proportions, their parents' advice could never help. Except it's always bullshit- unless parents are part of the problem, which they sometimes are- because buy and large they can relate, they can help.
Maggie's dad might not know the finer details of how goblins behave, but he's been dealing with the ugliness of the world for his whole life, and he might just know a thing or two about how to handle it.
“You can put that entire world behind you, you know. You don’t have to get involved. Just… reach out. Find help, don’t feel you have to tackle it yourself.” Both her dads had been there to hear the prophecy. Twice more. Blood, darkness, and fire. Hundreds would die. No, it wasn’t that easy.
Don't get me wrong, Maggie's problems are- like any good fantasy- on a different scale than the ones other teenagers deal with. But...the same rules still apply. Reach out, find help, build connections, because you don't have to do it all on your own.
it's also true that it's not as easy as all that
The world of Jacob's Bell is suffocating. Sometimes you'll reach out for help and nobody will be there to give it because the practitioner world sucks sometimes. But there are ways to live. There are ways to make it better, and there are people who are willing to lend a hand.
One of the Rescuer’s coins. Retrieved from the man who had tried to save her from the goblin attack back home. Yeah, even now she still thought of it as home.
Alas, poor Attwell
In a roundabout way, Maggie helps to bind conquest, thus freeing the Attwell line.
So I suppose she can consider that debt repaid.
She flipped the coin, then caught it, flipped it, then caught it again. Heavier than it looked. She couldn’t carry it around with her all the time, but she appreciated the weight it had, in more than one sense.
Ilovethis
She left the post-it in place, debating what to ask for. Did she press for more details on his past victims, in hopes of helping someone out? It was good to build up goodwill, but as power grabs went, it was weak, and she wasn’t sure he would share details all that easily. Was it better to ask for techniques? Tricks? Expand her repertoire?
Ugh, and I love this, because it's so frustrating!
her choice is between a little more power, or doing a little more good
And right now I'm wanting her to ask for power, a bit, because she's just so powerless. And I'm justifying it by saying she'll have more tricks to use for good later, but that's a flimsy justification and I know it. When even I'm feeling her desperation for power in a way that takes me from the literal armchair I moralize from, that's one of the parts that the story is at its best.
An email, notifying her of a message on her wall. Maggie, A situation came up. I’m going head to head with the biggest name in Toronto...
Hey! We're placed on the timeline: this is it. The Contest
This was the deciding moment. She’d read most of the contract, and it was what they’d outlined outside the school. Lessons, borrowed books, trinkets, safety and access to their properties. Tutoring lessons. It was, she suspected, exactly what her father wanted her to do. It meant allies. People who could back her up if everything went to hell.
I mean...yeah. That's a toughie. I don't even know what I want for Maggie in this moment, because I love Blake and I know she goes to help him, but I also want Maggie to stay, to get more allies because Sweet Scion does she fuckin need it.
The old deal stood. She helped him out, he gave her access to books. It wasn’t enough. “Sorry, Blake,” she said.
!?!??!?????
But...she goes to fight with him!?
Or
or does she?
Good Lords of Gimel
Elliot was right, wasn't he
She's gonna take both deals. Or rather, she's gonna take one
and Padraic's gonna take the other
“Listen, there’s nothing in the fridge. I think the potato bar is still open, if-” “Yes,” Maggie said. “-You’re hungry.” “I’m hungry. Yes,” Maggie said.
Maggie's dad is a delight to read.
She, her dad and her father ventured out into the dark side streets. In the dead of winter, the only light was from the street lights, and they were intermittent, with whole streets cast in ominous pitch darkness.
Ilovethis
Maggie held the door open as they approached. A woman and a child. Both so beautiful they could be models. Neither were human. Ev and Padraic, both wearing glamour. Pretending to be a twenty-something mother and her young child.
Ahhahahahhaha that's so friggin creepy. And of course they show up. I thought we were just gonna have a nice evening with Maggie and the dads, just hanging out, having a good time, maybe soliciting some much needed advice...
Padraic used a high child’s voice to order a milkshake, little legs kicking as he sat on his stool to Maggie’s right. The five of them and the one cook were the only ones in the dim bar.
NOPE
“I want a lot of things,” child-Patrick said. “What?” her dad asked. “I said I want a lot of things,” Patrick repeated himself. “I want freedom, I want to go home. I want sweet, cold revenge.”
Yep, it leaned into the unsettling. Just this five year old saying "I want sweet, cold revenge". That's kind of hilarious, while being hella fuckin creepy.
Maggie felt a moment’s loathing for the Faerie, independent of all the rationalizing she’d done earlier. Events of blood, darkness, and fire could strike her at any time. Moments like this were precious.
Aw, that's really touching/sad. She just wants to spend time with her family you stupid shit! Stop fuckin everything up!
“I’m bored. Can we chat, Maggie-closest-to-my-heart?”
aaaaAAAaaa, that's a couple more on the creep-o-meter right there. My face did a whole spender-bender right there
“The Briar Girl is spying on Blake, and she offered me knowledge for a point in the right direction. Mr. Thorburn apparently intent on vigorous leaping from frying pans to fires, idiomologically speaking.”
Hey, I was wondering if that was gonna pay off in any particular way! He's got blake down fuckin cold
Also, idiomologically is one of my new favorite words
He continued, the pitch of his voice changing just as gradually as he spoke, “He’s started a little contest, and even handicapped himself. It’s really quite interesting. You were named as a possible champion for his undersized, underarmed side, and I’m very keen to hear any details. I’m limited to this grim little town, you see, and it’s rare to experience any involvement in greater events.”
We're marching straight towards elliot's prediction coming true aren't we?
(edited)
“No, Maggie dear, you can’t do that. He’s interesting, you’re interesting, and you want to just leave it be?”
But see what I mean? Padraic is so friggin relatable! Because we think it's interesting too! We as readers totally want Maggie and Blake to be working together, as surely as in Ward we want TattleToria to become an awesome kickass protagonist team. His motivations line up so well with ours that we sometimes forget how awful and dangerous he is!
“This is tragic,” Patrick said. “So much could have unfolded from this. Do I need to offer you more knowledge, to urge you to go to Toronto?”
this could be another reason Maggie knows as much as she does, that Padraic just paid her in all that knowledge to go help Blake.
“The prophecies the others mentioned? It’s because Mr. Thorburn is going to perish, if he doesn’t get help at the right time and place. All of the contract business, unsigned or not, those pages are primarily a manipulation, to keep you away from that place until that time passes.” Blake was going to die?
This is so sneaky, it's so insidious. Because Blake is going to die if he doesn't get help at the right time and place, but he's also going to die anyways. Padraic is being so clever at his little manipulations, and we know that at some point they work.
Could she accept responsibility for another Thorburn’s death? She had to.
And she refuses him, for the second time. She refuses Blake for the second time. And we know that good things come in threes. But also, this has to be a really painful choice for Maggie to make, especially since she just framed it using the second most horrible thing that's ever happened to her.
“They called you the wild card. Be wild, Maggie Holt,” Patrick said.
THIS IS SOMETHING I WANT
but the mouthpiece feeding it into the story is friggin Padraic!
It's so goood
“Then you leave me no choice but to make one grand offer,” Patrick said. “You want power? Shall I put Maggie Holt in the same place as one of the more powerful and respected beings in the area?”
Yes, please, absolutely!
I mean uh
[halfhearteldy] nooo, dooon't
“Trading in opportunities and maybes alone is feeble. It can breed ill-will with the spirits, if you leave too much abstractness up in the air. What if we agreed to the deal, you refused the opportunity, gave consideration to serving as the diabolist’s champion, and decided against that too? The spirits might sort through all that, trying to decide if we’re disturbing the system or if the deal was struck in good faith. Much like someone might draw ire if they tried to game the system.”
One of the only times we've seen someone deal in abstracts and maybes is when Padraic himself took Blake's consideration on a deal at a later date, interestingly enough.
but I like the details on spirits, because it's a part of the world that I never thought of, but makes a lot of sense
He bowed a little, “In this shop that smells like rancid grease, I hereby offer Maggie Holt a ring from my finger, impregnated with my power, should you accept this deal. It bears a connection to me, and through it, the owner can draw out glamour until I’m spent of it for one month’s time, thirty days.” Maggie managed to suppress her shock. She settled for being very still, her eyes fixated on the ring. Gold and obsidian, with the gold formed into branch-like protrusions. “You’ve lost it if you’re offering that.” “Not at all. Handing this over would mean I’m extending a measure of trust. Imagine it as a prelude to taking me on as a familiar, Maggie my dear.”
Oh that, that is the worst idea but I absolutely love it. That dynamic would be so much fun, and I want Maggie to become more powerful....one of the steps to power is familiarhood, after all. The worst parts of me are screaming at Maggie to take it. Hell, I absolutely would, against all better judgement.
Think of how much power that is, that he's offering!
“And again, you’re still assuming I want you as a familiar. I’m not even sure I like you.”
lol 1
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Funky 13-Aug-19 10:16 PM
impregnated with my power
I have read this line like a dozen times, it always takes me by surprise and grosses me out a bit
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 10:16 PM
at least it's not pregnant with his dead teammates
If you were to take this ring and prove you won’t abuse the ability to wield all the control over glamour I have, and if make a good showing of it, I would sign myself to you as a subordinate familiar, swearing whatever oaths are necessary to keep my power from overwhelming you. Maybe you don’t like me, but I think you like the font of power I offer, my knowledge and skills.”
Is it bad that I really, really, really want her to take this deal?
Gods, I'd be a horrible practitioner, wouldn't I
“I’m going to look inside my bag first,” she said. “I reserve the right to take stuff out, if I don’t want you to have it.” “You’re considering my offer then?” Patrick asked. He smiled, hitting her with glamour again. “Fantastic.”
Each beat of hitting her with glamour feels so slimy, so gross and...entrancing
Ah!
Jay!
Snap out of it! You're falling to his charms!
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Seregraug 13-Aug-19 10:22 PM
The only thing falling you should do with Faeries is when you’re leaping to attack them with cold iron.
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 10:22 PM
well, you're not wrong
But if we're all being honest, practitioners have specialties
When it comes to familiars, Maggie's other option would seem to be a goblin, if she wants to maximize power and play to her strengths.
And if they're both going to be positively awful, well, why not have the awful thing that's nice to look at, anyways!?
(this is mostly a joke, I'm well aware of the additional danger that a dangerous thing acquires by being beautiful)
(on the other hand...)
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Seregraug 13-Aug-19 10:25 PM
Faeries seem far more deceptive than Goblins. Better a knife where you can see it.
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Wildbow 13-Aug-19 10:25 PM
A knife when you can't see it, or a serrated knife crusted in semen and communicable diseases, when you can?
fine 2
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 10:26 PM
Well, when you put it that way
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Seregraug 13-Aug-19 10:26 PM
Always such...evocative imagery, WB. fine
(Plus the Faeries would probably lace their knives with Irukandji jellyfish venom) (edited)
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 10:28 PM
But that's so classy! It's almost an honor to die by!
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Seregraug 13-Aug-19 10:29 PM
It’s also rated as the most painful thing that’s possible to experience as a human.
fine
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 10:29 PM
Ah.
See, now I thought you were talking about the zombie powder
and I was hyped to be a zombie
but now, hhhhhh
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Seregraug 13-Aug-19 10:30 PM
My parents saw a documentary before going to Australia about them and some Researchers who got stung. They were in the hospital maxed out on Morphine and begging for death.
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 10:30 PM
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaathat'sterrifying
and you're right about it being the Faerie kind of weapon
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Seregraug 13-Aug-19 10:31 PM
And they are small enough to slip though jellyfish nets. 🙂
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 10:31 PM
I can hear Patrick giggling in the background amongst the screams.
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spinagon 13-Aug-19 10:31 PM
to prove it was the cause of Irukandji syndrome, he captured the tiny jelly and allowed it to sting him, while his 9-year-old son and a lifeguard observed the symptoms (and then rushed him to the intensive care unit).
Classic
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David Hunt 13-Aug-19 10:32 PM
They were in the hospital maxed out on Morphine and begging for death.
Ward Okay. Dose Teacher with that and put him a Gray Boy loop and I think I can forgive his part in killing Ashley.
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 10:32 PM
Spoilz I can click on!!!!
Gimmie!
Right you are, David
“I harbor no animosity toward you, Maggie dear,” Patrick said. “I find you interesting, I would tarnish myself if I suggested becoming a familiar to someone boring. I’m motivated by interest: Maggie Holt in one hand, Toronto in the other. Combining the two seems like common sense.”
chanting Do it, do it, do it, do it!
“You could probably have distracted them a bit longer,” she said. “Yes, but I’m impatient,” Patrick said. “Yes or no?” Maggie drummed her fingers more. “Yes.”
See, and I was impatient too! We think so alike, Padraic! That worries me so much! If I were immortal this is exactly what the fuck I would become with enough time and I don't know exactly what that says about me! Hhhhhhhhhhhh
“This will do,” Patrick said. He picked one piece of paper from among the various slips and handouts she’d stuck between pages, so everything fell in chronological order. The test paper, with the underlined ‘D’ on it.
Hmmm, what could that be saying? I'm not sure how it's a token counterpart to the ring, but maybe I'm missing something
when it first came up, it was a symbol of how Maggie's classwork was suffering because of her practicing...
He tore off one corner, “I’ll give this to you, my dear.” She took the test paper. Every part of it, the underlined D included, was present. “I don’t understand.”
Oh no
He'd better not have taken her god damn apologies
Patrick turned the slip of paper around so she could read it. Maggie Holt
THAT'S WORSE, IT'S WORSE SWEET SCION
“Keep calling me ‘my dear’, it’s weird and creepy.” She knew she sounded defensive, but she didn’t like this unease in her gut. “What should I call you, then?” She opened her mouth, but the name wouldn’t come forth.
AAAAAAAAAAAAA
I've been duped
this girl whose head we're in has been duped
we've all been duped and I was an idiot and you guys were right and faeries are awful
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Seregraug 13-Aug-19 10:40 PM
This part made me burst out laughing
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 10:40 PM
As a light rule, you're generally less trusting of the denizens of this book than I am, Sere
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Seregraug 13-Aug-19 10:40 PM
Others bad. disdain
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 10:40 PM
Yeah....
I know...
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Seregraug 13-Aug-19 10:41 PM
Except demons, you can trust us.
😈 1
I mean them
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 10:41 PM
but they're sometimes really hot and I'm weak willed!
Oh of course
“The deal was that the ring would go to Maggie Holt,” Patrick said. “Maggie Holt is my name.” His name in the possessive.
What does this do to deals? What are the repercussions!? I mean obviously, when Blake says something like "I name Maggie Holt as my fifth champion" it's referring to Padraic now, but what about "fire and blood and shit happens twice more to Maggie Holt"? This might be...well maybe not equal parts good and bad, but it might have its benefits
“Who am I?” she asked. It was such a dumb question, but it held so much weight. “That is a very good question,” Patrick said, with a smile. “I’d hurry up and answer it. Names are a lynchpin in the composition of our being. You’re going to suffer if you don’t fill that void.”
HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA
I've actually likened the way Glamour works to how changing your name works in this very liveread before
The fact that this happens in an arc called Signature is just the greatest
I'm so into this
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David Hunt 13-Aug-19 10:45 PM
To quote a wise fellow named jaymaniac
the arc's name is Signature we're gonna be dealing with lots of name-related metaphors and microcosms
You had it already.
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 10:46 PM
sharkhi
I wish I were as smart as that guy sometimes
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David Hunt 13-Aug-19 10:47 PM
Maybe he's been replaced by a faerie. faemaniac. (edited)
Ilovethis 2
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 10:47 PM
This halloween I'm glamoring myself up as Faemaniac
1000%
“I look forward to this,” she said, “Getting to go to Toronto. Finally getting out of this city. While you’re suffering for lack of a name, I’ll be shoring up my disguise. If it makes you feel any better, I’ll help out Mr. Thorburn.”
That part actually does make me feel better. As horrible as this might be, it might enable Maggie to take the families' contract...
of course
most contracts will ask you to...
sign your name at the bottom
Ah! This is so cool!
The conflict of this arc is shaping up to be this girl here finding her name, and that's gonna be so much fun, it's gonna let us explore the themes of name within the world of pact (which is especially interesting to someone who just changed their name), and it's gonna let the book do all sorts of cool things.
“You’re a bastard,” the girl in the real checkered scarf said.
Like this! The book stops referring to her as Maggie because that's not her name
A moment later, she found the Athame. She stepped close, hiding the weapon with her body until the last possible moment. Maggie blocked it with a fork, catching the blade between the tines.
and even better, it starts referring to Padraic as Maggie instead, making this confusing when you first read it, and then so, so cool once you figure it out!
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David Hunt 13-Aug-19 10:51 PM
A girl who swears.
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 10:52 PM
OH FUCK
I DIDN'T EVEN CATCH THAT
Maggie Holt is not allowed to swear!
“This implement, if I remember the rituals right, rightfully belongs to Maggie Holt, the name is invoked as part of the ritual. I can’t really use it, but I’ll have to make do,” Maggie said, taking her implement in hand. “You’re already weaker, I can tell.”
This is the worst. She's deprived of her name, her implement, her dignity...but there's hope, because there's a lot of awful shit that came with her name, that might not happen now.
I don't actually know if that's true
Fuck
it's probably not
I can't remember if her name was invoked when she took the deal for blood and fire
“Don’t interrupt,” Maggie said, whispering in the other girl’s ear. “Save your breath, and save your strength. You’ll need both. Like I said, you have lessons to learn. Doors have opened to you, as they are wont to do for lost souls.” “Fuck you,” the girl in the checkered scarf spat the words, despite the fingers at her throat.
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahaha
I'm so excited!
What kind of doors have opened!? What does one do, without a name? What are they defined by? What does their identity mean?
She knocked, unable to breathe past the lump in her throat. The lack of recognition in their eyes was like a sword through her heart. She looked like their daughter, but she wasn’t Maggie Holt. When push came to shove, the latter won out over the former.
Nooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!
😢
I guess I got my first of many answers
That's the end of the chapter
one of the most morbidly fun chapters we've read so far, and I'm kind of sorry that Padraic isn't gonna be part of the rest of the arc, since I enjoy reading about him so much
But I'm into the conflict, I'm invested, I really wanna keep going but that'll wait till later today, I think
I'm planning to take a bit of a break, and then read 8.3 from 3 to 5 PST, so it doesn't interfere with WGW recording. See you then!
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David Hunt 13-Aug-19 10:59 PM
I think the new Ward chapter's about to drop any minute.
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 11:00 PM
oh joy, more pain
he said, unironically
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David Hunt 13-Aug-19 11:00 PM
You also might get something out of going through Padraic's dialogue of 8.2 and seeing with he says "Maggie" vs when he says "you."
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 11:03 PM
I actually already did! As soon as he started clarifying exactly what he took, I went back with ctrl f to find the instances
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David Hunt 13-Aug-19 11:04 PM
I came through there in a binge. I didn't have the discipline to go back. I've been vicariously taking advantage of text you quoted.
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JayManiac 13-Aug-19 11:04 PM
Happy to help!
While you're waiting, have a sketch of Laird that I might develop more if I have time! Rest in mild agony, my man
Ilovethis 1
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JayManiac 14-Aug-19 12:48 AM
Just listened to Deep in Pact, really psyched that you guys were able to break down the fun of Maggie's lines from Toronto, so I didn't have to. The conversation around Padraic was just so interesting, because I think he's still just so relatable
Like, if I had power and nothing to do in a world I saw as being for my own entertainment,
well hell, I'd probably go sling eggs at Others with Blake fuckin Thorburn too!
Also, when you said: "If you'd like to support more faerie impersonation stories-" or something to that effect at the end of the episode, it led to the realization that- from a certain perspective- both Parahuman books count as Faerie Impersonation Stories, which is just so much fun.
"And other stories too!" "But mostly faerie impersonation stories"
Well, given that 3/4 stories that Wb's written theoretically fit the bar...
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JayManiac 14-Aug-19 01:08 AM
Alright! It's time to jump into 8.3. When we last left off, Maggie was running off to Toronto to have a fuckin blast. The girl in the checkered scarf, though, was pretty screwed.
“Motherfucker!” She could swear.
Hahahahahahaha
Same, Ma- uh...protagonist girl
Dammit! Dammit fuckin dammit all to hell. This stupid curse pertains to you, not Maggie
that would've been too easy
I had to go check.
Just to remind myself of how screwed she really is.
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Elliot (Boy) 14-Aug-19 01:15 AM
haha I did the same thing
"does this mean she got out of... no of course not"
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JayManiac 14-Aug-19 01:16 AM
it doubly sucks because Padraic's the kind of person who'd enjoy such an opportunity
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Elliot (Boy) 14-Aug-19 01:17 AM
I would also enjoy it happening to Padraic
but hopefully for different reasons
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JayManiac 14-Aug-19 01:17 AM
See but that's because what Padraic wants is so often what we the reader would want
except wishing pain on him specifically, yes
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Elliot (Boy) 14-Aug-19 01:18 AM
Yeah the Faerie are so fun to read
if they were real I'd have a panic attack
but in the story they're top
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JayManiac 14-Aug-19 01:19 AM
But the thing with the faerie is, I'm super duper sure that if you left me with a fair bit of power for thousands of years, I'd turn out exactly like Padraic
same 1
The clumsiness had nothing at all to do with the tears that insisted on sitting at the corner of each eye, not large enough to come free with a blink, yet re-emerging if she scrubbed one away with her hand. She set her jaw, clenched her fists, and marched.
She's a tenacious one, she always has been. I wonder how much of the rest of her identity went with the name. Obviously recognizability, but since that's a name's primary purpose it makes an amount of sense. But if I think of "Maggie Holt" as brave or tenacious, I'll bet that the spirits kind of do too, and some of that identity goes to Padraic, part and parcel with what he got. Not everything, obviously, but more than just the ah...signature itself.
If he was heading to Toronto, and he wasn’t using her parents to get a ride, there were really only three options. Bus, train, or walk. Walking would take too long.
Interesting. So her move in this moment is to go after Maggie, rather than try to seek out the means of finding a name some other way. It makes sense, it's just not what I expected.
“Padraic,” she said. “Or Maggie Holt, if you insist on using that name, you pricklet. Fucker. Where the dog-diddling fuck are you?”
She may be nigh-powerless right now, but this girl with the power to swear is a force the world was unprepared for.
Twas a vital limit to her power
Only taken from her because of how god damn great at it she was
A shadow moved in the darkness, dodging out of sight, as if barely staying out of her field of vision. That would be design more than it was luck.
Still playing his games! He's so much fun, because he doesn't just want to get away, he wants to just barely get away by the skin of his teeth, and revel in the frustration of his pursuer. It's just perfect!
The wind wasn’t even blowing her way, but she still scented the faintest whiff of something rancid.
I love that this was set up by buttsack's interlude, that at least some minor goblins have this ability, because we figure it out pretty much exactly as Ma- as our protagonist does
The other instance had been the first instance. Her hometown. Her home, she still thought of it sometimes. Even if she’d left it behind, unsalvageable, thoroughly ruined.
I just realized what the combined force of many minor goblins, led by a few major or mid-tier ones, would be capable of. It was kind of hard to reconcile the fact that Dickswizzle was something with the same classification as the things that destroyed the town, but now that we've seen how mischievous, how uncatchable, how life ruining they can be, it's not hard to picture what a horde of them does to any particular place.
Fucked. Being able to swear wasn’t nearly as fun or relieving as she might have hoped, considering the cost.
Oh speak for yourself, I'm having a blast!
The one eye that appeared beneath the car with the popped tire was a yellow slit, just barely catching the light. It was wide, focusing on her, then narrowed, as if the face was contorting with emotion.
This conceit- that goblins are easy to deal with if you have the first move- is a lot of fun, because they can be the totally dorky, ditzy, small-potatoes type monsters, but they can also be terrifying without that advantage.
“You told us the game,” a voice sounded, from higher up. There, a tree not far away, further up the road. The voice was high, with a ragged edge, like it belonged to some rejected chain-smoking muppet.
I'm so glad she can cut loose with the language now. I picture most goblins as rejected chainsmoking muppets. I'm guessing Maggie came by to set these goblins on our protagonist's tail? Keep her busy till he's "safely" in Blake's company?
And one behind her made four.
The steady uptick in the number of goblins around is building the tension, and the nighttime scene is helping with the creepiness, not to mention the inner monologue about how fucked she is.
Every afternoon since Molly Walker had died, without fail, she’d made one trip to talk to the girl’s ghost. The idea was to confess, to tell stories about stupid day to day stuff, to lay herself bare. Every day, she’d made a point of reminding herself of what she’d done. What she’d helped bring to pass.
That's really really admirable, and it's a great conceit if I'm right about these talks being chapters of the Maggie Holt books, with the ghost as the framing device
Now that I'm thinking about it, that might be a little bit dark for books that Vista thinks she's outgrown by the time she's thirteen
Was this divine retribution? She wasn’t one to believe in god. Less so since learning about the existence of gods, odd as that might be.
Retribution? Hmm, I think Buddhists have a word for that, but you probably haven't heard of it.
The other part of this statement is telling, though. The problem of evil is that much more of a problem when you're in the world of Pact, and we've seen other practitioners lose and retain their faith in capital G God in the context of Black Lamb's Blood.
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Elliot (Boy) 14-Aug-19 01:43 AM
Now that I'm thinking about it, that might be a little bit dark for books that Vista thinks she's outgrown by the time she's thirteen TBF I can't really imagine anything from Pact that I'd think is okay for people that age
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JayManiac 14-Aug-19 01:43 AM
It's an interesting metaphysical question, since the christian God absolutely does exist in the world of Pact...just a matter of what He really is...
Okay true
but
At least with Maggie narrating it to Molly, there wouldn't be any swearing...?
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Elliot (Boy) 14-Aug-19 01:44 AM
yeah that is the one fun idea
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JayManiac 14-Aug-19 01:44 AM
I dunno, when I first read the end of 8.1 I was like "she's writing the book this is it"
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Elliot (Boy) 14-Aug-19 01:44 AM
but it does feel like the book would be - "fudge you" he swore, as he slowly slit her throat
which idk maybe in a world with endbringers isn't as big a deal
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JayManiac 14-Aug-19 01:45 AM
Yeah, I think a lot of what might even start to make it appropriate is that it would be narrated by Maggie...instead of Wildbow.
And it's also possible that maybe kids are just super desensitized and parents don't give a shit anymore ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
also also possible: Vista was reading way out of her age demographic but still thinks she's outgrown fictional violence because now she deals with real actual violence on a daily basis
that's gonna be my headcanon for now
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Elliot (Boy) 14-Aug-19 01:52 AM
Also I was catching up to the Ward audiobook yesterday and Kenzie references "the Conquest arc of the Maggie Holt books" which... has interesting implications as to who the author was
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JayManiac 14-Aug-19 01:52 AM
ohno
I WANT THE MAGGIE HOLT BOOKS TO BE REAL SO BAD
Because I imagine the narration would just shift slightly, towards a Maggie that's more fun, more delighted to be in her situation, more eager for violence and interestingness
and it'd be left to the reader to figure out what...exactly...happened
Now I will be on the lookout for this metanarrative element in every wildbow story moving forwards.
There. Fermented testicle sweat, fecal matter and hot garbage, right in her face, in the moment she looked down to catch her balance. The wind direction and smell combined- Yes. Buttsack stood in the middle of the sidewalk.
The buildup of goblins slowly surrounding her, was all so fantastic that I wanted to pull every single line, so I'm gonna just leave my praise for the viscerality of it here, where we meet our true antagonist. in the words of a Haiku by the great poet Bo Burnham himself, Ah, there he is. That motherfucker. What a tool.
He was bigger than most of the local goblins, tougher. He didn’t shiver, despite the cold, even though he had only coarse body hair, a pair of shorts that reached his ankles, a pair of panties on his head, scrunching up loose flesh around the elastic. A scrap of paper in his hand, fluttering in the wind.
You know, I thought they had to switch between being hilarious and being horrifying, but it turns out, they can pull both off at once!
It unsettled, seeing him like this. Even with a pair of underpants pulled tight over his head, the crotch covering one eye. Her underpants, as it happened.
AUHGHH
That's so much worse
and it seems to confirm what Ishamoridan was saying earlier, about the goblins not really being in it for the perversion, the lust, the greed, it's more to deprive the person of wealth, or to violate their privacy specifically
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Elliot (Boy) 14-Aug-19 02:00 AM
it's so horrifically fun though
slightly different position on the horror-funny scale than Faerie shenanigans, but equally hilarious IMO
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JayManiac 14-Aug-19 02:01 AM
Oh absolutely. I'd even say it's a reversal of it!
With fae, the funny part is the clever wordplay, the subtle choices in presentation
where the horror lies deep within
With the goblins, the funny part is the least intelligent humor you can manage: Haha he's got underwear on his head
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Elliot (Boy) 14-Aug-19 02:02 AM
faerie and goblin feuds are narcissism of small differences. cmv. disdain
but no for real the comparisons/contrasts between them (and using the not-Maggie in the middle as the device to compare them) is great.
agree 1
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JayManiac 14-Aug-19 02:04 AM
They certainly deal with the same elements of humanity: perception, reaction, emotional bad or good as opposed to metaphysical bad or good.
But in the end a lot of it is via the same methods, when you abstract out.
They put things in places that they know will cause shitty results (or interesting results in the case of the fae)
and I somehow think they see the world similarly, via perception, pulling out the ugliest parts of reality to think about and define things by. It's just that the goblins react to that by ruining everything and the faeries react to it by making it beautiful
so they can ruin it more
She bent at the knees to collect it, and saw the shadow of the goblin with the sack behind her. Squat, neckless, bug-eyed. She recognized it as one of the ones she’d directed at Molly Walker.
It's an awfully, awfully small world here in Jacob's Bell
but isn't that just the worst detail?
that she knows that specifically these goblins are more than capable of mauling and partially-eating a teenage girl?
The writing was florid, complete with a stylized capital letter starting each paragraph. It was easy enough to read in the clear moonlight.
Not-so-hot take: Faerie are the personification of Extra
(edited)
How odd, I don’t believe I’m certain who I should name in the salutations. I trust that if it’s found its way to your hands, the letter is intended for you.
You smug, arrogant, delightful sunuvabitch
It’s part of the terms for a game I’ve set up, you see.
HA! What did I say not a chapter ago!?
I love it so much
The boxes stacked in the bedroom said ‘Maggie Holt’ on them, so I went on to assume it’s my room. A brief word with the two gay gentlemen who own the house helped clarify the matter, with both assuring me that the room was mine and it was mine for keeps.
A lesser antagonist wouldn't go to all the trouble of walking us through exactly, exactly how he completed each step of what the fuck he just did, but lucky for us Padraic's got our back! He wouldn't leave us hanging like that, he's got to spell it out! For dramatic effect. He's quickly leaping up the favorite character rungs.
But it's not exactly the same favorite character rungs that Blake and Evan and Ty are on, it's more the ones that March and Mr. Nobody and Azula are on
he underlines 'my' the little Extra prick
I realize I’ve left you in dire circumstances. As I said, no hard feelings are intended. In the interest of fairness, I’m thinking I might flip a coin.
It's perfect! it's all perfect! I'm gonna stop fawning over Padraic now- or rather, pulling out quotes just to fawn over him, but it's just so fun to read that I have the immediate desire to share it with everyone
I have heard the Fair Folk do like their lopsided deals, which is surely in the realm of your imagination, so you might naturally conclude that I have spent the last two centuries or so practicing the flipping of coins in such a way that I almost always get the result I want.
he has absolutely spent the last two centuries doing exactly this. But also it doesn't really matter, since he'll inevitably settle on what he wants to do anyways.
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Wildbow 14-Aug-19 02:20 AM
'surely in the realm of your imagination'
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JayManiac 14-Aug-19 02:21 AM
AHHHh I didn't catch that but I really really should've!
I should probably just assume that anything idiomological that Padraic says is a metaphysically real concept
I did claim a set of gremlins bound in papers as I passed through the bedroom.
And thank sweet scion you did, for those gremlins will lead to possibly one of the greatest moments in history.
I’m not quite a practitioner, you see, and certain deals and powers afforded to mortals aren’t for my like to claim. Certain tricks, yes, but there are rules to be observed. Give me time to get more settled into this skin, and that may change.
Could he just eventually become the thing he's glamoured as? I think we've been led to believe that yes, he absolutely could. But is this a desirable escape from his exile? To become, to believe he is a young practitioner? Maybe it's his dream, to be young and new and easily amused again. To be vulnerable to age and all the other things that plague the almost-humans.
As to the nature of the game itself, it is exceedingly simple. If their quarry is able to walk, hold pen or parcel, speak or see by sunrise, the goblins lose. If none of those things are possible, bragging rights abound for these little pests and buggers!
Sweet Scion. She's so friggin screwed. I thought she'd have at least a little bit of a shot, but what the hell is she supposed to do against unbound goblins, with no tools whatsoever and no way to make deals without a name?
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Elliot (Boy) 14-Aug-19 02:31 AM
surely in the realm of your imagination
what am I missing?
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JayManiac 14-Aug-19 02:33 AM
I have to admit I'm not entirely sure of my interpretation, but I thought it was a reference to Faerie, which is, of course, a realm composed of human imagination. As I'm rereading it, though, I'm less and less sure.
She wanted to continue speaking, but she went too fast, and her voice caught. Three or four thoughts were snapping together all at once. The hints. Stated twice. In the search for the hints, she found the answer.
Speaking of missing things, I've read this letter like three times and still haven't found the hints. I get that his "brevity" means that there's something to be found through close analysis, but I'm not finding it.
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Elliot (Boy) 14-Aug-19 02:38 AM
Yeah I couldn't find them either
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JayManiac 14-Aug-19 02:38 AM
There are also the two underlined words, "my" and "you" respectively, but I've read each of those sentences like ten times and I'm really bad at riddles. Isadora would be disappointed.
they might have to do with her room and the prize respectively, but that's all I got
Right here, this was the trick. She took a step forward, eyes still on the page. She could tell that Buttsack hadn’t moved out of her way. “You promised not to interfere with the reading.”
Hahahahahahahahahahaha, I'm not entirely sure if this is one of the hints or tricks but hell if it works, I'm living proof that you can just keep reading this thing again and again while getting nowhere, but getting somewhere. Or somewhen.
“This isn’t going to work. She’s going to walk to sanctuary.” “Maybe a cloud will pass over the moon?” “Useless fuckspittle. We can do better than maybes.”
This, this is the conflict that the chapter is based on!?
Oh I'm so ready
When Padraic first sent the letter, I was like "what? She just has to avoid being killed/mauled by goblins? Well that's not as terribly interesting as I'd hoped" but of course he had something else in store for her, this hilarious, ultra-unique conflict that we immediately understand, but we've never seen before.
She couldn’t read and run at the same time. If she tried and failed, then one of the goblins could call her on it, and this would go from bad to worse.
There are all these limitations that the kind of person who tries to read books every waking moment of their lives (the same kind of person who's gonna be reading pact in the first place) will immediately understand. She can't see where she's going, she can't get too unfocused, she can't move into a spot that's too dark, she can't move too quickly, etc.
Just as ‘Maggie’ had said, she couldn’t give chase now. No, she wouldn’t call him that. Padraic was still his name, and thinking or speaking the name would maybe help hammer at the trickery and put cracks in it.
I'd like to think that the moments she says or thinks the name 'Padraic' perfectly coincide with all the moments Blake feels...off about Maggie
Padraic had arranged this. He had putting her in a situation where she couldn’t chase him. Where she was sufficiently distracted, pinned down in Jacob’s Bell, unable to leave out of concern that he would return, or that her fathers would fall prey to the goblins. They weren’t quite innocent of Other things, but they did have protections. She had to wonder if it was enough.
Nope, not likely at all. Especially because goblins were perfectly capable of killing a whole town of innocents, including (almost) your dads. We've seen what goblins can do to innocents, and it stretches far beyond the tolerable.
No crosswalk sign. A shadow moved. A goblin was perched on the crosswalk light, blocking her from seeing the ‘walk’ or ‘don’t walk’ signs opposite her.
Ah, see they can't interfere with the reading, so they have to interfere with things that'll interfere with the reading. I was confused at what their scheme was, before, when they were talking about clouds. They can't just climb up on something and cast a shadow.
There was one car two blocks over. Too far away to be a problem. Except it didn’t stop at the one intersection. The sigh? The sign. The goblins had taken down a stop sign, or enchanted it, or both.
I'm constantly surprised at how clever these little shits can be when they have all of the first moves.
Where the hell was she supposed to go? She had no home to go to. No friends, not really.
I'm desperately hoping that this, this is the moment for Lola's redemption, for her to save Maggie and ride off into the sunrise....prolly not tho
The closest things she had to friends were Blake, who wasn’t even here… Padraic came to mind, which would be a laugh if it wasn’t so fucking tragically sad.
Hahahahahaheh...heh...heeee.....😭
“What if we get some jerkbutt that didn’t swear nothing?” Cumnugget asked. “Who isn’t playing the game?” She felt a chill.
Ever since that one gremlin had an english accent I'm imagining any goblin I like with it. "Wot if we git sum jerkbutt who din sweah nuffin?"
I knew it maybe had something to do with the underlined words...even though I missed that one completely
I just reread the letter for more underlined words and couldn't find any, by the way
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Wildbow 14-Aug-19 03:02 AM
surely in the realm of your imagination what am I missing?
He's talking about lopsided deals and saying "Hey, I'm sure you have the imagination to piece that notion together" right after he fucked her over with one.
ty 2
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JayManiac 14-Aug-19 03:02 AM
Oooh
Oh that is just another layer of smug bastard
She didn’t know the streets exactly, but she was fairly certain she was in the right area. These houses had more presence, being larger. They loomed shadowy and grim like tombstones dwelling at the edge of her vision.
Is she trying to find the Hillsglade House?
Or maybe the Duchamps? I mean, if she won't go to Laird for obvious reasons (plus he's in toronto and won't be coming back) then there aren't too many other powerhouses besides Duchamps, Briar Girl, and Johannes
Cumnugget was here with the other goblins in tow. The girl in the checkered scarf ran, the reading abandoned.
Oh fuck, we're in the shit now!
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Wildbow 14-Aug-19 03:06 AM
When 'cumnugget was here' is an 'oh shit' line.
lol 4
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JayManiac 14-Aug-19 03:08 AM
I mean, if Buttsack standing with underwear on his head was a horrifying image, then cumnugget...yeah it's pretty ludacris
Her focus was warped, after so much attention given to the page a matter of feet from her face. The world appeared distorted, darker in contrast to the paleness of the page under the strong moonlight. The houses all looked the same.
What the heck is she looking for!? Is she trying to get back to her house, to Maggie Holt's house? or trying to get to a potential ally?
She didn’t hold Buttsack’s hands. The wound in her leg screamed at her as she half-twisted, driving him into the railing. Something hard in the goblin met the hardness of the railing. Metal sang its sweet song.
This is one of the fights that feels scrappy, without Blake's added problems with personal space. It's just a good ol fashioned goblin bashin'
She reached into her pocket and found her keys, saw the goblin’s bulldoggy face, and realized there wasn’t a weak point to strike at, then thought twice about it.
I can picture the shot of her raising her keys, the shot of Buttsack's face, the shot of her just going 'oh shit' and booking it. Just [italian hand-kiss thingy]. Perfect.
One, squirrel-sized, pounced onto her shoulder, a fork in each hand.
I like that goblins don't have a set design, they're just super ugly and multicolored and multishaped and sized so we can get all this variety as they're trying to kill her
Half had scraps of her clothing. They wore them as trophies or clothing, or had desecrated the items with filth, or largely destroyed them. If Padraic had been done this to make her feel more violated, it worked.
You just know he did, too
which is exactly where his motivations kind of line up with the goblins', who do this kind of thing for exactly the same reasons
A hand settled on her shoulder. The girl in the checkered scarf looked up at Sandra Duchamp.
I was right!!!!
I've never ever ever been more happy
to see Sandra Duchamp
Her relief was powerful enough to wipe out the brief surge of strength adrenaline had given her. Her leg did buckle.
I feel exactly this, and I hope to Sweet Scion that Sandra's not just gonna screw her over
“I could ask for concessions,” Sandra said. “Blake Thorburn-” “I’ll make-” “Shh,” Sandra cut her off, the sound surprisingly sharp. “I could, but I won’t.” “Because you’re leaving her for us?” one goblin asked. “No,” Sandra said. “I’ll grant sanctuary to this stupid little girl.
Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou
I think we knew that Sandra wasn't a horrible enough person to let Maggie die via goblin
nah
we didn't know that at all, but I'm glad that it's true
wasn't she complicit in the attack on Molly? I know Laird gave the orders, but I thought Sandra agreed to it.
“I don’t have to swear anything?” the girl asked, wavering on her feet. “No,” Sandra said.
This is its own little variety of heartwarming
I'd like to think that some part of her can empathize, can imagine one of her daughters in this position, about to be goblin-grub, and...she can't just let it go.
And this is one of the Duchamps, one of the ones who were so intent on staying out of it, on keeping the status quo. It has interesting parallels to when Lola ignored this very same goblin's other victims.
Sandra put one hand on the girl’s chin and used the leverage to turn the girl’s head, peering at the wound at the corner of her chin. “Oh my. What did you do to yourself?” “I got forked.” “Not what I was talking about, but yes, we’ll need to clean that promptly. Goblins like to taint their weapons. We’ll hope it’s only feces.”
Wildbow's previous comments in the channel are sitting uncomfortably in the back half of my brain right now.
Plus, she's probably talking about the fact that she sold her name away to padraic
“When I was teaching my nieces to drive, I told them they won’t learn proper respect for the road until they had an accident of some sort. Maybe that’s silly, but I think the notion applies to the practice, too.” “‘Accident’ sounds like it’s too mild for this degree of fuck up. Oh god, ow, shit, my leg hurts.”
Hey! Now I can relate to her even more! The reason I'm sick right now, actually, is because I let someone with the cold into my house and didn't make them leave when I figured it out. I'm immune compromised, so my mom would've usually given them the boot, but I didn't want to be rude. And then I got sick, so, uh...that's my screwup. I've talked myself into thinking that it's actually a bit of a blessing that I learned the lesson before college, where it'd probably be a lot more of a hassle. Maggie, on the other hand...yeah, there's not really a reason this wasn't a colossal fuckup.
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Wildbow 14-Aug-19 03:29 AM
Jeez
You doing ok? A cold when immune compromised sounds awful
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JayManiac 14-Aug-19 03:31 AM
It usually is, I've had them last for weeks. But this one seems mild, and they've eased up on my immunosuppression as I've gotten older. Left me completely dead-in-the-water for three days, but I'm starting to feel a bit better today.
I give it another three or so days before I'm up and at em again, but thanks for asking
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Wildbow 14-Aug-19 03:33 AM
G'luck wrestling with that. Being sick is miserable.
ty 1
same 1
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JayManiac 14-Aug-19 03:35 AM
Hear, hear!
at least I get to catch up on all my shows and, as I've been feeling a bit better, books. This is more media than I've consumed in the past month!
“Why help me?” “You might call it an urge to express a frustrated maternal instinct,” Sandra said.
This is tragic and touching in equal measure. She probably feels protective of all the duchamps, her nieces, but the fact that she so easily picks out daughter figures, when she couldn't have one of her own...
“Not a loner, exactly. I revel in politics, in family business. Dwell too long on such things, however, and I risk losing perspective. I have to step away from it all. The only company I would comfortably invite here is temporary company, like yourself, and one man who is presently in Toronto.”
Oh Jeremy...
but you'd think, with such a plan to not lose her perspective, she'd be less...like, evil.
Books on herbs, cookbooks, wine guides, Tantric sex guidebooks, books on weaving and threads.
I wonder which ones are Jeremy's /s
“One night, for the time being. Faerie are dangerous business. A bad kind of accident to decide to have.
That's such a probably-intentionally scalding way of putting it. An accident she decided to have.
Because this accident was decided the moment she and Padraic set their sights on each other
“Could I reach out to the courts? Get their help? If I turned him in, I could f- mess with him. Throw a wrench in the works.” “Oh,” Sandra said. It sounded like pity distilled. With one hand, she brushed at the girl’s hair.
"Whoever could be so bold as to mess with the powers that be!?" and all.
“Let me get the first aid kit, and you can explain what happened tonight.” “Oh, I can explain right now.” Sandra raised an eyebrow. “I earned my bragging rights.”
Hahahahahaha
she's still her, even if she's not Maggie
and I'm glad to see that, at least (edited)
Great chapter, in the same sort of vein as 1.2. Great stakes, unique conflict that lasted exactly as long as it needed to, plus we got more Padraic-isms so I honestly couldn't've asked for more!
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JayManiac 15-Aug-19 10:56 PM
Let's do this
When we last left off, this girl we've been following was screwed. Not as much as she could be, and with some bragging rights to boot, but I think we can all agree she's not doing too great.
Let's hope Sandra Duchamp...makes things better?
That doesn't happen in this story, does it?
Sunlight streamed through the windows where curtains hadn’t been drawn. Probably intentional on Sandra’s part – an unobtrusive alarm of sorts to ensure the guest wasn’t up too late.
Yeah, she's all kinds of "socially conscious" and "polite" like that. I'd like to think of this as sort of a note of hope, but frankly neither me or this girl have any idea what she's gotta do next to live through tomorrow.
The girl in the checkered scarf -she did still wear the scarf, having fallen asleep in the armchair- was already wide awake.
Thank goodness she's still wearing the scarf, or I'd lose track of our protagonist...man, names are pretty important, aren't they?
Her eyes were fixed on her knees, her mind as active as her body was still. Her thoughts walked the razor’s edge of inspiration and there wasn’t much footing to be had, if any. A misstep meant succumbing to panic.
The "razor's edge of inspiration" is such a cool visual. 'Bow doesn't use these kinds of metaphors as much as some other writers, but when he does he friggin nails it.
Sandra gave her a once-over, a careful, searching look, before deciding, “Wear what you have for now. You won’t be too badly off if you wear those clothes for one more day. When you’re done eating, you can use my shower and dry off before you set out.”
And such is the edge of her hospitality, I suppose. I don't suppose it would extend to helping us figure out what the fuck to do about any of this?
Go to Toronto? No. Padraic was right. A bad idea on a number of levels. Padraic could return, and she needed to look after her dads.
It's more than a little unsettling that we don't know what exactly Padraic did when the contest was over, other than flirt with Blake and leave before he bit it...was bitten...whatever. Isadora says something to the effect of "Maggie was long gone" and since he is Maggie...well, I just don't know what he'd do next. Probably not return to Jacob's Bell.
this for myself,” Sandra said. She tapped the spoon of icing sugar to lightly dust her crepe. “While you washed up, I was thinking about the clothing situation. I do have clothes from when I was about your age. I grew up in this house and left it behind when I moved to Toronto. I’ve never had cause to get rid of it.” “That could be good,” the girl replied. She took a bite. “I’m not sure it would be. You’re coming unraveled, so to speak, and you’ll want to hold tight to those things which tie you to your identity. Physical objects or otherwise.”
There was an inkling of this last chapter, with the swearing. I wonder how taking a new name works exactly? Can she build a new identity for herself? Does it have to be close to the old one, lest she unravel before she can assume it? Does she have to steal it from someone else (probably not, but who knows?)
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JayManiac 15-Aug-19 11:19 PM
When I went about changing my name (an endeavour that spanned this summer) it was a strange set of circumstances. The easiest way to do it would've been to take a name that was close to my previous name, like Jay. I'm known as Jay online anyways, I'm used to it, etc. I didn't, because I like making things hard for myself, but if my life depended on being able to quickly assume an alternate name, then I'd've gone with that. So maybe Maggie could go with some nicknames, or a middle name? Something that's already got a connection to her, but isn't the name she doesn't have anymore.
We haven't heard anything about a middle name, which I think she would've thought of by now, so if she doesn't take someone else's name (as suggested by Elliot) then maybe something derivative of Maggie?
frantic googling sounds
Alright, I'm going with Margaret as my prediction maybe?
Even if maggie wasn't a nickname, she could assume the non-nicked version of it with not too much explanation
The two are probably connected on some level, I mean we know that the behaims have old, stupid sounding names for reasons. Did I call that out as thematically relevant when we got to it? Probably not, but I realize it now.
While she did so, Sandra said, “I’m assuming you don’t know how to put together a model?” “Depends what kind.” “It’s a technique enchanters pick up when first learning. Sometimes you try to manipulate a connection and it goes poorly. When that happens, it can help to have a sense of what exactly has happened. I’ll show you after.”
OooooOOo, fancy!
This had better involve voodoo dolls
Or maybe it's a pure hypothetical, built out of metaphors n stuff. But it'd probably help to tie it to the physical world somehow
“Thank you. Kind of going above and beyond the call of… well, it isn’t even your duty, is it?” “No.” “What’s the catch?”
Sandra's motivations do seem to go a bit beyond maternal attachment and good karma here, but I could be wrong. She could also be looking to bring this unaligned practitioner more into the Duchamps' fold. I really hope that contract from before is still valid, should she find a name to sign it with.
“Laird has a very particular personality. He comes from a particular lineage. I grew up a number of years behind him, and he was always someone I paid attention to, because of his position in his family, the favor that the head of the Behaim showed to him, and because my mother told me to. I know him fairly well, all things considered.” “My condolences.”
Pffft, right?
But this is fascinating- anything on what the Thorburns see as their 'missed generation' is. We see a lot about Lordship, and we still don't exactly know how one assumes that position, but Laird was trying to make a power play there...a lot of things seem to depend on that particular power struggle.
Perhaps you need the consent of the practitioners in the area, or at least the promise that they won't make a huge fuss..Sandra could be trying to get that from our protagonist- but if she signed the contract then she wouldn't interfere anyways...
“Lucky guy, getting all the breaks. A little spoiled, a little messed up because of how one dimensional his social circles were? I think I get it.” “I don’t think he was lucky at all,” Sandra said. “Others in his family have to pay a share of their power, and are restricted in what they can do, as far as the practice goes, but they are free. Laird has had firm hands gripping him by the arm every step of the way. Even now, he’s bound and shackled, playing his role in schemes that were set up before he was born.”
That's a way of seeing Laird that we haven't been privy to lately- just the opposite, I assumed. Aimon seemed to think he was setting Laird free of all this, but perhaps the rest of the family wasn't as forgiving. Or maybe the spirits that the Behaims draw their power from, or even Rosalyn herself bound him to something.
Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Heavy enough, I suppose, to keep you from getting anywhere, if you gotta lug it around. In a world where power is based on connections, it would be easy to become very powerful...yet very very restricted.
“The Lord of Toronto is an entity that doesn’t live or die, but ebbs and flows in power. As of right now, he ebbs. He’s fighting for a foothold. Laird, by contrast, is fighting the course of his own destiny. In the doing, he might be adhering to it, like an animal that struggles against the net that binds it might only trap itself further.” “Uh huh.”
How much will an attempt to "break the cycle" only reaffirm it? The behaims and the thorburns were at odds, Aimon and Rosalyn took steps towards mending that, and then Laird, who should've been the next one to struggle against it, is responsible for the way things are now, with the Behaims and the Thorburns at odds.
How many practitioners have participated in this broken system thinking: "only until I'm powerful enough to change things"
Just to find that, twenty years later, their power is derived from that system, and that to break it would be to render themselves powerless?
“Did you know he gave up a share of his lifespan to his children?” “No.” “I believe he’s been setting his affairs in order. The tone of our last conversation suggested it. It didn’t take much of a push to get him to go to Toronto. He asked me to look after the Behaim family in his absence. Are you seeing where I’m going with this?” “You’re talking about the Lord and Laird in the same breath.”
OH SHIT! He knew he was going to die? Planned for it, even? This seems at odds with the deals we know him to have made with Conquest, but maybe not?
“One and the same?” the girl asked. “Oh. Oh. You think he’s going to sacrifice himself to give the Lord of Toronto a foothold?” Sandra put down her fork, meal finished. “Yes. His personality would fit, and maybe he’s been thinking about this for some time, altering his own perspective, preparing for this. An Incarnation is a representation of that which it represents, in a circular fashion, but it builds its image from pieces given to it. Men that sacrificed themselves, as Laird may hope to sacrifice himself. Laird would give the Lord a more modern perspective, clearer knowledge, and freedom to act outside the confines of its being. In the long term, he would be trapped, largely dead, but in the now, well, he might shake himself free of Destiny’s firm grip.”
Hi, wow, that's the worst idea
I can't decide if this makes me like Laird a little more, see his actions as those of someone sacrificing himself...
But NO
I think it's just as bad
Because in his quest to break free of his destiny, he would've helped the wheel keep turning
He would've sold himself to the broken system that trapped the Atwells for generations
Not that they wouldn't've been a good pair, Conquest and Laird, but they would've been awful for the continued state of the world. The world's better off with a little less Conquest in it, not more.
“Who knows? I do suspect that he won’t return, one way or another. I doubt Blake Thorburn will either. Where does that leave us?” “Well, I’m still here, nameless and kind of screwed.” “And I’m still here as well, very, very much wanting to be Lord, with one potential rival potentially out of the way, and one dangerous element pinned down in Toronto, with signs and portents saying he’s unlikely to return alive. I have to deal with Johannes, as well as other locals. I might need help.”
Hahahahahahahahaha
This is the best, I love this burgeoning friendship and wow I just spelled that word right the first time hell yeah
Who the fuck would've guessed, that Sandra Duchamp might be just as lost and alone and confused as the girl with the checkered scarf is right now?
Okay maybe not quite as desperate and lonely and helpless
but still
She refers to herself and the girl as 'us', they've both lost their only allies to Toronto (which we know is for good), and they've stumbled upon each other in a way that even an enchantress might not have arranged. If this crossover is what we're getting i'm beyond excited.
“Ahhhh. You must be desperate if you’re coming to me.”
That almost sounds like a loki quote
that's because it almost is
“There isn’t a catch, not really,” Sandra said, “My niece called you a wild card, didn’t she?” The girl in the checkered scarf nodded.
!!!!
This makes me so happy!!!
Sandra needs a wild card, and this card is so wild I don't even know what to call her!
Also: gonna go meta here for a second
without the name, the narrative itself has a hard time keeping track of her, only being able to refer to her as the 'girl with the checkered scarf'. If she lost that, what would we call her?
By the same token, if the narrative lost track of her, I think that's precisely the moment she'd unravel.
Just like Elliot and Reuben are having trouble talking about her on the podcast, and I'm having trouble referring to her with anything but a pronoun at the moment, the universe has trouble with things that aren't named.
It's just a cool little meta connection that works in the context of the story
“Maybe. Is that your subtle way of reminding me that you could have forced me to turn on Blake in exchange for sanctuary?” “Yes. In fact, as I first spoke to you, I was already working out this conversation for this morning. Bookending ideas.” “Clever.” Sandra half-turned, revealing a slight smile.
She's so god damn good at this and I'm equal parts impressed, excited, and afraid.
For we are but puppets, and Sandra Duchamp holds the strings
“Here’s my chance to be clever – I think you said that the people that were strong enough to help me should know that it’s a bad idea to?” “Yes.” “Johannes is one of the exceptions to that rule, I take it?”
A teamup I'm not as excited for, but one that I'm much more curious of, since we don't have much of Johannes that isn't composed of unanswered questions
She decided to pull on clothes rather than use the offered bathrobe, feeling fabric stick to skin where she hadn’t quite dried off enough. For much the same reason, she hadn’t used the offered shampoo and conditioner. Shampoo tended to leave her hair more unruly, so she tended to do one day on and one day off. Her hair going unwashed a day was more her than it was smelling like the wrong products. She donned the hairband, pushing her hair away from her face, and stared at herself in the mirror.
Lords, what a perfect metaphor, right? What is every seventeen year old trying to do, but find their identity? For this particular seventeen year old, it's simply a little more dire than most, as fantasies are wont to be!
Sandra didn’t look up as she drew a circle in the middle. “Write all personal details you can inside. Everything about yourself you can think of. You can’t include your name, but you can and should include other things. Try to think of things that Padraic wouldn’t necessarily know about. Things he wouldn’t have taken or claimed for himself, as part of his identity, that make you unique.”
They find what makes them unique, not because it's something they've tried to be for a crush, but because it's who they are. How much of the self is the name, anyhow? What remains? What does the world see when it looks at you, and what do you see when you look in the mirror...barring any genderswapped mirror-clones that may or may not have been snipped from you by demons, that is.
I have three parents, but I think Padraic thinks it’s just the two. I don’t sign my name with a heart over the ‘i’, but I do a little squiggle at the middle part of the M to make my signature mine when I’m signing something like a cheque. I like salty foods way too much. I don’t actually love regular pizza, but I’ll eat anchovy pizza and I’ll tolerate other stuff. Both of the boys I’ve really liked much at all turned out to be gay. It’s very rare for me to cry or sob when I’m upset, though I might get tears in my eyes but sometimes after a really long day, I’ll just break down and cry into my pillow for no reason, like I save it all up for that.
Ilovethis
Only in pact (i'm sure it's not really, but it's not everywhere) do you get to tell a character: "Characterize yourself! Go!"
This arc basically ensures that we'll love whoever this girl decides to be forever, because it forces her- and by extension us- to get to know her.
I’m pretty sure I’ll die young.
Woah
Yeah, I mean, it's a hard world out there for a practitioner outside of the old families.
I wish I could say that it doesn't have to be that way, but with the destiny this girl has lined up for herself...
I love my parents more than anything, and they’ve done better jobs than most. I mean it. But sometimes I wonder if the reason my priorities and feelings are messed up are because my surrogate mom wasn’t around enough and my dads just aren’t that emotionally sensitive. I know it’s stupid, I know it’s wrong, and I tell myself every time that I’m just looking for a broad-strokes answer to it all, but I still think it sometimes.
Wildbow writes, hands down, the best and most accurate teenage characters that I've ever read. I feel like you wouldn't see this level of self-reflection that 17-18 year olds are constantly wrapped up in, if we were in another story. To see something I think about all the time reflected right here in a completely different context really makes me feel like I know her. Like she's a person. I mean hey, some stories don't see teenagers as people in the first place.
We're a lot more self aware that we're usually given credit for.
even if we're usually just self aware enough to screw it up anyways.
“You have the right idea. Good. Now draw more circles,” Sandra prompted her. “Around that one. Things you’re connected to that are important to you.” Dad. Father. Mom. Home. The house. My room. My title as a goblin queen.
Sweet Scion, where can I sign all of my favorite characters to be ripped away from their identities. From a writing and reading perspective this is such an amazing exercise, and we still feel like it's connected with the magic system
this is such a cool conceit on the magic = society level, on the meta level, on the character level, basically everything I care about here.
“Okay. Anything else?” She wrote Blake, then Molly.
sniff
I'm not crying, I just have a cold
shut up
“Good. This is something you can do again when you feel the need, to figure out where you stand. When we do it, we use a board, pins and threads, so we can practice illustrating webs of connections and manipulate things more. That isn’t what you need, so we’ll take the simpler road. Draw lines from you to each of these things.”
Are you telling me the murderboard is an essential tool in the enchantress's practitioner-box? Because that's so badass.
The girl in the checkered scarf did, drawing a line between the circle with the confession, little secrets and blot of blood, to the circle with ‘goblin queen’ within. The pen was nearly out of ink. The line came out spotty, half of it was just the pen nib digging a groove into paper. “That’s supposed to happen?” she guessed. “Yes. Keep going.”
Ooohhhh, this is a really cool visualizer of everything, and I'm sure it's gonna tell us how fucked everything is
Herself and the house? Worse still. Mom? Better again. Dads? The worst yet. Her room? She suspected she knew the answer before she tried. The pen scratched paper, but no ink came out.
And we get the little beats of things we understand to solidify the metaphor in our minds. Can we also address that this is literally a metaphor, literally symbolism?
Molly? One of the stronger connections.
👀
“How do I survive, though?” “Forge new connections, hold tight to the connections that do exist, tenuous or otherwise.” “Oh god. You’re telling me that I have to work for my salvation by making friends?”
I LOVE THIS FUCKIN BOOK SO MUCH
Yes, yes yes
the power of friendship, the power of connections in general being the thing that solidifies and comprises your identity is the best conceit in the entirety of fiction.
And it's got truth to it, because it lets "go make friends" be a dire circumstance. Friends are a part of your identity, and it's never exactly been spelled out like that to me before this book, but it's always been true.
And connections are how we narratively keep track of characters, so that works too: "oh okay she's the goblin queen girl with two cool dads who's friends with Blake Thorburn and hates Laird"
Technically, though
I bet she could preserve her identity by going out and making enemies/rivals
not that that'd be a good idea for...different reasons
but hey, those are also distinctive connections. You wouldn't wanna be defined as someone's enemy tho, that's prolly not a great idea.
“The third option… well, I suppose it isn’t easy either.” “Third option?” “Accept that he’s won. Make peace with it.” “Oh helllll no.”
The best revenge is living well, girl
Although at this point we might wanna settle for 'living'
we'll work on 'well' later
but given that this girl doesn't burst through the conquest arc and demand her name back, I'm guessing she probably needs to make peace with this option.
She might not be able to leave her home without falling to metaphysical peices
“It. Whatever you’re striving for in dealing with them? Whatever they’re offering? It isn’t worth the trouble. Rescue someone from Faerie clutches, and they’ll play along, acting like everything’s good, only to go back to their old masters. You can win, but you might well fall prey to a trap in the process.”
Sometimes, the rich and the beautiful are just gonna walk all over you. Now are you gonna be (spider man ffh spoilz)Mysterio? Nursing your grudge against assholes who just paved you over? Or are you gonna build something for yourself. Do you want to be defined by that grudge? Or do you want to be defined as you?
“Blake kicked a Faerie’s ass the day he invited me into my house.” “Yes he did.” “So… that rule has its exceptions.” “I wouldn’t be so sure. I don’t know the particulars, so I can’t comment.”
Think so? I mean, I don't think Blake got much shit by beating that particular faerie. But she was also the familiar of a 13 year old, which may have screwed with the rules a bit.
“He’s been around for centuries, leading an exceptionally interesting life. Add up his experience, and he’s developed a degree of familiarity with most types of Other that are close to the sixteen or seventeen years you’ve spent getting to know your own family. He’ll avoid situations where victory isn’t in the cards for him. Faerie like to pick easy fights for themselves, but impose challenges on themselves to keep it interesting, always holding on to the idea that they can abandon the challenge and cut loose if the situation calls for it.”
Pretty much tracks with what we saw of Maggie last time, cutting the connection that made her Blake's champion when it looked like they were all gonna bite it
And explains how she knew so much about- not only glamour- but magic in general. She was the expert of the group even before Fell...uh..fell.
“Close enough. More likely, you’d start coming to pieces. You might find that spirits occupy the hollow spaces that are created, which would accelerate the decay. You might go out in a blaze of spiritual activity. Conversely, your body might simply be ground down into your constituent elements, the spirits would nibble on the exposed edges of the girl who was once Maggie Holt, and gravity and connections would pull the half-eaten, half-faded husk to pieces.” The girl in the checkered scarf felt her heart pounding as if she’d just run around the block.
Sweet friggin Scion, how long until she reaches...soullessness? Is namelessness similar? Will she be forced to bond with the spirits taking up residence to reclaim what's hers!?
Let's friggin find out!
I'd guess that personal power is pretty much of the table in terms of identity right now- E&R's comparison to Blake post-bleed-out seems more and more applicable
“Don’t know. Maybe the Briar Girl.” “If she were strong enough to do something substantial, I would be very surprised,” Sandra commented. “Maybe that’s true. But she and Blake had a connection, and maybe I can establish one with her. She doesn’t seem like she’d be impossible to get along with. And I can ask. Get more info on where to go next.”
While I would personally love this friendship to bits, I think the girl in the checkered scarf is more likely to be reduced to bits, than be friends. Maybe don't go to one of the two people who voted to have you killed, eh?
That said, she voted to have Maggie Holt killed...
still wouldn't risk it.
“Maybe, maybe not. And I do owe you one… but… what about her?” “She is… not your best bet.” “She could have an answer. She’s been around for a freaking long time.”
So this is either Essylt, Crone Mara, or the lady with the smoke in her eyes, the one that we saw in like chapter three or something.
“You know who she is?” “Yeah.” “You know what she is?” “Pretty sure.” “So long as you go in armed with knowledge. She can’t hurt you unless you give her the chance.”
This makes me think it's not Crone Mara, more likely Essylt or SmokeLady, although i have no clue which, or what smokelady even is. I couldn't guess, other than to say some sort of boogieman?
“My implement is a knife. I’ll take something in that vein, if that’s okay.”
I wonder if she can take another implement? Not now, of course, since the ritual apparently invokes a name, but if Maggie Holt runs off with her implement, is she allowed to take a new one? It'd break the "this is your implement for the rest of your life" rule, but also it's not an easy out to people who don't like their choice, since they'd be forfeiting any power that was signed to their name...I would buy it if she could take another. I'd also believe that she couldn't take one at all, and couldn't use Maggie's. Implementless.
“Cool,” the girl said. She paused. “I won’t say thank you. That’s sort of useless. You helped me out. I’ll… I’ll try to thank you with deed, not word.” “I appreciate that.”
So begins the Sandra/girlwiththecheckeredscarf alliance!
Hey
hey
you know what would be thematically and conflict-relevant right exactly now?
Going to be best friends with Lola Duchamp
She may have said "we'll never be friends" but she never said anything about besties and also maybe if you sneak up on her the spirits won't notice.
You'll have to jump straight from acquaintance to besties and it's a big leap but you can do it just save her life or something!
Take the hardest path. Story of my freaking life.
But that's what makes you so cool!
Was this a spell of sorts? A way of turning ignorant people away, keeping one patch of wilderness in a reasonable walking distance from town away from prying eyes? Or, given that Mara had been around for a while, was it by design?
Oh! It is Mara! Okay, well, what did Sandra mean by "what she is" then? She's gotta be some sort of something to be alive, I suppose, but I didn't think she was that far from being a practitioner.
Had Mara planted and cultivated trees or moved stones to generate this effect? A simple, steady, relentless building of this discouraging barrier over the years?
Or she could've placed runes years and years ago, and those runes could've slowly convinced the landscape that it should grow uninhabitably. She could've gone to the spirit world and fucked everything up, waited for the two worlds to come to an equilibrium, then done it again, slowly but surely pushing the land to how she wants it!
One copse of trees tried three times to scrape her hairband away from her head, then snagged on the button-hole of her jacket. Not actually moving, but simply happening to catch her clothing.
The fact that this is raising the tension, as parts of her identity are poked and prodded at, is a sign that the book is working.
She couldn’t see any rune or trick, but maybe it was a harder thing to see. Maybe the tree had been planted in the middle of a rune, so it manifested certain snatching, scratching qualities as it grew.
Such a cool idea, and it really opens up the field when you can prepare years, centuries ahead. It's such a different playing field of practitioning when compared to the month and a half that this story has taken place in (if that).
I bet you can kind of convince this world to be anything you want. It's kind of an extension of Mara's domain at that point.
There were probably a lot of really cool things one could do when they were effectively immortal and largely removed from everyday human concerns and habits.
Took the words right out of my mouth! But what does that make you? what do you become?
It wasn’t made of gingerbread, at least.
Oh
Well that's one possibility
I'll bet if Mara'd made the wrong impression on people in town, then spent all this time isolated...well let's just say Rose might've been calling on a different almost-demon to help her in the contest
The door opened. Not Mara. A child, maybe twelve, aboriginal, with a chain shackled to her wrist.
Huh, well that's not creepy and reminiscent of conquest at all.
, said Jay, reaffirming how horrible of a practitioner they'd be
“I’m looking for Mara?” “Crone Mara doesn’t like the white people,” the child said, in an accented voice. “I do not like the white people.”
I don't blame ya kid, 'specially if you were around a couple hundred years ago. How long has this kid been around anyways? Do the townspeople know that Mara has a...daughter? A slave? A random kid in a cottage?
She’d halfway expected the interior to be a demesne, but there was no guarantee that Crone Mara would hold to any recent traditions. The notion of the demesne had come over from Europe with the settlers. Crone Mara predated them.
!!!
I didn't consider this, but I really should've!
We sometimes forget that the traditions of today's world aren't the 'rules', that other people do them differently.
We can sometimes forget that some native american tribes derived systems that were closer to communism than capitalism or feudalism, that many did not claim to "own" land in the way that the settlers, the europeans, the governors, the pre-capitalists are all about. If Crone Mara has a different relationship with the land, then I'm interested in exploring what exactly it is.
If not the white man's conquest of the land, then what?
Interesting, the idea that the tradition of demesne is bound so tightly to that of Conquest. The ones who brought that tradition were likely those who empowered him in the first place, leaving a stain on toronto that can still be seen in the mirror.
I'm gonna have to write a synthetic essay comparing Pact to American Gods at some point. I think there are a good amount of parallels, and I'll bet that things work differently in america, canada, or mexico than they do in Europe. The spirits likely remember different times, different traditions. I wonder if, in Pact, at least, America is a good place for gods?
Hey
maybe I should keep reading this here book
There was only one nod to anything resembling entertainment. All around the uppermost edge of the kitchen, high enough up that one would need to stand on a table or box to reach, were dolls.
HHMMM
is that so
Me an Dolls have an interesting history, especially when it comes to potentially magic Dolls. One of the irrational uncomfortabilities I've carried past childhood. I prefer my artificial friends as wolves and tigers and lizards, thank you very much.
he very oldest stood beside more recent creations. The newest dolls were crafted of reed and hide. The oldest had started to come apart, hide degrading, reeds long since eaten away, revealing slivers of bone within.
HUH
THAT'S WORSE
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spinagon 16-Aug-19 01:19 AM
Oh boy
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JayManiac 16-Aug-19 01:19 AM
The girl in the checkered scarf took a seat at the kitchen table. A tree had been cut straight down the middle, flat end turned up. The table was three such half-trees.
That's pretty friggin cool tho
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spinagon 16-Aug-19 01:19 AM
Creepy dolls incoming
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JayManiac 16-Aug-19 01:19 AM
Thanks I hate it I don't wanna be here anymore
“What do you do here?” “I am cooking blood stew.”
This just keeps getting better. Not only does she have dolls and creepy children, but the creepy kid is making blood stew!
“Okay, sounds like indentured servitude. Let me rephrase. What do you do when there aren’t chores?” “There are always enough chores to fill the day.”
Is she a practitioner? Is she an Other that just chooses to look like a child? Is she gonna turn into one of the dolls all of a sudden and then get put back up on the shelf?
I thought all of the child-Others were over with ol' Michael Johannesson over there
“It sounds lonely. Never having fun. Do you talk, at least?” “There are lessons. Basic things. How to do this or how to do that. How to maintain the hut”
So she's familiar with the Practice maybe. What does Mara do all day, if not the chores and the keeping up?
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spinagon 16-Aug-19 01:24 AM
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JayManiac 16-Aug-19 01:25 AM
Hey! That's pretty cool!
“Few stories. Only sometimes, to remind of why we are to fear and distrust the white people. Better to be in here.”
Huh, well that sounds healthy. Look, I'm not gonna jump to the defence of the white people all of a sudden, and some distrust is absolutely warranted, but....uh..I don't know that living in fear and isolation is the best solution there
“Crone Mara does not sing very often. They sing when the quiet is too deep, or when I ask.” The girl in the checkered scarf followed the pointing finger. The dolls. “Oh heck no,” she said. “Point taken, no need to demonstrate.” But the dolls were already singing.
aaaAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH
Nah
nope
Children’s voices.
NAH
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eNamorD 16-Aug-19 01:26 AM
🎵
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JayManiac 16-Aug-19 01:27 AM
“Alrighty,” she said. That does nothing to convince me you wouldn’t absolutely lose your mind in here. “Can we stop?” “They will stop when they are finished. It depends on their mood. They sing more when they are sad. Lately they sang more than they have been silent.”
I'm so nope nope I just nope, I don't wanna hear the singing doll kids that's so fucking creepy I'm going to go get eaten by the Briar Girl's familiar because I would be 3000% out
Corvidae? fine Mary self-leg-stab? I'm good Abstract Demon made of nightmares? I can handle it.
Creepy dolls? Now there's gotta be a line in the sand somewhere, and this is the fuck where.
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Elliot (Boy) 16-Aug-19 01:29 AM
Does it help if you picture them singing a cool song?
Maybe they’re singing something from a Disney film
... or is that worse?
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JayManiac 16-Aug-19 01:30 AM
"Can you paint with all the colors of the wiiiiind"
nah it's worse
Oh god, which song would I hate them to be singing most?
prolly Friends on the Other Side, because fuck that shit backwards and sideways
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Elliot (Boy) 16-Aug-19 01:31 AM
“In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight...”
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JayManiac 16-Aug-19 01:31 AM
ohno, don't turn that creepy
The creepiness factor overwhelms any not-creepy the song might bring to the equation, I think
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Ishamoridin 16-Aug-19 01:32 AM
"A whim away, a whim away, a whim away..."
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Elliot (Boy) 16-Aug-19 01:33 AM
“Look at this stuff, isn’t it neat? Wouldn’t you think our collection’s complete?”
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JayManiac 16-Aug-19 01:33 AM
clawing your eyes out: o'wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Oh lords, they're gonna add your skull to their collection
What do you get for the girl who has everything? What about the still beating heart of a nameless girl?
I'm freaking myself out now
The little girl was looking her in the eyes for the first time. The little girl looked old. Weary. “Can you break the chain?” the child asked. “Crone Mara has the key. For you to free me, you would need to break the chain.”
Hahhahahhahhahha this just keeps getting better and better and better. I hope this is secretly Crone Mara in disguise, because holy shit what the fuck!?
“Can you break the chain? It is damaged, you see, right here. Can you show me that the white people are not so bad?” “You’ve got to give me a chance to answer before-“ The child stepped closer, and chain scraped on floor. The singing of the dolls grew louder.
This is horror at this point right? I thought ticking clocks were bad, but the behaims have fucking zip on this whatever-she-is!
“Will you help me, white girl? You can, if you act now.” “I’m thinking.” There were tears on the girl’s face. “Please tell me you will help me. Please. Just say it.”
AAHHHHHH PLEASE LET THIS BE CRONE MARA PLAYING A PRANK
I cannot handle the creepy little girl factor right now. Can we have Riley back?
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Funky 16-Aug-19 01:37 AM
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JayManiac 16-Aug-19 01:38 AM
thank you for providing my reaction image to that content you just shared.
“I think-“ The girl’s hands clutched tighter. “-That I’ve read too many fantasy novels to fall for this,” she finally managed to say.
Oh thank sweet baby scion
I mean, me too
but also I was worried because who the fuck knows?
You can predict the trick and also be terrified of the singing dolls
“Crone Mara,” the girl in the checkered scarf said, meeting the child’s eyes. Crone Mara stood a little straighter. Tears still marked her cheeks, but there was a flinty look in her eyes. “What would have happened if I’d said yes? How would I ‘help’?” “You would be compost,” the girl said.
AH, GREAT
How many people have fallen for that, exactly?
“Will you negotiate with me?” she asked the child. “I need a hand with something.” “Never. Not ever,” the child said.
Huh. Well that was quick.
“Got it,” the girl with the checkered scarf said. She stood from the table. “Had to ask.” She stepped out into the cold. One down.
So this is what we're doing for the time being: visiting the most powerful, playful and p-gonna eat ur face off practitioners of Jacob's Bell. This is gonna be hell, isn't it.
ANYWAYS
Great chapter, I loved that it played to every one of my interests and I got some great analysis out of it, and then we scared my socks off!
Also: that took me three hours
I'm getting slower at reading, not faster.
It's the doof bug yet again
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eNamorD 16-Aug-19 01:43 AM
Maybe there's Behaim shenanigans involved
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JayManiac 16-Aug-19 01:44 AM
You're right! That's what I need to read faster: a pet bird!
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Elliot (Boy) 16-Aug-19 01:59 AM
just don't abandon it like Blake some guy did 😭
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JayManiac 16-Aug-19 02:00 AM
😭
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JayManiac 17-Aug-19 12:58 AM
alright! Signature 8.5, I'm maybe hoping to wrap up this arc today this weekend so let's just jump straight in! When we last left off, our nameless protagonist in the checkered scarf had just been terrorized by a creepy child and creepy dolls!
From the witch’s hut to meeting Hansel and Gretel.
Ah! So we're visiting Andy and....Uh...we're visiting Andy and his slightly crazier sister who's had like four lines of dialogue in the whole book and wanted to shoot Blake that one time. Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters.
The goblins traveled in very specific territories. They liked areas where they could enjoy human comforts while not quite being in the presence of humans.
Hey, I'm right there with ya sometimes. I'd almost say magic in general slides into urban fantasy best when it's a specific distance away from the goings on, if that makes sense. That sort of in-between where you can derive magical or nonmagical causes for things.
It was light out, there were people around, and it was morning. All things that discouraged goblins. So long as she traveled these roads, she was okay. She’d done it practically every day, just to be safe.
And hey, if you've traveled these roads practically every day, it might help with the whole deteriorating-identity thing!
The houses were more in the prefab style, all identical, built maybe five years ago, but had languished and started falling apart, largely ignored, before Johannes’ area and the station had started bringing attention to Jacob’s Bell.
We got the details on the station a chapter or two ago, though I might've called it out. I wonder if the station is metaphysically connected to Johannes in any way, perhaps suggesting that he derives power from a connection to toronto? Either way it's kinda cool to once again see this duality of the practitioner and mundane worlds. The same result, with two different causes.
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JayManiac 17-Aug-19 01:13 AM
Goblins. If you were struggling, they ensured you kept struggling. If you were well-off, they weren’t much of a concern to start with.
And this is where goblins tie into society on a fundamental level. I think I addressed it when we first saw them in this book, how they're representative of the force that keeps the uglier parts of the world looking that way, that turns people against each other, frustrates them. Here's where the magic really starts to work: rationally, it would seem that there's no particular reason that the poor can't get their lives together, get on the straight and narrow, just "fix whatever's wrong", but that framework ignores the sentiment, ignores the psychology of poverty, and how the little negative things get exaggerated and accentuated, how easy it is to slip back to the awful yet familiar.
Thus, to address this discrepancy between how the world should work (from a purely harbinger-logical perspective), and how it does work, Pact introduces a kind of magic (goblins) to act as a metaphor for the psychological phenomenon.
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Elliot (Boy) 17-Aug-19 01:16 AM
Also regardless of which Buttsack theory is correct - they’re spawned from the ugliness of humans
Which also fits
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JayManiac 17-Aug-19 01:16 AM
Because maybe if we saw poverty as being caused by goblins instead of blaming poor people for being poor (https://www.cracked.com/blog/why-we-cant-stop-hating-poor/) we'd be a little more empathetic.
Right! exactly!
Which externalizes it while still having it come from the same source!
Lords, how did Buttsack become the chief in-story proponent of my general theories surrounding Pact?
lol 1
Humankind was slowly roasting in boiling buckets, and the Lords and practitioners were more focused on dealing with those who were being less than gradual, less than subtle.
This is a nice magicalization of a sentiment that a lot of teenagers have regarding the world these days, myself included. And while it's nice to see this character thinking in these terms, what happens when she has to, inevitably, tie herself into that system? What happens when her personal power is so reliant on the structures of power that are causing this slow boil that she can't concern herself with it anymore?
She can't help now, because she's busy right now. She's got other shit to worry about, more urgent shit to worry about. The thing I was missing, when I first started thinking about this slow boil? There's always gonna be more urgent shit.
Someday, no one will have time to stop Buttsack and his buddies because we'll all be dealing with age-old-debts, lack of identities, becoming Lord of Toronto, Elder Sister, or Lord of Jacob's Bell, Sandra.
In the end that's why I thought Blake was so noble for facing the Abstract Demon. It's not urgent, he could've just left it there, and he probably should've. But the Abstract Demon is part of the slow boil. It's gonna blend into the city as a thing that "someone should probably deal with...you know, later" until the binding comes undone and suddenly there's no later. There's no anything at all.
But then what does it say, when the whole city supports him, when he's the most prepared that anyone could ever be, and...well, he dies. That sends the message to everyone in Toronto: "don't be like Blake", when the world needs more people like Blake Thorburn in it.
Hey, wasn't I reading a chapter or something?
Hhhh, I love when I get those moments of: "oooh, this is why it takes me three hours!"
There was a point where stuff was less lousy. The damage normal, not goblin-made. She did two laps through the neighborhood before she had a sense of it. The epicenter of ‘not quite so messed up’.
This is a wonderful detail to where the witch hunters live: where it's just the normal kind of fucked up.
Rather than continue searching, she approached them. Better to forge new connections, no matter how small. “Hey,” she said. They kept playing. “Hey, little dorks.”
Remember when I said that she didn't necessarily have to make friendly connections? I'm increasingly worried that she heard me.
“Hey,” she said. “Midget. Pay attention to me.”
Hey, girl trying to build an identity for herself before she falls apart. Maybe uh...build one that's less focused on pissing people off!? I mean, what's the point in saving your identity if it turns out to suck?
“First off, shore up that tunnel of yours. Then tell your parents they’re idiots for not watching you better. Third, you can tell me if you know where Andy and Eva live.”
This is weird, right? Like, I'm thinking it might be an identity thing, that she's acting a little out of character because, well, in the context of the story, she is a little out of her character. The book and the readers are slowly, slowly losing track of who she's supposed to be.
I could be missing something, absolutely, that's just my read for now.
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Elliot (Boy) 17-Aug-19 01:37 AM
Maggie was never a friend maker
Even before becoming a Faerie
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JayManiac 17-Aug-19 01:39 AM
This is true, but she wasn't exactly the snow fort code inspector either
It could just be general animosity manifesting itself as concern?
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Elliot (Boy) 17-Aug-19 01:40 AM
Yeah she’s definitely not in a good place
But also if you think about her dynamic with her friends in 2.y she was always a fairly prickly person
I think she was always a lot nicer to Blake on account of Molly
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JayManiac 17-Aug-19 01:41 AM
You're right, we've seen streaks similar to this from her
“Mom says Eva’s a psychopath and a tramp,” the second boy said. he stood by the little girl, and was so bundled up that only a slice of his face was visible.
Hey, you know, speaking of people whose identities aren't built from sugar and spice and everything nice, here's a cool example of a connection collection you might not wanna emulate!
“Andy might be gone right now,
Ah, good, we're talking to her then.
But the other boy did have an answer. “He said we had to stay off the property, like our moms and dads told us. If we did have to come to his place, though, we should stick to the front walkway and stairs, no fooling around, no tampering with windows or trying to sneak in. Knock firmly on the door.”
I love how clearly this is "they have booby traps on literally everything". I mean, walking up to the front door is already recommended from a karma perspective, and as the karmic enforcers of the town it's only natural for them to blow up unsuspecting violators of social etiquette!
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Elliot (Boy) 17-Aug-19 01:45 AM
They can’t blow the door down if you leave it open
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JayManiac 17-Aug-19 01:46 AM
Right, so it's karmically Right to booby trap everything but the door!
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Elliot (Boy) 17-Aug-19 01:46 AM
Karma: it’s fair(tm)
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JayManiac 17-Aug-19 01:48 AM
“I want info. You’ve obviously paid attention to those two. They would’ve been the cool teenagers when you were kids, and now they’re two twenty-somethings who’re living on their own, they’re mysterious… you’ve watched, and you haven’t figured it out yet.” “What, is she like a prostitute?” the girl said. You’re, like, seven. How do you even know what a prostitute is?
Yeesh, Goblin-neighborhood indeed. That's just the perfect little awful sprinkle on this whole projects-like area.
The girl in the checkered scarf looked over the group. “I think I already know the answer. It was bugging you, so you talked to Andy about it. Then something happened, and the problem fixed itself. The ‘boy’ that was giving your parents trouble just… disappeared.” Paul didn’t even try to hide his surprise that she’d hit the mark, or at least came close to it.
I really really hope this random boy was an Other or at least a Practitioner that was dealt with, and not just some guy. But this is one of those moments where I can see the book that's about Andy, who babysits and vigilante-protects these kids in this neighborhood, who's tasked with the protection of the unawakened, who has to deal with his psycho sister...I want to read that book. Not as much as I want to keep reading this one, but still.
“Get with the new millennium, dork,” she said. “Nerds are the second scariest group that humanity’s ever produced.” “Second scariest? Who are the scariest?” “Stupid people,” she said.
Hahahahahahahahahaa...heh...that is not as funny as it should be, which is disheartening to say the least. Sometimes I wonder who's gonna destroy the world first?
She left the kids with that tidbit of wisdom, she headed to the house they’d pointed to.
Yep, that's the identity you just solidified. Dispenser of wisdom, cryptic bullshit that inspires fear among the kindergarten populous, and general annoying-adult-ness.
In retrospect, she suspected she could have figured it out. The house was in worse shape than the others on the block, but it wasn’t malign influence or devious business that had caused it. Just the fact that two twenty-somethings with very little idea how to maintain a property had lived here.
These details are sort of fascinatingly sad. They know how to rid their block of goblins, but they don't know how to do all the Life stuff that the goblins fuck with in the first place. It's indicative of a pretty abysmal situation.
If I remember right, Adam kind of came off as the non-practitioner version of the Attwells, in that he's bound to this, not by his word like a practitioner might be, but by a sense of duty.
That kind of servitude is almost as hard to break away from, for entirely different reasons.
The young woman had a black tank top, sweatpants, and a crossbow in hand, aimed at the girl in the checkered scarf. Her blond hair was tied back into a ponytail that left waves of hair framing her face. Her eyes, not the crossbow, were the most concerning thing.
Hahahahahahahahhahahahaha That's just fucking terrifying. Because it's so mundane, almost exactly what you'd expect from a 20-something answering the door, and then there's the crossbow...and then there's that last line.
The interior of the house suggested a lot of stuff that just didn’t have places to be. Stacks of what might have been tax forms, books with no shelves to go to, bags of garbage sitting by the door, waiting to be carried out… it might have looked organized, but whatever organization was trying to take hold, disorder was winning out. One garbage bag had been opened and left open, and bits of garbage sat on a chair with no table, right in the front hallway. As if someone had been going through the garbage. It was chaotic. Unbalanced, even. A healthy, ordered mind didn’t live in a space like that.
glances nervously around my own room. Heheh, yeah, no one in their right mind could live like that, eh?
same 2
Hey, at least I've got a way to empathize with Eva now?
The girl in the checkered scarf moved at a glacial pace, partially to see if it would agitate Eva. Eva didn’t seem to mind.
I suggest a potential running theme of this chapter: the girl with the checkered scarf going out of her way to piss people off. Will track whether this trend continues
“I’m the practitioner who came into town halfway through the year. I’ve been to some meetings, I even played a part in what happened to Molly Walker.” “Oh. You. You’re…” Eva said. She paused, groping for the name. “Can’t quite place the name. You’re easy to forget, apparently.” “I’m-” Eva pulled the trigger.
AAAAAHHHHH WHAT THE FUCK!?
I mean, it's interesting to watch an unawakened- albeit a pretty unique unawakened- deal with our protagonist's situation...but sweet jegus.
She didn't even have to do that because she said she would, either, she just did it...just cuz? Which is so much worse?
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Elliot (Boy) 17-Aug-19 02:10 AM
she did say she would
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JayManiac 17-Aug-19 02:10 AM
yEAH BUT SHE CAN LIE SHE`S JUST PSYCHO ENOUGH NOT TO BE
Us: Practitioners are so crazy lol Not-Practitioners:
“Good. Don’t even think that agonized screaming or blood are a problem. The walls are thick, and Andy lacquered the floors after doing the spring cleaning. Nice and thick, so there won’t be anything seeping into or between floorboards. Cleaning up is easy.”
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Elliot (Boy) 17-Aug-19 02:11 AM
Yeah I don't know if you listen to all our episodes but I think this is the episode where I went on a big rant about how it feels like the people who can lie are the only ones who are usually honest
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JayManiac 17-Aug-19 02:12 AM
That's wonderful. I do listen to all your episodes, although sometimes I'll read two chapters, listen to two episodes. I haven't heard DiP 8.4 yet, but I'll listen to that and 8.5 before reading 8.6, probably.
“Now,” Eva said, as she raised the crossbow again, “You have my permission to say whatever it was you felt you needed to say.” “I’ve honestly mostly forgotten what I was going to say.” “Can’t have been that important.”
I think- and this is just my opinion- but I think that you can in fact forget important things in the face of almost dying.
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Elliot (Boy) 17-Aug-19 02:15 AM
You should go and look at what she was going to say too
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JayManiac 17-Aug-19 02:17 AM
“My name was stolen, which is why you can’t place it. One of the Faerie has it.” “Oh? Well, that sucks. Probably really bad for you. But that doesn’t explain why the lamb came to the slaughterhouse. Where we specialize in slaughtering lambs, among other things. Explain.”
Eva is taking No Shit here, and I'm not particularly convinced she does find it important? I guess when your job is to keep practitioners in line the "MIT prison warden experiment"-factor comes into play and you get pretty done with all their shit. Or she's just psycho, I guess? I like my rationalization of her attitude more, but apparently normal people think Eva is cracked so who the fuck knows?
“-If you could, please don’t call me that.” “How come?” “An lack of a name is a void waiting to be filled.”
Interesting. I wonder what would happen if she just started introducing herself to people as "Margaret" or something? Would that solve her problem, if she did it enough? Or is there something that needs to be done to tie that name with the qualities that already comprise her identity?
“Really? I could give you a goblin name like Twatface, and it could stick?” “Yes. So please-” “Clitwart? Ragstain? Shitdribble?”
I'm sure you just summoned four goblins with that little tirade...unless these were the names of her past four victims. Lords, when she was all business she was all psycho and terrifying but now I'm starting to like her, dammit!
The girl in the checkered scarf felt a chill. A little too intense to be just in her head. Not just cold seeping through the door, either. “Please stop.”
Oh fuck, this might actually be a bit sadistic on Eva's part after all. I mean, maybe she doesn't know what she's doing, but maybe she just doesn't care.
“This could be the most fun I’ve ever had putting the screws to someone. What about something off the wall? Like Hitler? Dahmer? Satan?” “That would be a bad idea. Names have a power unto themselves, and some of those names probably have a lot of curses aimed their way. You might bring something to pass.”
fun fact! Prior to reading worm, my go to was "sweet satan". Changed it to "sweet scion" which is almost a synonym.
“Hey, stop,” Eva said. The crossbow moved a fraction, giving weight to the words. “I’m not big on the magic stuff. When people explain the magic stuff to me, I work it out in my head, and I distill it down to a simple, clear explanation. I can do it with any magic. Really.”
Like "so it's a more powerful zombie"! Heh heh
lol 1
“Right here? All this talking you’re doing? It says one thing to me. Nobody will miss you if I shoot you right here and watch you-”
You know it was a lot more endearing when Evan was doing it.
I'm too tired to properly articulate a joke about names and how Eva should add an N to hers to make me like her more, but you can take solace in the fact that I thought real hard about it.
lol 1
A whisper, a male voice. “Is that you at the door, Eva?” “It’s not me!” Eva called out. “I’m here.”
Oh thank the nonexistent Lords of Jacob's Bell, someone hopefully half reasonable.
He walked right across the crossbow’s line of fire to put bags down on the square stair where Eva had tossed the crossbow earlier. Milk and the like.
I live for the moments that the mundane and the batshit crazy interact casually. It's precisely my cup of spiders.
“The deal was I wouldn’t get in your way when you have a job you want to do, you don’t argue when I outline protocols. There are some things out there that you don’t want to let inside.”
I want to read the witch hunters book so badly right now, it'd be so much fun!
Man, with how it would frame Awakening, and Eva and Adam's dynamic...I already love it
“Who or what is she?” he asked. “She’s someone we know, minus the knowing part.” “A trick? Is she an assassin?” he asked. He took a bite. “No. Just a dumbfuck who got in over her head, looks like.”
It hurts me how accurate this assessment of Not-Maggie is. Also he's discussing whether she's an assassin while casually munching on a chocolate bar.
“We’re witch hunters, it’s our duty to hunt witches. Now one falls into our lap,” Eva said, ignoring the offer. “Nobody is going to miss her. I’m gonna put one through her heart, add a notch to my belt, dispose of the body in the furnace downstairs, and then watch a movie online.”
Uhhh
holdup
just a sec
that seems to conflict with what we've been told about witch hunters in a general sense
and I'm sure we can work out this discrepancy if you just put down the crossbow,
He finished and swallowed. “She’s scared enough, Eva. You can stop fucking with her.” Eva scowled a little. “You’re so lame.”
I laughed in sweet relief
This is something we don't usually get to do, what with all the not-lying going around! It's a lot of fun! And by fun, I mean heart-thumping terror!
“I’m going to put a new protocol in place, I think. Doing this sort of thing is dumb, Eva. Making enemies of practitioners you don’t intend to finish off? You pointed a gun at Thorburn, and now this? No matter how bad their situation is, that situation can improve.” “I don’t want to live to thirty anyways,” Eva said. “I’d be okay with that, except you’re going to get me killed along with you,” he said. He looked at the pinned girl, “Sorry about this.”
And just like that, we understand them! It's so efficient, but I also want to see a lot more of it, and I also also just want to know how exactly they got this way. And I like that we're recontextualizing the whole 'pointing the gun at Thorburn' thing as more of an Eva problem than a Witch Hunters problem.
“You’re so lame,” Eva said. She approached too, and the girl in the checkered scarf found herself with two people less than a foot away from her. She craned her head away from the bolt to give them more room to work.
Probably good that this isn't Blake, then.
“I’d offer you food, but we aren’t bound by the usual rules,” Andy said. “Right. That’s okay,” she replied. “Fuck me, I hate this town.” “Sounds like we have something in common,” he said. “I feel so damn tired at the end of the day. Place takes a lot out of you.” “I can’t wait to be gone,” she replied.
I forgot exactly how shitty Andy's life seems, but I'm being very quickly reminded. That said, where the fuck does protagonist think she's going? As I see it, the plan was to stick around, kind of move up in the Jacob's Bell ranks, prep for the blood and fire, right? What's she talking about with being "gone"?
“Look,” the girl in the checkered scarf said, “I don’t want to kick up a fuss, and I don’t have a lot to bargain with. You guys want to clean up dangerous Others? Arm me and send me on my merry way. If you’re fair about it, I’ll promise I won’t hold a grudge for the whole crossbow thing.” Eva rolled her eyes. “Deal,” Andy said. “You do know that deals with the likes of us aren’t binding? Not on our end, anyway.”
Ah good, good. Just injecting some more uncertainty into this seemingly positive development. As y'do.
More subtly, she could conclude, objects had a kind of importance in this room. Stuff that might have been family knick-knacks in another house took up odd positions here, sort of akin to how a museum might arrange things. Giving objects a kind of prominence. Odd objects. A figurine of a bear, a frame that held a strip of cloth with an embroidered knot on it taut, a kettle, a small statue of a pig, a mannequin’s hand, a metronome…
Can witch hunters use magical knick knacks? I suppose as much as Keller's victims in the student body can, and they can presumably get them off of their victims. It's not exactly the Blake method, which involves something more like binding your victims into objects, but a fascinating potential system.
Five seconds later, he had another drawer open. Guns, many of which were old fashioned, ammo, and lead pipes. “Take your pick,” he said.
FUck yeah, let's get our zombie-hunting (goblin hunting...whatever) arsenal up and running! This is like a dream come true. What teenager doesn't want to collect obscene amounts of weaponry and start fuckin shit up, at the end of the day?
Plus Pact doesn't deal much in the mundane sort of weapon- neither does parahumans, for that matter- so I'm interested in seeing the potential of less magical tools.
“No freaking way. That works?” “Yep.” “I’ll take it. And I’ll take that, thank you, and, if you’re sure I’m not being greedy here-” “No. Just so long as you don’t come after Eva later on.” “-Promised. I’ll take that too.” ■
I don't know what exactly it is about this that makes it such a cinematic cut, but I can picture it perfectly.
The highway divided the older part of the city from the new. Only Harcourt led under it, and the north end of Harcourt was a ways from the twin’s place.
And we know what the north means. Is it time, are we off to see the powerful, potentially pedophilic wizard of Jacob's Bell? Because I'm as close as I'm gonna get to ready!
The wind pushed against her. The snowbank devoured her leg to the knee when she tried to walk over it, trapping her, doubly hard to extricate herself from when her other calf was injured. Then the ground on the far side was frozen, covered in gravel, making it more slippery, as if she’d stepped on marbles scattered over ice.
I love how the deterioration is expressed, how the world seems more and more eager to tear her to nameless pieces
Then, topping it off, the goblins showed up.
Well now you have a whacking stick, and probably some sort of badass firearm
They gathered in greater numbers, perhaps in hopes that if another woman with a troll arrived to back her up, they could scare the troll off. They even, she suspected, might have spread the word that the girl who’d hunted goblins was now vulnerable. United in a common cause.
But the story does a really good job of selling the danger as something that might not actually care about whacking sticks or firearms
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JayManiac 17-Aug-19 02:56 AM
“Buttsack,” she said. “When you’re dead by my hands, I’m going to cut the skin off your face,” he growled, “and I’m going to make it a thong. I’ll wear it so your lips are stretched tight against my butthole, and your eyes will have a close-up view of my cock, with balls bulging out one hole and schlong out the other.”
You know why I keep coming back to these books? It's the creativity, the boldness with which they tackle new horizons that no one else even wants to imagine. This is the true Pact experience right here, the epitome of okay I'm done keeping up the bit because it means I have to stare at this paragraph for a little bit longer and I could barely read it without gagging to begin with.
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Seregraug 17-Aug-19 02:57 AM
Ah yes.
That line.
I maintain that’s the grossest line WB’s ever written.
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JayManiac 17-Aug-19 02:59 AM
I don't know, there are a lot that come to mind
For one thing, you of all people should remember what you get if you search the words "answering tug" in this channel.
Wb explores all kinds of different grossnesses
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Seregraug 17-Aug-19 03:00 AM
Was that the animal squeezing scene?
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Elliot (Boy) 17-Aug-19 03:01 AM
hahaha what a response
I love WB grossness
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Wildbow 17-Aug-19 03:01 AM
Jay: Would it be...an ingrown hair? Ah, I already regret contributing to the train of thought here, my hands are physically reacting to the thought of being invaded by magic glamour hair Wildbow: When you tug on the hair at your hand and you feel answering tugs in your crotch and your throat, simultaneously.
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Elliot (Boy) 17-Aug-19 03:02 AM
the throat-crotch combo is what really pushes it to the next level
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JayManiac 17-Aug-19 03:03 AM
I'm gonna quote Past Me for this one, he seemed to know what he was talking about
The one pipe was actually two pieces of pipe, one smaller pipe sliding into the other with a healthy amount of WD-40. The smaller pipe, in turn, had a shotgun shell stuck in the end. The big one had a blasting cap welded to the end.
That. Is a lot of whack for your stick. Where the actual fuck did Andy and Eva get this stuff? Can you get it delivered? Free shipping to Witch Hunters and Amazon Prime members?
When she drew the stiletto, it was partially for their benefit. Because seeing her draw a weapon in front of their wounded pseudo-leader would hold their interest, keeping them watching rather than participating.
If this is something that the goblins want to watch, I'm wondering whether I really want to watch it...
The goblins lurking at the dark corners of the bridge watched in silence as she dragged Buttsack into Johannes’ realm.
You'd think that at this point I'd go: 'hey that's not that bad', but I'm absolutely sure that the horror has merely been delayed.
This was another realm entirely. She thought, but wasn’t sure, that she could hear screaming.
Yeah, that seems to confirm my suspicions on the matter.
“I’m a practitioner,” she said. “You can’t touch me. Johannes’ rules.” When the ogre spoke, it was with a British-ish accent. “Not for long, little girl.” She set her jaw and continued forward, moving more easily, even with her limp and bleeding burden.
Oh, what an end. How long before she doesn't count as a practitioner? Before she doesn't count as a person? Also why do Others all have british accents? Tune in next time to find out!
And by next time,
I mean like now in five minutes, after I grab a snack and some water. (edited)
Alright, 8.6!
The streets started out narrow, and then they got worse. It was gradual, subtle. From the outskirts, it was easy to overlook. Trudging from one street to the next block, the sidewalk disappeared. Lawns in the prefab housing developments got narrower, the houses were positioned closer to the roads.
I'm still just trying to wrap my head around what the fuck it would mean to have a demesne this freaking huge, given what we've seen of Conquest's demesne and given that we haven't actually seen much of them since the Pages...
And in that one...sweet scion. Could Johannes turn all these streets into flesh, if he felt like it?
Time was different here. She’d met the twins around noon, but the sun loomed on the horizon, the sky a peach hue. The wind always blew steadily, unfaltering, the sky was always the same color, the sun in the same height above the horizon, only shifting to different compass points in the sky, confusing any sense of direction or ideas about whether it was early or late in the day.
I love this, and how it compares with what we saw of Conquest's demesne. But this right here is more than just a space to call your own, a space that's your ground, your terms. It doesn't seem like it coincides with the general spirit of the term. This is...tyranny. Exerting your influence like this goes far beyond any idea of demesne I had.
Which is maybe ridiculous, seeing as it's like the third one we've seen.
A hundred people, just going through the motions, checking the fridge, visiting stores, perpetually in a daze.
This is just...absolutely horrible. If this is a playground for Others, then it's kind of like these people are ruled by their base instincts, worst tendencies and extremes. They're acting apathetic, docile, like...well, like animals, or like sims waiting to be fucked around with.
It was like Mara’s setup, in a way, but the goal wasn’t to keep people out. Just the oppsite. This was a pitcher trap. The unwary insect could perch on the edge, only to slip and fall in. Entering was easy. Leaving, every curve would bend back, leading toward the city center. The one way streets would point the wrong way, and if Johannes willed it, the city would adjust. Try to drive out along one of those one way streets, and a car would start coming the other way, or a cop would arrive.
This is awful, insidious, and so fucking cool
It's a form of Genius Loci, which is a trope I'm always down for. I love settings with a purpose, the ones that subtly manipulate or just have some sort of control over their environment. I doubt this one in particular would have to be subtle, but the fact that it can be is awesome. Just Blake's carpenter conundrum with the bookcases, but expanded across an entire neighborhood. How could you even fight something like that? What happens to this place if Johannes dies? Could it even be salvaged?
Scarf flapping in the incessant wind, hands a little bloody, face spotted with flecks of goblin blood, she dragged the goblin behind her. Nobody commented, nobody looked. All for the same reason. They weren’t real people.
I was wondering if we were gonna get to this, the vestige of the town, and how exactly it ties in with the actual town. Does it exist in a spirit-world-esque duality? How does Maggie enter the vestige part, when anyone else would presumably be blind to it?
It was the busiest part of all of Jacob’s Bell, and every road was a single lane road. With no sidewalk, she was forced to walk on the edge of the road, side-view mirrors of passing cars passing within a foot of her. Someone honked. This, right here, was the point where an ordinary citizen might start wondering what the fuck was going on, but they were liable to blame themselves, to wonder if they’d missed a sign.
I don't exactly know what to pull because I'm a little confused as to which parts of what's being narrated correspond only to the vestigial Jacob's Bell, and which parts are true of the "real" Jacob's Bell? What level of control does Johannes have over each?
She pressed on. It was easier if she kept moving. When she was forced to pause, the goblin stuck to the frozen ground, her leg seized up, and the strain in her arms caught up with her. She wondered momentarily if it had something to do with the nature of this place. She couldn’t help but feel she was constantly going downhill, and it was drawing her to keep moving, deeper and deeper.
This is another moment where I feel like the book dips into horror a little bit, though I wouldn't know because I'm not quite brave or fearless enough to actually read horror. A city that's a venus flytrap seems pretty horror.
She dragged him halfway down the hallway. The stiletto still pierced both of his palms, above his head. She shifted the position of it, putting the blade between two lockers, and then kicked the handle, driving it in. The metal on metal sound echoed through the school hallway. Buttsack made a pained expression. “Wake up,” she told him.
The description of the demesne/city distracted me so much that I didn't actually think to question why exactly our protagonist was dragging Buttsack around in the first place
A moment later, they opened wider. “You brought me here?” “Caught you the first time in a school. Fitting we do this in a spot like this.” “The Sorcerer’s Demesne.” “Oh, that. Yeah.” “Bitch! You fucking bitch!”
When even Buttsack doesn't want to be here, you know you're a little bit screwed. But what does she mean by "do this"? Does she even have the energy to bind Buttsack into any kind of form she can work with? Are we finally gonna find out how to make paper goblins?
“This place is bad because there are powers here,” Buttsack hissed. “Things any self-fucking-respecting sod would fucking stay way from you moronic fucking cunt!”
Yeah, I think you'd better talk to her when she has a little bit more of a self to respect
lol 1
All the same, Buttsack was screaming, feet scrabbling frantically for purpose on the dusty tiles of the school hallway. She’d taken a piece out of his rear end. “Bitch! Whore!”
Hahahahahahahaha, you know, we might be on Danny the Street's psychotic older brother right now, but at least we can laugh at Buttsack getting his Butt Sacked.
Cherish the small moments, y'know?
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JayManiac 17-Aug-19 03:51 AM
Ah, huh, I'd forgotten about that particular detail. So we've never actually seen a demesne in story apart from a hypothetical. Meaning this weird perversion of the idea of demesne is our introduction.
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Elliot (Boy) 17-Aug-19 03:53 AM
We're really jumping into the deep end, yeah
anyway now that I'm done splitting hairs, it's time for me to go off and read 10.2!
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JayManiac 17-Aug-19 03:57 AM
Oh fuck, I have no idea what the story looks like over there, but have fun!
I'll be here, making my way through arc 8!
“There are powers here, you said?” “Yes. Genies, goblins, elves, minor incarnations, wraith kings. Changes from day to day.”
With the Fair Folk fulfilling most of the Elven stereotypes, at least from the tolkienian point of view, I wonder what real Elves look like in this world? My guess is they'd be closer to their shorter, anglo-saxon Magical Faraway Tree counterparts, but I'm not sure. Let's not meet wraith kings tho, we've seen enough of wraiths that I'm not keen on em.
“The sorcerer alters the layout to let them in. Uses his familiar. The rules are the same, always. You don’t go after practitioners, you leave grudges and greater weapons at the door. No fighting, unless it’s to go after someone who starts a fight, no deals with anyone except the Northern Sorcerer. You leave with what you brought with you.”
This is awesome. Kind of a 'what happens in vegas' situation for Others of all different stripes. I wonder why we're getting to see Johannes's demesne now of all times, in the arc called Signature. I always associated Implement more with the idea of a signature, a tool that you use to express yourself in the world (although I might be biased by my own choice of implement) but what is a demesne, I suppose, if not a giant, permanent "JOHANNES WUZ HERE" on the universe?
She stopped. Her head turned. A little girl. Black, maybe ten years old, wearing a parka over a white dress, gray tights on her legs, with winter boots that had fur at the top. Her hair was in two buns at the back of her head, held in place with bright elastics. The child’s eyes were wide. She could see Buttsack. The girl in the checkered scarf moved, but the little girl moved faster, running.
So this girl is just a vestige, right? And not even a particularly well-made one, if our protagonist is right about the whole "shadows with the illusion of depth" thing. But still, we get at least the reflection of innocence here, which is enough that she can see things more as they really are (by practitioner standards). It's gotta be, what, the third beat of that? If you count Evan?
“You should kill the little slut to be safe,” Buttsack said.
Your contributions to the decision making process are invaluable, buttsack
“You’d think I should kill her even if there wasn’t an excuse. You have a choice here. Agree to obey me and do me and mine no harm for the next year, and I’ll free your hands. Refuse, and I leave you here for something to find.” “Might take my chances.” “You might. Decide now. Offer expires when I’m done counting down from five.”
Oh great, the opportunity to spend even more time with this particular plucky sidekick! I'm not sure if I mean that sarcastically or not. Eh, it's Pact, so probably both.
“I obey you, one year.” Well, that had been easy. In fact, she was so caught off guard by how easy it had been that she mentally stumbled. She’d been expecting him to be stubborn and stay behind, and now she felt obligated to bring him along.
if you wanted to leave him behind, why the fuck would you drag him a goddamn mile into the territory!?
“Bitch.” “Respect, or do you want to be forsworn in your duties?” “Said it quiet, indoor voice,” he said
This. This is gold. Oh, we're gonna have some fun with these two...provided that Buttsack doesn't meet his horrible demise at the hands of whatever the fuck they run into here. And provided our protagonist doesn't.
At the next classroom door, she could hear the voices more clearly. “-Else besides the scary gun chick and the cute little whatsit creature?” A young male voice. “It definitely wasn’t cute. Very definitely wasn’t. But it was just them, I think. I didn’t look for long.” Girl’s voice.
are they vestiges or not? Is the story gonna make me like them and care about them anyways? HhHhhhhh. Probably.
“If she was thirty, muscley and wearing a bloodstained tank top and headband and carrying a gun, and she was doing what she was doing to some Nazi supersoldier or something in a movie, I wouldn’t think twice. But she’s like, your age, Noah. And she’s a she, and that thing was small and it’s worse.” “And she’s human?” Male voice, less young than the first.
These people seem less...rote, less apathetic than the vestiges have been implied to be. Could they be survivors? In a kind of zombie apocalypse situation?
I don't know, but they seem to have the lowdown concerning Others n stuff
Were there more people like this around the city? People who’d seen the Other stuff and managed to stay alive? For any Other that liked their mortals running scared, these guys would be like candy. Poor frigging saps.
ohno
I almost hope this is just an elaborate trick by some Other to lure in our protagonist, but I kno-
yo
discord just went all weird
did Doofcon happen and then get immediately attacked by a demon of the First Choir or something?
They're all pulsing too, that's kind of trippy
I think dawn's the starcraft sovereign, but who knows how the univ- it just got weirder
I don't mean to interrupt my liveread or anything, but what the actual fuck!?
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Ishamoridin 17-Aug-19 04:20 AM
I see it too
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JayManiac 17-Aug-19 04:21 AM
I went to #doof_general to compare notes
Welp. That was weird. Bet this book gets weirder tho amirite!? Yeah let's just close the people tab there and get back to watching small children suffer.
“Hey, this is the goblin I was talking to. Buttsack, say hello.” “Hello, whelps,” Buttsack said, in a low growl. “Say it nicely.” He gave her the dirtiest look he could manage, then plastered a smile on his face, wide enough to make his eyes scrunch up. It somehow made him look far, far more terrifying. He clasped wounded hands together, twisting them in front of him. In a higher pitched voice, he said, “Hello, adorable little sweethearts.”
How is it possible that Buttsack just became one of my favorite comedic devices in the story, so soon after he said something I'm not even okay with remembering!?
“Who are you?” This from Noah’s little brother. “I’m the girl with no name, unfortunately. Long story. I’m, in some ways, a lot like you. A bad, scary, frigging strange situation got dropped on my hometown, I barely made it out alive.” “This is happening in other places?”
So how the fuck did these kids get here? Can you just walk into this part of the city and suddenly you're fair game for any Other that comes your way? Or is it just a vestige of you that gets to be Other-meat? Are these kids real or not!? I don't know if I'm supposed to be feeling this kind of confusion or not and that in and of itself is confusing!!? I'm not sure what the fuck is happening anymore, for better or worse.
Noah spoke up, “Something came after Mia, and then when we walked back home, it came after all of us. We decided to hide out, but…” “But that was a little while back,” the girl in the checkered scarf finished for them. “And now things aren’t adding up. Your families are acting weird, clocks are all wrong.”
It's entirely possible (within my limited realm of understanding) these are real kids who just got dragged through by the demogorgon and have been living in vestige land ever since.
She adjusted her Sight to look. No fricking wonder the kid had been so fast. Even the way they’d gone still… The four children stood before her, and each of them was shattered. They were like mannequins or dolls, finely detailed, everything in the right place, but bits had broken away. Whole chunks were missing, and cracks radiated across their whole bodies. Where gaps existed, mice had crawled into the holes. Teeming hordes, occasionally skittering along the outside surface to find a space with more room. Here and there, a mouse ate a smaller mouse, and like some cartoon, it grew by the slightest fraction.
inhales
Noah was different. There were mice, yes, but the horrific rent that extended from the crown of his head to his left shoulder was occupied by what appeared to be a mangy dog, nestled into the hollow space. The girl in the checkered scarf exhaled slowly. When she unfocused her eyes, the multitudes became single features. Patches of fur. One of Mia’s eyes was black from corner to corner, glossy. Focus properly again… the eye socket was shattered, the empty space filled with large black rats.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUAAAAUUUUUUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
What the fuck am I reading anymore!?
“Nope,” she said. “Bad news is, this whole scenario here? Pretty much none of it is real.” “That’s good,” Noah’s brother said. “That’s bad,” she said. “When I say this isn’t real, I’m referring to you guys, too.”
OH! GOOD! GREAT!?
She didn’t say it aloud. Instead, she turned to the nearest desk with paper on it. She still had the pens Sandra had given her. One proper pen, one mostly empty pen that made ink only some of the time. “Come.” They were careful, slow to approach, quick to start when she moved too quickly.
I don't know what I'm supposed to be feeling but it's a mixture of disgust and horror and confusion and fear. Definitely fear. Please, girl with the checkered scarf and pens of explaniness: explain me sum shit
I thought I was going from the fucked up nature of the doofscord's layout to something that made a bit more sense
Turns out I had all of this pegged
“Olive doesn’t talk,” Noah said. “Something’s happened to her teeth since all this started. She keeps biting her tongue, and the words don’t come out right.” Without being asked, Olive opened her mouth. The girl in the checkered scarf didn’t have a chance to look away before she saw.
NO I DON'T WANT TO KNOW I REALLY DON'T
I didn't want to know
I'm not even gonna quote it because I'd rather just never ever look at it again
I can feel it in my mouth, I can feel the scurrying, wriggl- AUGH!
WHat the fuck Is this CHAPTER anymore!?!?
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Seregraug 17-Aug-19 04:42 AM
🐭
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JayManiac 17-Aug-19 04:43 AM
I'm actu- just. I. None of this is okay
Sere, how the fuck could you say Buttsack's line from last chapter was the grossest Wb's ever written!?
It's like you knew this was coming
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Seregraug 17-Aug-19 04:45 AM
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This part didn't bug me.
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JayManiac 17-Aug-19 04:45 AM
!?!?
Okay!?
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Seregraug 17-Aug-19 04:45 AM
They are just crackley mice people.
Don't be mean.
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JayManiac 17-Aug-19 04:46 AM
To each their own horr-oh don't say that
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Funky 17-Aug-19 04:47 AM
I mean, my mind just kinda equated it to watching my hamster go around his little tube maze on his cage
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JayManiac 17-Aug-19 04:47 AM
BUt IN SOMEONE'S FACE! i suppose every reader's a little different. I've got no problem with nudity, clothing, that kind of thing...whereas this is my fucking nightmare.
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Seregraug 17-Aug-19 04:48 AM
The two parts of Pact that really grossed me out were the animal squeezing thing around Pauz and the threat Buttsack made to Maggie.
I can't think of anything else that really stood out that way.
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JayManiac 17-Aug-19 04:49 AM
Parts of Pauz's chapters got me. Not quite like this, but in the same sort of vein.
“Well, there was a man who made a magical reality for himself. Let’s call him the sorcerer. Now, when wizardly types make these places for themselves, they base it on things they know, on reality. That’s pretty normal. But this guy, well, he worked it out so…” She folded the paper forward and backward, then tore it along the middle, separating the shadows from their sources. “…He could bring something very much like the real Noah, Mia, Ben and Olive with him. Along with the houses, and the streets and everything else. With me so far?”
I'm so glad we're onto the explain-y parts of the chapter because I needed some explaining and also I needed to not be reading those other parts.
So they are vestiges
And this is making everything make a bit more sense.
Still don't know how Maggie stepped into the vestigial north end, rather than the regular one, but I guess it just has something to do with being awakened.
“That monster that came after me?” Mia asked. “The squirmy people? The beautiful woman and her wild child?” “Betting they’re all people who paid the sorcerer for the chance to hunt you. And they can, because it’s not quite real. The real Noah, Mia, Ben and Olive should be out there somewhere, going about their ordinary lives. Maybe a little bit weaker or prone to getting sick since a bit of them got taken away.”
Well, that makes me feel a lot better, even if these versions of these kids are subject to horrible suffering. I'd like to think they don't experience it on the same level as a real person would, but I already know my subconscious doesn't believe that.
If I had a nightmare that really scared me, it was this. Back when my anxiety used to be a lot worse, before I took hold of my dreams, I used to dream that I was falling apart, that someone would tell me I wasn't real and then I wouldn't be. And that gets me on an entirely different level from the grossness I just experienced.
“That’s the bad. It’s not the worse.” All four children stared at her, expressions stark.
Why do you have to tell them the worse?
Why did you have to tell me the worse!?
“I know because I’m going through the same thing,” she said. “A… monster took my name. Mostly my fault. Now I’m falling apart in the same way. It’s why I’m here, as a matter of fact.”
Ohhhhh
I just realized why the book had to tell me the worse
it's because this awful fate that I don't want to think about on any level, abstract of physical, is what this protagonist I care so much about right now is in store for, if this goes on much longer.
“Good to know.” Her heart caught in her throat. An adult voice. Or mostly adult. One she recognized. She turned. “Kids, meet the sorcerer.”
!!!!!
HERE HE IS! THE MADMAN HIMSELF!
“Most make a beeline straight for me,” Johannes said. “Ask permission. But I do suppose you do live in Jacob’s Bell, and it would be unreasonable to expect you to stay out entirely. Hi.” “Heya,” she said. “Padraic?” Johannes asked. “Yep.”
Pfft. That was a quick explanation. And a quick, casual greeting. I guess they do know each other, and they're not that far apart in age. I guess with all the references to The Sorcerer I thought he'd be more flowery in his prose, but it makes sense that he's not always like that, especially with Maggie.
“I’m going to have to ask you to leave my vestiges alone.” Maggie glanced at the kids.
I'm aware that I just fucked up and called our protagonist Maggie when she isn't but exactly as I realized that I noticed that the book fucked up too and that might be why and we're just gonna breeze on past this little mistake of ours.
(at least I think it's a mistake? I try to imagine things are intentional until proven otherwise, but this doesn't seem to serve any purpose unless Padraic made a quick jaunt back to Jacob's Bell for a sentence or two)
“Why-” Ben started. But Johannes was tapping the set of brass pipes against his ring. Metal chimed, a brief sound like that from a tuning fork. “Begone,” Johannes said.
I wonder if he's got a Pied Piper kind of thing going? It'd make sense with the pipes he uses here, the rat imagery, the being surrounded by kids all the time, etc. Not sure if we already brought that up since it's been so long, but I'm bringing it up now.
“Not a coincidence that they have dogs and rats inside them, is it?” “No.”
"Don't let your familiar assume the form of a dog or rat" - Granny Thorburn. I wonder if this is a connotation we're gonna continue to explore?
Our protagonist seems to get it
“Yes. Do you want my help, nameless girl?” “I’m not so sure, now.” “Keep telling yourself what you told them. They aren’t real.” “I’m fairly attached to a few people who aren’t much more real than those kids are.”
Apart from Molly, I wonder who she could be talking about? The only person I can think of is...Rose? But she's a fair bit more real than the vestiges, I'd imagine. I wonder if Blake was cut more in half, rather than just a bit off of the top.
“I can retrieve your name from Padraic. All would go back to being the way you need it to be. Your name might be a little tainted, and Padraic would be unhappy, but he wouldn’t take it further from that. I know Faerie superior to him in the court, and I would act as the middleman, putting you at minimal risk.”
Holy shit, really!? that seems almost too good to be true!
“And I would want you working at my side. My allies, for the most part, are transient ones. Mercenaries, if you will. Help me take Jacob’s Bell. After that… it’s up to you. You could take a seat on my council and be my problem solver, or you could leave the city.”
Huh. That's because it's too good to be true. Makes sense.
He spoke softly, “Take your time deciding. For now, however, I can find you a place to stay. Do you need anything else? I give you these things with no strings attached.”
He's so creepy. I don't like it, I don't like it at all. But also, if it's that or...what happened to those kids...then our protagonist might not have much of a choice.
“Hello?” “Mom? It’s me.” “It’s-” “Me. Just… me.” “What’s wrong, honey? You sound tired.”
!!!! I'm so happy that this works,
She really needed something like this
“I’m… I’ve had a really bad couple of days. I need to talk to you, and I kind of need you to not ask about what’s going on.” “I can do that, I’m just cooking dinner right now.” “Yeah? No other obligations?” “No, hon.” They talked about inane things until the phone’s battery ran out.
That was touching.
It also probably buys her more time on the whole "existence" front
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Wildbow 17-Aug-19 05:15 AM
I like that you were quick to go back to the rule about dogs and rats
same 1
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JayManiac 17-Aug-19 05:15 AM
🤔
Well now I'm doubly curious
Great chapter, by the way! Awesome worldbuilding (most of it literal world-building on Johannes' part), and the rest was quite...viscerally terrifying!
🐭 1
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Elliot (Boy) 17-Aug-19 05:18 AM
Oh I'd forgotten the rat part of that - all I'd remembered is the no dogs. Thanks for the reminder. (edited)
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Seregraug 17-Aug-19 05:18 AM
Granny Rose was a cat person. 🤔
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Elliot (Boy) 17-Aug-19 05:18 AM
I agree with Jay - 🤔
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JayManiac 17-Aug-19 05:19 AM
Maybe she didn't want him to be too Fool-ish. Dog'd be a little on the nose.
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JayManiac 17-Aug-19 06:40 AM
What's whose?
Johannes? If that's who you're asking about I'm gonna guess pipes over ring because that lines up with my personal theory better
If you're talking about Blake, his implement is the unpleasant release of nonexistence. And if you're talking about Elliot, I think he said he'd have a spyglass
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Elliot (Boy) 17-Aug-19 06:44 AM
That was Reuben
I was metronome
which as we learnt more about the Behaims I regret a bit
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JayManiac 17-Aug-19 06:45 AM
Ahhhh, sorry I got those mixed up. I went with the one I could remember, but metronome is cooler.
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Funky 17-Aug-19 06:46 AM
Hey a metronome would be sick
Maybe it'd give you some kind of bonus if you moved to the beat
agree 1
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JayManiac 17-Aug-19 06:46 AM
Fuck, a chapter ago we had a metronome in the Witch Hunters' house! I could've made the joke that they must've killed Practitioner!you
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Elliot (Boy) 17-Aug-19 06:48 AM
If I made it long enough for a witch hunter to get me I'd be pretty proud of myself to be honest
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JayManiac 17-Aug-19 06:48 AM
You know, that's the kind of positive outlook we needed on practitionership!
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Wildbow 17-Aug-19 07:14 AM
We've seen the Witch Hunter metronome before
Alllll the way back in 1.1
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JayManiac 17-Aug-19 07:36 AM
I haven't been back to that chapter in months, I should really check up on that dream sequence again.
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David Hunt 17-Aug-19 07:45 AM
Just reread the dream part. I can see the pieces of a bunch of things that were picked up later.
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JayManiac 17-Aug-19 07:53 AM
I'm caught up with reading the whole chapter, haven't even gotten to the dream.
I'm sad about how Paige and Blake's relationship seemed to deteriorate, they really seemed close. Or at least they seemed to care for one another.
Seeing Molly is fine
I'm finally getting to Rosalyn, and everything about her makes a lot more sense with what I know of her now, both on the level of "I know about the practice" and "I know more about her past"
Like the way she's so unphased by blake's outburst; this is a woman who's dealt with goblins since she was like five blake's language ain't shit. And then the way she emphasizes words over violence, since that's always been what's most important.
"my children are useless" has a bit of a double meaning, considering.
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JayManiac 17-Aug-19 08:11 AM
“The faerie? Sure.” “You’re not getting what I’m saying. If they can fool themselves into thinking they’re vampires, and believe it to the point it becomes sort of true, sparkly skin aside, then they can fool us. This is what bothers me about all this. You can’t make any guarantees, you can’t slap on convenient labels. It’s why we call them others. You can’t plot-”
I'm loving the little section on the Witch Hunters, and the bit of worldbuilding that you almost don't notice what with all the What The Fuck Is Happening going on. Fae vampires are just such a cool concept.
“What the drat was that?” A girl asked. She stood in the snowy field, her checkered scarf frozen hard where the moisture of her breath had crusted it and solidified.
A girl and her checkered scarf. Already talking to Padraic, and we all know how that turns out.
Briar girl is the only one so far who intentionally breaks the image
Interesting, that we get so much to do with her spying on people and vice versa
almost as if she's a surveillance/counter surveillance practitioner 📸
Ah, and Johannes' familiar is a dog. Good to know. He's the second one to intentionally break the spell.
Likely because he has a pretty strong grip on his demesne and who pokes their heads in
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 01:53 AM
Yeah, I think it might have something to do specifically with the fact that Johannes' familiar is a dog, and that his pipes invoke pied piper vibes (since he was the dude who rid the town of rats and then later children). Far from sure about it, but it'd make sense not to give Johannes as little control over you and your familiar as possible, especially if Rosalyn knows something about him we don't, which she probably does.
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Elliot (Boy) 19-Aug-19 01:56 AM
JUST WRITE THIS SHIT DOWN FOR YOUR HEIRS ROSE
Because yeah I 100% agree she knows more than she's said and she better have a damn good reason why
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 01:57 AM
To be fair, Blake hasn't even read a single percent of everything that Rosalyn has written about Others, the people in the town, etc.
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Elliot (Boy) 19-Aug-19 01:58 AM
I thought he did go through her little black book before his first meeting?
or did he only read the intro
back to arc 2 I go
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 01:59 AM
He for sure read the intro and I think he got some of it down but after realizing that Rose read twice as fast he kind of slowly gave up reading entirely, exempting BLB
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Elliot (Boy) 19-Aug-19 01:59 AM
first sentences highlighted because lol, but the rest seems to imply he read most/all of it? (edited)
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 02:00 AM
He skimmed it
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Elliot (Boy) 19-Aug-19 02:00 AM
At least concerning the people
yeah that's a fair read
I guess I'm struggling with that because there's no way I wouldn't read that cover to cover before going to the meeting - but I guess I gotta accept Blake's a very different person to me
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 02:02 AM
And Rose is a more You kind of person in that regard, at least. So I think Blake knew that and trusted Rose (haha) to fill him in on anything he really needed to know
But I agree that preparing her heirs for the responsibility of diabolism was not Rosalyn's strong suit
I guess there's also the possibility that that particular Johannes related detail is something Rosalyn swore an oath not to tell for some reason? Like "i'll tell you but this can't get out so imma need some insurance"
Anyways, that was a prelude to saying let's finish up the arc!
8.7!
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Elliot (Boy) 19-Aug-19 02:10 AM
sharkhi 🍿 sharkhi
😁 1
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 02:11 AM
When we last left off, our POV character had a touching conversation with her mom that might've bought her identity a few more hours of existence! Now will she find a name to reclaim? Or end up in rat-infested pieces?
“I guess I missed you yesterday,” she said. Prick of the finger. Blood collected in fingernail, three drops deposited on the ground. “I feel worse about it than you’d think. Missing a day. But it’s reality shenanigans, I guess. Going to places where time passes differently. I’m… jeez, coming from there to here, I’m seeing how screwed I am, and I’m hoping I’m not giving away something I can’t afford to give away, right here.”
I feel bad about not noticing that this is clearly the reason NotMaggie wanted to leave Johannes' realm sometime the same day. But hey, here we are! If I were to guess, I'd say it'd be a good trade or at least about even, since this is one of her stronger connections, and she's...well, as identity-weak as she is. Plus this is a good event to sort of bookend the arc with. It's at the end of the first chapter, and the beginning of the first. starts wondering if this is one of those palindrome arcs. Not that that'd make as much sense (ward)as it does for eclipse, because an eclipse is an inherently palindromic event and signatures aren't unless your name is bob. Fuck, now I'm thinking about Ashley again and this is sad. I'm sad. How did this happen
“Hopefully the tradeoff in keeping our little connection here strong is more or less equivalent. If it isn’t, well, I guess it’s not all bad. Penance doesn’t count for much if it isn’t hard, right?”
HHhhhhh. This is one of those things that just breaks my heart whenever I think about it in those terms, because I can imagine the guilt that would come from making that...big of a mistake. From making the mistake that killed one of the more innocent people we've met in the story.
“Unless you’re religious, in which case you just gotta say a few prayers. You aren’t religious, right? That’d be weird. Churchgoing diabolist family.”
Hey, you should talk to the author of Black Lamb's Blood! She has a pretty unique perspective.
“But I don’t want to dump my problems on you. I just wanted to stick a nail in this connection, and above all, I wanted to let you know that I might not be paying more visits. I don’t know what happens next, but it’d be weird to be on Johannes side and against the Thorburns, but still paying you visits…”
Dammit. So she's planning on taking him up on his offer. Yeah, I guess I would too...even though he's such a shitbag. I don't want to see our protagonist against the Thorburns either, that's generally been a bad experience for her.
Molly looked afraid. Always, even when her echo reflected moments before she’d seen the goblins. General fear.
This hits me so much harder now that I went back and read 1.1 again, and got to see Molly still alive, got to see Molly get the house and immediately say "No". Rose was the right choice for the Thorburn Heir after all.
“I guess I gotta maybe say goodbye here. Because I dunno what’s going to happen, and I’m running out of time. I’m… I sort of made a promise to myself, way back when, that I wouldn’t be passive again. I didn’t want to just stand by the next time trouble came calling, or cry when I could fight back. And I guess I made the mistake of thinking I had to be aggressive, that fighting back meant fighting. I’m still doing it, I guess. I’ve always really been really crum- really shitty at finding the middle ground. Yeah, fair warning, I might swear a bit, even though I’m not supposed to. Count it as penance, I guess.”
Lords, I'm gonna cry again. It's such an honest (and not just of the practitioner variety) self aware, human thing to say. She's someone who went through trauma, and she's still shaped by it, even if she's trying not to be.
I love the beat at the end, that she swears because conveying this message is worth it, it's part of what she has to do as penance, and even though she's hedging things by saying "i guess" and "I sort of" that's normal when admitting something like this about yourself, and the sentence where she swears makes it clear that she's going to say it with conviction.
She summed up her courage, drew in a breath. “I-” Her voice cracked. She tried again. “I’m really fuckin’ sorry, Molly.”
Yep, I'm tearing up.
same 3
She raised her arms a bit, because the emotions that were welling up were intense enough to demand she do something, and they were the sort that made her feel like she should hug someone or hit someone.
But she doesn't have people to hug, and that's so...hitting, no pun intended. Because Blake had people, but couldn't feel comfortable hugging them. She would feel comfortable, she would want to hug them, but she doesn't have anyone right now.
The emotion wasn’t going away, and she couldn’t do anything here. She had nothing more to say that wouldn’t just take away from that last line.
Ilovethis
She let her arms drop to her side and kicked the first clump of snow she passed by, hard. The effect wasn’t quite so dramatic as she’d hoped it would be. Fight to the end.
It's dramatic to me, kid. It's dramatic to me.
'kid'
i'm like four months older than her
Did celebrities and powerful people glide through life, in large part, because their names carried weight?
Well, I don't know, but my instinct is to say abso-fuckin-lutely. John Mulaney has a bit about how Mick Jagger just has to say "Diet Coke" and one appears in his hand. It's kinda like that, but with the universe at large.
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Elliot (Boy) 19-Aug-19 02:37 AM
ugh, that's still sitting in our DQ backlog - name a famous person and what power their name grants or granted them
Ilovethis 1
I really wanna do it, but we missed our chance not doing it in Signature
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 02:40 AM
Well, I have an idea: don't do it.
...until I catch up cuz I wanna answer
I guess if you tell me about your cool discussion questions when you do them I could just send you my answer here or in an email and then hear them a month later when I listen to the episode!
Up to your discretion I suppose.
Was there a road where she could be her, while avoiding retreading old ground and doing what she’d done to Molly after Laird had approached her? If there was… what would that road look like?
I hope the answer is yes. I think there's no road that doesn't involve compromise on some level, because all practitioners compromise themselves a bit for power (maybe we've just been in Blake's shoes a little too long, but I think it applies to most people we've seen). But I have to believe there are roads that don't compromise that. Roads where she can be her.
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Elliot (Boy) 19-Aug-19 02:44 AM
Well most of our DQs are quite context specific so there's some risks there
that'd be my big concern
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 02:45 AM
That's true. There have been some that weren't, though, like "figure out a cool unique way to practice"
I guess that was cuz we met a bunch of new practitioners all at once with really cool niche specialties, but there wasn't an inherent spoiler.
agree 1
She’d said her name when she’d sworn her oath. How long before the oath unraveled, leaving her without anything at all?
Ah yeah, shit. I didn't even think of this, since the ritual involves so many other identity based things, but if you can be somewhere between awakened and unawakened I'm sure our protagonist is sliding down the spectrum as we speak.
If that was one hold she could maintain… maybe she needed to put a nail in that too. Well, getting power would be a start. If she had a little bit more oomph at her disposal, she’d be able to cement her position better.
Underdog protagonists acquiring power and tools is a surprisingly potent reason that I love to read fantasy stories. It's so good when it's handled well, and Pact handles it well. So do a lot of my favorites: Way of Kings, Kingkiller, probably something that doesn't have to do with kings I dunno
“Are local goblins still hanging out at the MacEwen Park shed?” “Last I saw.”
I can feel it imminent....the power
👺 🐒 👿 🐶 🐗 (edited)
that's supposed to be a bunch of different kinds of goblin
there's not a "face made of boogers" emoji, so I worked with what I had
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Elliot (Boy) 19-Aug-19 02:53 AM
The last one is contentious 😛
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 02:54 AM
No offense to any monkeys, boars, or demons in the audience, of course
since I know sere likes to pop in from time to time 😈 (edited)
😈 1
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Elliot (Boy) 19-Aug-19 02:55 AM
You forgot Im- never mind it's too low effort
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 02:56 AM
His bulldog-like face,
Ah! Right, forgot, that's gotta be in there
“Yes, we’re going to the park…” she said. She secured her scarf. “But we have one step first.” He saw the tunnel loom and groaned.
Maybe become cool and powerful before you go talk to The Sorcerer
unless there's something else she needs to do in his realm 👀
“Suck it up, Buttsack. The alternative is that I ask you for this stuff, and I don’t think it’s the sort of thing you want to be sent out to collect.” “What stuff?” he asked. ■ Johannes nodded slowly. “Chains, steel wool, lighter fluid and matches, shotgun shells…”
There are these transitions that aren't exactly thematically powerful or anything, they're just absolutely delightful to read.
“What are your intentions?” She wasted no time in replying. “Getting power.”
Are we gonna get to watch her Rude Goldberg a bunch of of Goblin traps? Because it seems unlikely, but also I would love to watch it so I'm holding out hope. What the fuck are the marbles for, anyways?
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Seregraug 19-Aug-19 03:01 AM
I heard a summons.
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 03:02 AM
We were talking about demons, and I happened to mention our resident demon
expert
our demon expert, since you seem to know so much about demons
...inexplicably
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Seregraug 19-Aug-19 03:02 AM
Ah, yes, expert.
Definitely human expert.
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 03:03 AM
suspicious
right
The girl in the checkered scarf had to readjust her hairband to keep the hair at the front of her ear from tickling her eye. “I’m hardly a threat to anyone, but if you need it, I promise not to use the power I gain here against you.” “Very well. I have one guest I can tap for the task. Faysal, do you think you could bear a message to the Duck Knight?”
Ahem
excuse me the what
🦆
the uh
the Duck Knight, eh?
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Elliot (Boy) 19-Aug-19 03:06 AM
Rude Goldberg not sure if autocorrect or a great goblin pun
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 03:07 AM
(that was a pun but I could've made it clearer) Why do knights in this story always have their title paired with something...ah...oxymoronic?
Duck Knights
Knights of the Basement
it could be a trend
He let go of the paper. The wind direction changed, carrying it to Faysal.
Gods, I would be so lazy if my environment were purely mine to manipulate
to give you the non practitioner version, I'm currently on a rolly chair with the rollies (and entire wheel structure thing)removed so that it's just an armchair that sits on my bed in front of my computer. Yeah, to access my computer when I wake up, I literally have to roll over. And when I'm feeling more professional I can drag my chair up here and sit in it.
Faysal flared. A flash of light, a gleam, a brief glimpse of a humanoid figure, too bright to look directly at, and the entire area seemed to bend, like it sometimes did in the science fiction shows, when a ship kicked off into hyperdrive and the area took a second to resettle.
I picture this as Tommy's power from Heroes Reborn. I wonder what Johannes' familiar is, when he's not a dog. There's the light theme, but it could also be something to do with Space, as a counterpart to the behaims' Time, and also maybe the reason he was able to claim such a Demesne.
“Duck Knight?” “Long story. Tagged along on another’s invitation. We had words, and he’s agreed to be at my disposal while I grant him my hospitality. I’m disposing, and I’m frankly glad to have the chance. I wouldn’t want him thinking he’s getting off scott-free.”
Duck Knight is giving me Jermy Fartz vibes
like "oh god dammit, it's fucking duck knight again, who the hell invited him? Ughhh he's so lame"
“Power,” he said. “Power,” she replied.
Good talk
“Your familiar is a gatekeeper. It can go virtually anywhere, virtually instantly, including some places with locked doors, or did I hear wrong?” “You heard right.”
This is even more juicy! So not something to do with space as in dominion, but certainly something to do with space as in position. I'm even more curious, because I'm sure that 'gatekeeper' isn't the kind of Other he is, and I want to figure that out.
“I’ll give you three answers if you give me three. But we can each retain a veto, to be fair.” “Is this a trap? This sounds like a trap.” “Not a trap,” Johannes said. “Ask your questions first. I’ll match mine to yours in a way that’s fair.”
OooooooooOOooooo I'm ready to learn about Johannes and also our nameless practitioner. I literally just clapped my hands in anticipation.
How did you get this demesne?” “Going right for my veto. No comment.”
Dammit!
but that's an amused sort of "Dammit". Like, I didn't think we were actually going to find out, but I wanted to
same 1
“Alright, then. How did you get something like that as a familiar?” “Like all of the best friendships, we started out as enemies. The inverse is possible, too. It’s all about the strength of the connection.”
This is a really fun metaphysical statement/conceit that we've seen before, but that I'm oh so happy to see again.
And it's true! One of my best friends was my mortal enemy from kindergarten to about fifth grade
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Elliot (Boy) 19-Aug-19 03:23 AM
I pictured Faysal's warping as more like that bit in Order of the Phoenix where Dumbledore high fived Fawkes to escape Umbridge and co - just with less of an explosive shockwave
(also I haven't started Half Blood Prince so no spoilers please)
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 03:24 AM
Yeah! I could see that, I don't think it's all that different from what I was picturi-
are...you serious?
That's uh...huh. I mean, I'm not the most avid advertiser of harry potter books, but...your kind are few and far between these days
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Elliot (Boy) 19-Aug-19 03:26 AM
Yeah which is why I have to mention it - people assume you’ve read them by default
I’ve had a few things spoilt already
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 03:27 AM
Alright, well I'm excited for your journey! I don't know how many of my fond memories of those books are due to nostalgia, but I certainly have them!
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Elliot (Boy) 19-Aug-19 03:28 AM
Yeah sorry I didn’t mean to interrupt the live read
Let’s go back to that
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 03:28 AM
(you're fine I like getting distracted in moderate doses)
“I suppose that doesn’t answer the question. We began as enemies. When you mess with the natural order of creation or go well outside your way to bend the rules, you can expect the universe to send something like him after you. I should have gotten the attention of a entity of the third choir, who oversee structure, but I suppose they weren’t absolutely sure. They sent one of the little ones after me.”
Oh FUCK. one of the more uh...pearly gatekeepers then. I like that the Angels have choirs too, and that they seem to correspond to that of the demons, if the third is any indication. Still, wow. An angel.
“Well, once I started the ritual, he couldn’t interfere. It’s not in his makeup, and quite frankly, I should have been destroyed as it stood. We talked between rounds-”
I wonder if dogs are connected with the idea of being enemies first, then friends
it's just a thought that occurs to me, as we've seen two dog familiars in the story and both of them have had shades of that in their stories.
So there's a correlation, if nothing else
“Well, at one point he asked why I hadn’t tried using my pipes.” “He was a dog then, I take it.” “He was a great many things. You could argue there was a little bit of everything in him. The pipes could have worked.”
Seems to confirm what I was thinking about Rosalyn's Familiar instructions, that it has something specifically to do with Johannes' implement.
“But I have a sense of how things work. I might have won the battle, but I would have lost the war. As it stood, I talked him into it. Made a very convincing argument about the way things should be. The deciding point to sway him, apparently, was that I hadn’t tried to use the pipes. I claimed my Demesne and my familiar within seconds of one another"
Man, he's just...he's such a badass and I want to know more about him. Maybe I'd tend to idolize 20 something long haired guys with power and charm in general, but even if this wasn't quite as cool as it sounds, he's good at putting a spin on it.
Still a creep? Yeah
Still pretty awful and desensitized? Totally
but a fuckin badass? Unquestionably
“Where’d you get the pipes?” “I bought them from a man who had no idea they were an instrument. He thought they were art. I’ve been led to believe they’ve been wandering. Escaping, I’d venture to say. I did my research, trying to find out what path they’ve traveled, and all I can tell is that they were once in the hands of men and women who most definitely should not have the ability to beguile children. Perhaps a long succession of those men and women. I don’t know if they’re the originals or if a very bad person decided to make them, but they serve.”
They ARE those Pipes, or something very similar! That's so friggin awesome. The Pied Piper was one of my favorite fairy tales as a kid, in a thrilling, creepy kind of way.
I'm also kind of coming around on Johannes, he's maybe not that bad. This kind of throws a wrench in the pedophilic undertones he was throwing off at the beginning of the story (although maybe I just like him better and that's what I want to believe now), and he's got a really interesting history. Plus, he's got style.
Plus plus, he's being cool to our nameless protagonist rightnow, and that's swaying me a little. Like, he didn't have to do this. And it seems like he wouldn't get nearly as many juicy details from his questions (though that remains to be seen) so this is just kind of a cool thing to offer.
“Then my third question,” she said, “Would be why?” “Very broad. I’d warn you-” “I know. Broad question, broad answer. It’s cool.”
What a question, eh? Why?
Lords, I wanna ask that question to everyone I meet.
"Hey Matt, just wanted to ask: Why?"
that's goin in the next qna
“Did you know, against all odds, we’re actually winning?” “Who’re we?” “Men, women, children. Humanity. We’re beating back the Others. We’ve got twenty-and-thirty-somethings in a prolonged adolescence, compared to a hundred or a hundred and fifty years ago, when most teenagers could be expected to be working, growing up fast. Even people of retirement age are enduring under delusions, blithely striding forward into ruin, with crippling debt and no savings. We’re reveling in a culture of relative innocence, and longstanding agreements put in place centuries ago protect people. Society is changing with a startling speed, and the Others can’t keep up. They fix themselves to ideas and methods and then fall by the wayside when we abandon our radios or our lanterns in favor of televisions and electricity.”
This is an outlook that I really appreciate and respect, even if I don't agree with aspects of it. Buy and large, things have gotten better throughout history. There's less disease now, there's less sexual harassment, there's less child mortality. We're improving the world in a lot of meaningful ways. A lot of crime rates are on a downward trend, etc. A lot of news would have you believe that the world is falling apart- and it is, in meaningful and catastrophic ways- but it's also coming together. It's all shittier than it was, but we're becoming less shitty, too.
We're becoming more open minded and malleable, and that's winning the fight against the Others, slowly but surely. Against the things made of fear, made of ugliness, made of deceit and beauty, made of hatred.
Whether the Practice in general is still an issue remains to be seen
The idea of the cycle is still relevant. If this wheel keeps turning it'll flatten the world and everything on it
But maybe we're learning to break free
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A bird 🐦 19-Aug-19 03:48 AM
longstanding agreements put in place centuries ago
The void in reality that once housed Blake might smack him for that one
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 03:48 AM
Yeah, that's one of the things, isn't it
As our concepts start to unravel, as things become less sure and information oversaturates, the things holding back the pure destruction might unravel right along with it
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A bird 🐦 19-Aug-19 03:49 AM
Puts you in mind of the Duchamps deal with the local goblins, doesn't it? Helps the Duchamps, doesn't help Molly or the girl in the checkered scarf
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 03:54 AM
“We’re swelling in number, and where there used to be only points of light in the midst of the night-time, small candle flames and hearthfires, our nights are bright now. They have less shadows to lurk in. We’ve grown to a population of billions, and the rules put in place by one brilliant man with an eye to the future have made it so that they can’t really stop us. They kill hundreds, but we grow in terms of thousands in that same span of time, and then we send our practitioners to deal with the most problematic ones. They have less fertile ground to grow from, as we put superstition and fear behind us and move on with blind, stupid confidence.”
My feelings on this are so complicated, because they're lined up with my general feelings about the world in general, humanity in general. And listen: I'm just a stupid teenager. I don't know shit about the world or reality, and I get told that every day. I don't know that adults know any more shit about the world or reality, but I'm somewhat aware of my own ignorance. But if I'm gonna liveread the book then I'm gonna liveread the book, and Johannes is saying something pretty profound about the metaphor the book is working with here. What I do understand of reality, I interpret through fantasy. It helps me think about it in new terms, apply the frameworks that I need to solve issues.
A part of Johannes' argument, is that we deal with the problematic others. That practitioners do. I think that's a load of crap, from the examples we've seen in-story. The Duchamps ignore the goblins, like Bird said. Things like the Hyena and even Conquest get ignored for centuries because it's easier not to deal. Things like the Abstract Demon...well, we don't know how many people have tried to deal with it since it's by nature pretty hard to tell, but it doesn't seem like there've been a lot of attempts, since you'd think some would survive to tell the tale, like the cabal or the remaining Knights did.
And this is something our girl seems aware of, which is why it's so interesting that she's the one who's being put up against this point of view right here. Johannes' "we're winning", against, our protagonist's "slow boil". I think they're both right, but I think that both viewpoints are dangerous.
That the world is always getting shittier is provably false in some cases, and can lead to problematic outlooks on reality. That the world is steadily improving can lead to not thinking about or addressing the problems that are worsening.
I take the cosmopolitan view that everything's getting better, and also everything's getting worse. Because belief is complicated and I contain multitudes, and also how the fuck would I know I haven't been around two goddamn decades
“Don’t get me wrong. You could say I’m one of those people,” he said. He covered one eye, and pried the other open. She looked away before she could see the empty socket. He passed the orb from one hand to the other, then put it back. “Blind, partway there. Confident? Yes. Stupid? I don’t have the objectivity to say, but, well, I’ve put this together, so that might be answer enough.”
And I love Johannes here because he kinda knows this, he's self aware about it, he's self-deprecating- gods, if you take the right parts of Johannes and Ty you can recreate me to a fuckin tee
I believe that he does think he's helping with this, and for that I do respect him.
As horrible crimes in this world go, he's not high on the list. I said he was awful because he was letting the child vestiges be tormented, but...on a level I do understand, and I don't know that I would make the different choice, or that I would perceive my choice as moral if I did (I am easily swayed by adorable children and animals...just not occupying the same three dimensional space because holy shit that was terrifying. My point is I might choose the kids and end up doing more damage in the long term). This playground for Others is a good deal, in his mind. Instead of tormenting actual people, they only torment their shadows, vestiges of them.
“Yes,” he said. He smiled a bit. “I don’t think we’ll banish all the Others anytime soon. Or even in a hundred years, or a thousand. But we’re making inroads. The landscape is changing, and Others are on unsteady footing. Some won’t be uprooted no matter how much the landscape changes. Because they’re powerful, or because they’re rooted in something too fundamental. Some have found their place in the new landscape, but I imagine they’re still uncertain. Even humans are a little uncertain. Then there’s another group. Some Others are looking for a place. Faysal was one, in a way, and I think I’d rather give them a place than see what happens when they try to take it.”
I mean I sussed out this motivation and talked about it before actually reading it on the page, but it's good to see I was on the right track.
He paused to let that sink in, then spoke again, “I won’t say it isn’t selfish. I think, as the situation shifts and Others are replaced by us, others will start doing what I’m doing. Maybe Lords will start offering up their cities. It’ll concentrate the damage the Others do to us, maybe even slowing it, giving us more time to expand and assert or dominion… And whatever happens, I wouldn’t mind being the example people look to, ideally as a success story.”
I think that, much like I do, he's kind of definitely underestimating the role that his ego is playing in all this. It's not just about the good it's doing for humanity, and at the end of the day you know that Johannes lives for having an angel as a familiar, for decking out his tower in Cool Shit and being known as The Sorcerer...I know because I would love that. A realm where everyone respects me, I'm awesome, I live in a tower of gold, and I'm serving as the first example of a new way of improving the world? My ego would relish in it.
I'm really really empathizing with Johannes here, which is helping in my critique of him as well as myself.
I'd say my general ethos is Ty's method to Johannes' madness, with a hodgepodge of their respective mannerisms thrown in. And that really helps me understand the story's critique of me- which is something I try to decipher with everything I read and watch.
Along with my own fuckups and my own writing, the things that have taught me the most about myself are the stories I've read.
He looked so at ease, and he was talking about such grand ideas.
Yeah....yeah.
Johannes is climbing the favorites ranks
I hope y'all enjoyed that little relevant tangent, btw. It was a lot of fun.
and took me a half hour
“Not to worry. My first question… you’ve heard my argument, you know my agenda, at least in the abstract. are you going to take my offer?” The question caught her off guard. She slowly shook her head. “I can’t. It’s… it would put me at odds with people who’ve been fairest to me, and that wouldn’t be fair to them.”
sharkhi
I'm glad she came around to a final decision on the matter. As much as I like Johannes, our protagonist made exactly the right choice.
“…I think we’d both lose in the long run. I guess it’s part of who I am. I can’t take the easy road. I can’t be passive.” “Even if these important things are weighing on you.”
I do want these characters to get along, and I think they're making progress there, but...this isn't the way to do it, I think. It sucks, because she needs a name, and Johannes is maybe a lesser of a helluva lot of evils she could consult, but...yeah. It's not the right choice.
have just one more question, I suppose.” “Sure.” She tensed, ready for the knockout blow. “What’s the story with your being unable to swear?”
Hahahahahahahahahahaha that's amazing.
“I can put two and two together, but I’ve wondered.” “I traded the harshest part of my tongue to a goblin for information on how to bind superior goblins. I, uh… that’s pretty much the whole story.” “Ah.”
Kid, you gotta know I love you....but you kinda suck at telling stories. Come on, where's the theatrics? the ol practitioner mumbo jumbo?
In theory, I could point you to a certain individual who betrayed my rules, Rackspatter of the Nine Thousand Scalps, but I wouldn’t be doing you a service. For one thing, he can’t be bound. If I remember right, ninety-nine of his nine thousand scalps are from practitioners that tried and failed. It’s like the rule of three, reinforced thirty three times over. At this point, it’s a foregone conclusion. You’d be the hundredth.” “And he’d be over nine thousand,” she said. Johannes’ smile suggested he browsed the internet. That was telling.
This is not only a cool bit of worldbuilding, but some excellent memestry. I knew Wildbow had it in 'im somewhere! (that's a joke, I know he doesn't actually make memes but that he hates memes is a meme now and I gotta). Also they're getting along!
“A magicked bag,” Johannes commented. “Everything weighs one tenth what it should.” She tried to pick up the bag, and found she didn’t have the strength.
Hahahahahaha that's hilarious in the worst fucking way
I mean, I think it has a lot of shit in it anyways, but still
“I’m suspicious there’s a reason you keep lending me things,” she said. “Oh?” “Keeps me coming back.” He smiled, a faint dimple showing in one cheek.
See? This is the reason she's lasted this long, I'll bet. She really is making friends. Sure, might not be Lola Duchamp (yet), but I think this is a relationship that's keeping her together right now, or at least helping.
“Let me ask one more question.”
Yes please!!!!
“What’s the real reason you said no to me? It can’t just be your personality at work.”
I'd be careful with statements, practitioner. But...hhhhhhh, we know the answer. And it might not entirely be comfortable to tell.
“And you told me your story, and you told me your agenda, and even though you left stuff out, I can sort of piece it all together. But at the end of the day, there’s only one guy that I know of who’s tempted any angels down a different path, and I bet he sounded awfully convincing too.” Faysal tilted his head. “Ouch,” Johannes said.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! that's so far from what I expected, but so fitting! Damn, that's a friggin burn if ever there was one (i'll stop with the hell puns). It's a fascinating comparison, and one I'll remember. I wonder what Faysal thought?
“Would that other guy wish you luck?” Johannes asked. “Probably.” The floor tiles rotated, opening a hole. A table rose from the floor, and Johannes picked up the book. He handed it to her. “Well, good luck all the same.”
Aw, they're almost friends!
I mean sure, she literally just compared him to the literal devil
But
it was in a friendly way!
Light washed over her, and it was warm, and in the midst of it, she saw Faysal Anwar as it truly was.
And was incinerated to bits, as she can't view a god's true fo- wait no that's percy jackson. Whoopsie daisy.
Gonna pause there, because I have a lot of work to do and, I checked, this is a longer chapter than usual.
I always go to the table of contents version, because I can see how far I am through it, and this is last chapter's scroll bar
and this one's
maybe you can't see the differen- look I've been reading for 2.75 hours and I have video to create so I'll be back soon
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 05:19 AM
So very true
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Wildbow 19-Aug-19 05:42 AM
I'm a hooker, alright
lol 6
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David Hunt 19-Aug-19 05:45 AM
I only managed to stop my binge and so I could let the DIP guys catch up because I had to leave in the middle of a chapter (Arc 11). When they get close, I'll reread the previous chapter and that one. (edited)
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 06:06 AM
Tis the only way
I just realized two things: 1. I'm not going to be able to get any more editing done today I'm just too tired and don't understand
2. Arcwise, I'm gonna be halfway done with Pact tonight so let's finish this
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David Hunt 19-Aug-19 06:08 AM
Woo Hoo!
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 06:11 AM
“Holy bucking candy balls,” she said, eyes wide. “I think I might have pissed Faysal Anwar off with that comparison I made between Johannes and-“ “He’s always like that,” Buttsack muttered, interrupting.
I suppose that candy balls isn't a swear, but it's pushing it. Also, Buttsack has taken the Stairway Down From Heaven before, huh. Wonder if it's like Great America to him. "Oh, you know, if I've got time on the weekends"
Also I wonder if Buttsack's got a whole He Who Must Not Be Named thing with the man down under?
oh no, not you Elliot, the Other under
😟 1
Names are powerful things, as we've...been talking about this entire arc
So makes sense not to toss that one around
“As you command, my mistress, wart on my cockshead, puckered-“ “Shh,” she said.
Buttsack is delightful.
Which is not a sentence I thought I would ever be saying
butt here we are
lol 2
“Frig,” she said, again. “And Sandra thinks she can fight Johannes?” “Yes.” “Frig,” she said. “I feel so small.” He was silent.
Let's talk about our putrid pal for a minute here actually, because she's confiding in him...and we know that, had he control of his full faculties, buttsack would be perfectly happy to rip her to shreds in the most painful and disgusting way possible...sigh
She really needs friends, doesn't she?
agree 2
And not friends who are like, cool, but also way the fuck more powerful and probably not avoiding a little manipulation when it comes to their own ends.
I'd be your friendCharmanderHi
I regularly hang out with people more aggressive than you!
“Kill any goblin that tries to stop me or warn the others.” Buttsack grinned. He had his uses.
Then again, bound, unwilling assistants have their perks and their place
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Fursuit Lightsaber 19-Aug-19 06:20 AM
I'm actually quite curious Jay. What do you think the Girl in the Checkered Scarf is working towards here?
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 06:21 AM
Well, the obvious thing would be binding the goblins, thus strengthening her identity, perhaps enough to claim a new name
She says she's after 'power', and power is come into by binding Others in this book more often than not.
“How many?” she murmured. “Six.”
rubs hands together Let's do this thang.
She pulled the chain from the bag, everything from fingertip to toe straining as she fought to pull it free. Other things were dragged out of the bag as the chain came out. Once the stuff was out of the way, the process was faster. The chain unraveled, and she circled the building. She stopped at the front door, winding the chain around the latch.
Oh, this is clever. I didn't figure out exactly how she would bind the goblins, but this is a pretty awesome start.
Another two goblins appeared. She hadn’t had time to reload. She pointed the pipe at them all the same.
This is tense, but so badass at the same time. She's basically dead on her feet here, but she knows goblins alright, so she's gonna win here
I hope
They were gone. Goblins were cowardly, as a general rule. One of the first rules she’d learned.
This is all of her experience, kind of a big part of what she thinks of as her identity, put to the test
And one of the items that Andy had given her. The same item he’d stuck to the door. A rectangular package wrapped in butcher’s paper. She unfolded the paper. The contents were mostly soft, dull beige, with a bit of hardware on the one end. A microchip, a bit of wiring, and a dull screen that might have fit on a calculator. All in all, it was surprisingly small.
Oh
OH
Is she gonna blow the fuck out of all of them!?
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Fursuit Lightsaber 19-Aug-19 06:28 AM
sharkhi
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 06:29 AM
I'm not sure exactly how that helps, but I'm so fucking down for it!
“Fuck? What the fuck!?” one goblin. “What’s this?” “Hey! Bitch!” Buttsack cried out. “You’ll live,” she said, without turning around.
Oh good, not as attached to him as I thought
also sorry kid, Bitch is taken and you're not winning that contest
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Fursuit Lightsaber 19-Aug-19 06:30 AM
Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal?
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 06:30 AM
he'll live 🤷
also that line was so badass
She pulled the transmitter out of her pocket. Safety off. She pressed the button. She’d thought the pipe shotgun was loud.
And speaking of fuckin badass
I mean I know she like knocks herself into the snow and everything, but I imagine her limping away from the building, still not looking at the explosion
Well, we know from ward that you should probably look at your explosions before you tally your killcount but I'll make an exception here
Most of it. It was faint, faded, and further away than it should have been. Everything looked like it was uphill, as if she stood in the midst of a great depression. Not the small explosive’s work.
This is an awesome visual cue to just enhance the feeling of slipping through the cracks
I hope she has a plan here
because she's cutting it down to the friggin wire in terms of surviving all this
“Stop,” she said. He didn’t. She didn’t have that much sway over him anymore. He spoke, and his voice was a growl. “I could-” She shot him in the leg. He screamed. “Now you can’t,” she murmured.
Hahahahahahahaha, I mean talk about troubling but awesome. If she can't even command him anymore....
Well, to start she might not be able to bind these goblins
She pulled the chain to the middle of the room, then arranged it in a circle, looped three times over, avoiding the spot in the floor which opened up into some seemingly bottomless pit.
I'm kind of worried that this isn't part of the building, and that it's the drain that's waiting to take whatever's left of who she is
Her sanctuary was against goblins alone. A circle Seven feet in diameter.
Sevens are important, and this is 8.7
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Fursuit Lightsaber 19-Aug-19 06:37 AM
No Jay The Drain huh??? 😄
ohno 1
Ilovethis 2
same 2
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 06:38 AM
She used the end of her scarf to clean the inside of the circle, then painted a circle around the inside of the chain. Goblin blood. Chalk for a third circle. Chalk for circles inside the circle, and lines that led to where her legs and rear end met the floor.
Is she recreating the pen diagram!? Why'd she pull the stunt with the goblins? How'd that help? I'm confused but so into it!
She pulled off her scarf. “My dads bought this for me. They gave me shelter, in more ways than one. They gave me strength. They’re at the core of who I am.” Scarf in one circle, with the word ‘Dads’. “My mom…” She put in the phone Johannes had lent her, the vehicle for her latest, freshest communication with her mom.
YESSSSSSS!!! SYMBOLS AND CIRCLES MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!!!
There weren’t that many connections she could secure. Pipe shotgun. “My relationship to goblins.”
That's golden
She picked up the book on Demesnes, then shifted position until a circle was in front of her. “Blake. He told me he’d teach me magic. My first real friend here.”
😭
“Take your time,” she said. “I’m… well, I won’t say I’m not in a hurry, but I can wait.” She found the page on Demesnes.
O!?! Is she trying to claim her demesnes? Fucking now!? Is that why she defeated every Other in the building first?
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Fursuit Lightsaber 19-Aug-19 06:41 AM
Good Demense that :p Random shack in the swamp that she doesn't own
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 06:42 AM
But there was one more circle to attend to. She pricked her finger with the stiletto, then let the blood collect.
The last circle...the final aspect of her identity she can leverage...penance
“If you want me,” she told the void, “You’ll have to take me.”
bulba
Even bulba cannot convey the admiration and awe that I felt at that line
There was barely any light now. A crack ran through the window, allowing only a sliver through. “Molly,” she said.
HHHHHHH
An hour might have passed, she couldn’t be sure. She read through Demesnes to pass the time, to learn. The goblins recovered, healing from the wounds that hadn’t been dealt by metal. She reloaded her gun. She ate and drank. The sandwiches had been made as she’d specified. Close enough to her favorite ham and cheese.
what the fuck is the plan!?
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Fursuit Lightsaber 19-Aug-19 06:44 AM
😄
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 06:45 AM
She's just...waiting? For what!?
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Fursuit Lightsaber 19-Aug-19 06:45 AM
👀
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 06:45 AM
When all of the goblins were standing, Buttsack included, she was ready.
Ready for WHAT!?
A demesnes wasn’t in the game plan. “I hereby make a claim,” she said. “Let this be my statement.”
OH SHIT
I JUST REALIZED WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING DOWN AND IT'S AMAZING
She improvised, using the demesnes ritual for a guide, a loose outline to follow. “I claim a name, and I claim only that name. I claim it by the connections here, and only these connections. I-” She hesitated. “-I name myself Mags. By this, this remnant of my old name, I claim my Self, I claim my strength, and I deny Maggie Holt from taking anything further. I give up what I have lost, and I hold to what I still have.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is SO AWESOME!!!!!!!
I'LL GIVE MY SCHPEEL ON HOW COOL IT IS ANALYTICALLY LATER THIS IS JUST TOO GOOD TO PAUSE DURING
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Fursuit Lightsaber 19-Aug-19 06:47 AM
sharkhi
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 06:48 AM
“But I won’t be half a person. I claim other things. I claim myself to be the wild card. I claim myself to be the neutral party. Three times, I was met and welcomed, and three times did I bargain. I know these people have no reason to gainsay me in this. I will be the messenger, the ambassador, the deciding figure, in Jacob’s Bell, until I’m replaced or unable to serve.”
WOW HOLY SHIT
Ilovethis 1
She's really fuckin going for it! I didn't connect that myself, but it's such a perfect role for her to slot into
Mags is really redefining herself, literally redefining herself, out of the pieces of what she was before. The messenger is a lonely position, the neutral position. But it's not the aggressive one, it's not the violent and lashing out one. It's the peaceful one, the powerful one, the wild in the best fucking way one.
“If anyone would deny me this, I bid them to come, and to go fuck themselves. I’ll answer them, and meet them in fair contest of mutual agreement. I so swear, with all my being to hold onto what I have here, I swear with my everything, as my being is all I have left.”
YESSS YOU TELL THE SPIRIT SONS OF BITCHES HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAA
I don't know that "I bid you to come and go fuck yourself" was in the manual, but it's so quintessentially her.
She aimed her pipe gun and fired it. The sound rippled, reaching far.
Oh fuck, she just told that to the whole town, didn't she?
Sandra. “No contest.”
Jacob's Mom, comin through!
Johannes. “No contest,” he said.
The Sorcerer approves! I'm so glad he didn't screw her over here. Not that I doubted him. Much.
Then another figure. She could see her, but not hear the footsteps. The voice was her own. “You had to surround yourself with goblins of all things.”
Hahahahahahahaha, Maggie Holt gets a say here? Of course s/he does. This is great on every level: character-wise she's stepping out of Padraic's shadow, symbology-wise she's confronting the parts of her she's casting away, her old name; and from a pure entertainment standpoint I love hearing this particular Other say things.
“I very nearly had you.” “Yeah.” “I’m interested to see how this next bit plays out.” “Fuck you, Padraic. I bet you did a shitty job of being me.” But Maggie was gone, as was Padraic.
Ilovethis
(he did a pretty good job of being you...I wouldn't've caught it, but Elliot had him pegged so I guess that's one thing)
“I won’t be so easy,” Mara said. “I won’t have my dads,” the girl in the checkered scarf said. “Not wholly. I won’t have my old life, or even the school I hate. If you want to be cruel, and force me to travel the harder path, let me keep going like this.” Wind blew, whistling through the holes in the shack. “No contest.”
Mara, why'd you have to go and make not contesting look like the bitchiest thing you could've done?
Hhhhh
Even with this, she'll have to work at getting her dads back...
always a price to pay
even when you win
Time passed. She waited, and she ate. She conserved water, but time passed, and it finished.
Speaking of time, time, time (see what's become of me)...
Where the fuck are the behaims?
Another figure. A group.
Behaims? That you?
They didn’t peer through the holes in the shack, but opened the door. Rose Thorburn, out of the mirror, a black, gangly kid with a bird on his shoulder, a taller girl with a luggage case behind her, and a shorter girl with a cigarette. “No contest,” Rose said. “You’re done.”
THEY OPENED THE DOOR!
IT'S THE CABAL!!! Blakeless...
Guess he must've died sometime during this whole ritual thing...between when she invoked his name and here. Does that mean she waited for all the time it took Rose and ca. to get back from toronto?
Mags nodded slowly.
HHHHHHHYESSS
This feels so perfect
finally, finally referring to her by name
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Funky 19-Aug-19 07:03 AM
Toronto isn't that far away from Jacob's Bell
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 07:04 AM
Couple hours, but yeah I guess
I assume they didn't leave right as he was killed. Stuff to...like, pack, maybe?
“You okay?” Rose asked. “I heard what happened.” “I’m not okay, but I’ll deal.” Rose nodded. There were no cracks anywhere they didn’t belong as Rose offered Mags a helping hand in getting to her feet.
Look at them!!! They're friends!!! Also I guess the behaims never showed. I thought they were late, but that's not like them anyways.
I guess Rose was enough to seal the deal
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Funky 19-Aug-19 07:05 AM
You could say the line "Time Passed" is enough to mark the behaims as passing through
🤔 1
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 07:06 AM
PFFFT
headcanoned
“You’ve got to tell me your story,” Mags said, stepping outside, her eyes on the strangers. “Starting with where Blake is.” The quiet, confused looks were an answer unto themselves. “What?” she asked.
...
Holy fuck
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Snes 19-Aug-19 07:06 AM
Been waiting for that shoe to drop.
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 07:06 AM
Wh
how
wha
!!?!?!??!?!???
HOLY SHIT HE'S NOT GONE
👀 3
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Snes 19-Aug-19 07:08 AM
There's a difference between "gone" and "forgotten."
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 07:09 AM
NO NO NO I GOT IT I THI- wow Wildbow was typing and now i feel a lot more self conscious about this prediction jguess but here goes:
Blake isn't dead, and not just because- okay well blake's dead but he isn't gone, and not just because I really don't want him to be
He must've fallen through the cracks! And since all his connections were on the "surface" in the real world, they were all severed. But Mags was in-between! I think that the moments she was closest to falling through for good must've been the moments Blake did- I don't know how exactly he escaped and I'm just now realizing that the fact that Maggie didn't have an identity might've meant something close to what Isadora said about maintaining memory and that's an easier explanation- but no, because Mags remembers his name, and even Isadora didn't know that.
No I'm throwing myself headfirst into this I was almost right with Maggie being Margret- though I went in the total opposite direction, so maybe I'm also totally crazy here
but I think the fact that Mags reaffirmed her connection with Blake right before...uh, it happened, and then still remembers him after, means that it's not because of a tenuous connection (unless it's because of tenuous identity in general) ah this is confusing and I'm getting flustered just thinking about it
I'm just happy someone remembers Blake
And that a friend does, above all
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Funky 19-Aug-19 07:16 AM
Since there is no lude to ask about... any predictions as to what might go on on the next arc?
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 07:18 AM
I'm guessing (not jguessing, just guessing) we're gonna jump into a Rose pov for maybe the rest of the story, but I still don't know whether it'll be first person or third
I kind of hope it's first person?
But also I think that's unlikely just because...I don't know. One first person point of view per book, and all
it'd be kind of weird to break it here
and besides, that would mean Rose deserves a place on the Parahumans Banner, and it's a whole mess
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Funky 19-Aug-19 07:19 AM
I mean, technically the same person I guess
Magic is weird
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 07:20 AM
Alas, where's Keira's distorted emoji with the eyes n shit when I need it to react to what the fuck you just said?
yeah that one
I wanna read the next arc but I also wanna live to tomorrow so that's all for tonight, guys!
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Wildbow 19-Aug-19 07:24 AM
Awww
Just one chapter
same 1
It's probably very light reading, and it'd sate your curiosity, let you wind down.
suspicious 2
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 07:25 AM
....I guess I didn't have anything important to do tomorrow anyways
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Wildbow 19-Aug-19 07:25 AM
(In all seriousness, don't put yourself in a bad spot)
same 2
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Fursuit Lightsaber 19-Aug-19 07:26 AM
Wildbow playing the devil on the shoulder
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David Hunt 19-Aug-19 07:27 AM
Yeah. I was frantically searching for an Admiral Akbar "It's a trap!" gif
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 07:27 AM
(I figured, but thanks!) I have time, and my curiosity has overtaken my being but I'm gonna have dinner first so I'll be back in like 20 minutes. Curiosity can have its moment when hunger's not screaming at me.
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A bird 🐦 19-Aug-19 07:46 AM
👀
I feel cheated, I missed the big shebang!
That was a great read though
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Elliot (Boy) 19-Aug-19 07:48 AM
haha just caught up
Love the finish to this arc
also go jump on the big rant you did before Jay about Johannes' view on society - I totally agree with what you said about Conquest and The Hyena, but I think Ur sits as a great example of the other ideology - the people who do nothing are the survivors. It's a kind of survival of the fittest - where here apathy to fixing problems is good for fitness
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 08:09 AM
Glad you guys enjoyed! Re: Ur and society of the fittest, I absolutely agree, and I think that's one of the central problems of the story. I mean look at the people who've been around a while. Crone Mara's not some evil Other (creepy doesn't count...even if I sometimes feel like it does), but she certainly isn't helping, and look where it's gotten her. I'm just hoping that Mags is gonna be one of the people to reverse this trend, seeing as she actually gained ground in the world via declaring herself to be in a helpful position.
But maybe we'll have to wait till our third protagonist for that to happen
Speaking of (potentially) our third protagonist:
Arc 9: Null
So this arc is gonna be thematically tied in some way to void, I'm guessing
I'm not actually sure what the difference is, lemme go look it up
so it uh basically means the same thing and we say "null and void" cuz it sounds good and also redundancy I guess
But I like that imagery, having no binding force
it's quite Pact
You know I thought this arc would be Rose, but what if it's Blake? I didn't really consider it until I saw that "having no legal or binding force" part, because if my theory is true that's what Blake is now...I don't think we'd get it confirmed that soon
hell, we'll probably never get it confirmed and I'm still just gonna be a raving lunatic after the story's over goin "he still exists I have seen it!"
Let's start this damn chapter already I've been hovering over the table of contents for like five minutes
👀
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Elliot (Boy) 19-Aug-19 08:16 AM
fine sharkhi fine
same 1
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 08:18 AM
Well that's not troubling at all, said the not-practitioner
When I opened my eyes, rain had settled in my one eye socket. The act of opening my eye meant that freezing water seized the surface of the eye itself, and a thin dribble ran along my cheekbone.
Sweet fucking scion it's blake
it's him!
IT'S REALLY HIM
sharkhi 3
I blinked, and found I couldn’t see out of the one eye, even after the moisture was gone. My hand grasped for purchase, and it found mud. The rain was as cold as water could get without being ice. My body was numb and damaged. When I tried to rub a sticky smear of blood from my face, I succeeded only in getting blood on my hand and grit on my face.
The only other person it could be is Rose, and I know she doesn't talk like this, and there's no reason her fucking eye socket would be exposed, and this is just him I'm so unbelievably happy right now
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David Hunt 19-Aug-19 08:21 AM
You were ready to argue against the common wisdom that he was...in existence for years. I only took ten minutes. I guess you don't get to have that moral righteiousness.
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 08:21 AM
BUT IT DOESN'T MATTER BECAUSE I GOT BLAKE BACK
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Elliot (Boy) 19-Aug-19 08:22 AM
Jay if Blake was gone he wouldn't be able to suffer
Therefore he had to be out there somewhere
but yeah sharkhi sharkhi sharkhi
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 08:22 AM
Standing was hard. The mud beneath me was the sucking sort of wet mud that could steal a shoe, or let someone sink in to mid-calf level, and refuse to let them go. As I dug a foot in, struggling to find traction, I created an opening that let the freezing water in nearby pools flood in around my foot.
And granted, he is...out there. He is not having a fun time right about now, and that does offset my happiness a bit.
I didn't expect him to be, like, fine or anything. He's Blake. The only moment I can name when he could justifiably be called 'fine' was right before he ran into a building and got dissappeared but not for good I'm still happy he's back it's gonna take a lot to ruin this for me but I'm sure the chapter's working on it
Which reminded me… I tried to look with my Sight. Nothing. Nothing at all.
Huh
well that's not a good sign
I'm kind of worried it's the opposite here
like, he's seeing only with his Sight because this place doesn't exist to the unawakened
and possibly because he doesn't exist in the traditional sense
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A bird 🐦 19-Aug-19 08:27 AM
Arrgh
I want to convey my excitement
And nothing else
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 08:28 AM
sharkhi this is a fun way
sharks spoil nothing
unless ur swimming maybe
lol 1
sharkhi 1
🏊 1
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A bird 🐦 19-Aug-19 08:29 AM
sharkhi
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 08:30 AM
All the same, a cold darkness in the very core of me told me what I’d expected to confirm. I felt alone.
I really really hope this is just your typical "i wound up in hell without any friends or familiars and gosh darn it's pretty lonely" and not, you know...well, his connections did get cut, and if his friends don't remember him...then....that would be so awful that I'm actually not even gonna think about it until it gets confirmed or deconfirmed
The rain and this loneliness weren’t so unusual to me. They were recurring themes for me. The dirt, too, being filthy, on several levels.
Lookit Blake here, doin my analysis job for me!
in the most depressi- in a very depressing way
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David Hunt 19-Aug-19 08:32 AM
Good call. Leave yourself leeway for things to get worse for Blake. That's a bet that hasn't failed to pay off yet.
lol 1
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 08:32 AM
I tried to think of times that things didn't get worse for blake
And the results were pretty much what you'd expect from a good protagonist
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Elliot (Boy) 19-Aug-19 08:33 AM
Well he bound Pauz which meant that.... no wait he set him free.
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 08:34 AM
Yeah, he beat conquest, which freed him to...to go get eaten...by a demon...yeah
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A bird 🐦 19-Aug-19 08:35 AM
He got Evan! ... which got him arrested... and then... yeah
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 08:36 AM
That's actually the closest we've come
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David Hunt 19-Aug-19 08:36 AM
No. Evan is an unambiguous good. I will fight youl
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A bird 🐦 19-Aug-19 08:36 AM
But he lost Evan anyway!
I guess Evan lost him more than anything, but hey
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 08:37 AM
I expected to be weaker than I was. Which wasn’t to say I was strong. I still struggled to stand, with nothing firm to set my feet on, my body weighing twice as much as it should with the caked on mud, bits of ice and collected moisture. Various small injuries decided to wake up as I moved. My fingertips were scraped here and there, and a throbbing pain at the meat of my left hand insisted on nagging at my attention.
All in all, I suppose Blake's managed to put himself through enough hells on earth that he's surprised at how pleasant and not quite as bad literal hell is so far. That'd be impressive if it wasn't so fucking sad.
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A bird 🐦 19-Aug-19 08:38 AM
Real Kimblee vibes right there
agree 1
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 08:39 AM
My one good eye revealed a sky of sheer darkness. It was less like a starless night, and more like I was in a cave, the roof well out of view. The rain could be from some lake or ocean above the cave, leaking in, threatening to break through some thin layer of rock and snuff out everything beneath in one swooping motion.
Just how many cracks did you fall through, my man? This is limbo, right? I should stop calling it hell, I guess, because I'm sure there's an actual literal christian hell where He Who Mags Shan't Name resides over shit and demons are boundless and all that stuff. This is limbo...which is arguably worse
Like the rain, it pressed everything down. It made me want to crawl instead of walk.
Ouch. As someone who usually loves the rain, I've been here and it really sucks. It's funny that it's rain, just because it's been winter for most of the story and that already makes this...off
The only light, when there was light, came from a single old, orange lightbulb in a cage housing, mounted on a wall of irregular stone and mortar. It flickered, spending as much time off as on. I couldn’t make out the rest of the structure from the distance.
If there's one thing I didn't expect from this place it was structure, much less a building. I'm really just...fascinated by the nature of this place
The bits of mud that crested and rose above the puddles were shiny in the light, the briefly revealed humps and ledges suggested snakes, centipedes, squid tendrils, or crocodiles lurking with only traces of their bodies above the surface of the murk.
Like this, holy shit.
The walls were wet and slimy, and resembled an old tunnel wall that predated cars, rounded stones set in place with cracked mortar. Where stones had crumbled, they had been replaced with brick. That brick remained older than I was. A drain.
Oh, oh no. No no no no no, don't go down the drain. I don't think things exist down the drain. He's really landed in the friggin sewers of collective consciousness, hasn't he. I really hope he can tug on the one connection he has and climb it, climb it like a rope in gym class, maybe use Isadora's for balance. Because Mags sank down right with him, so they stayed connected, and then she pulled herself back up with the connection intact, so he has a small, tiny, inkling of a way back up to the real world, back to existence again
She's his lifeline, literally
for all we know, that's the only reason he didn't fall further down this hell-hole...limbo-hole
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Elliot (Boy) 19-Aug-19 08:46 AM
tbh I'd love an AU fanfic where Mags didn't make it and ended up here with him
"oh hey"
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 08:47 AM
I think I'd hate it and it'd be painful...but it'd be pretty fun, yeah
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Elliot (Boy) 19-Aug-19 08:48 AM
exactly
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 08:48 AM
"so did you just flirt with me or was I reading that wrong-" "oh, so funny story..."
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Elliot (Boy) 19-Aug-19 08:48 AM
Mags - lands down here, sees Blake "fuck, you too huh?" (edited)
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David Hunt 19-Aug-19 08:49 AM
Commas. They can save lives.
agree 1
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A bird 🐦 19-Aug-19 08:49 AM
same 1
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 08:49 AM
Well she wouldn't be Mags if she landed down here
PFFFT
I didn't even remember my wording but that's fantastic
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A bird 🐦 19-Aug-19 08:51 AM
Dramatic irony at its finest
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 08:51 AM
So I'm the character in that framework? Never thought about it that way, but it's a good way of using the term
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A bird 🐦 19-Aug-19 08:53 AM
I don't know if you're necessarily a character, but I'm certainly an engaged audience deriving a great deal of entertainment from knowledge outside of the part of the text you're in
Ilovethis 2
were in, in this case
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 08:54 AM
My hands didn’t feel like my hands as I pulled off my jacket. They felt like puppet hands I was operating by remote control. Obeying my instructions, but not in any clever, effective way. I still managed to hold on to my jacket and wring it out, careful to maintain my footing. I couldn’t even hear the water I squeezed out hit anything, over the dull roar of the flowing drainage.
Like everything in Pact, this is able to turn the relatable into the supernatural. I connect it to the quite familiar sensation of feeling so cold that you can't really properly control your motor functions, especially with the beats of the rain. But then it's got that pactlike, supernatural, horrible implication to it
I saw the dirt that had leaked inside my clothes, and I saw the dirt move.
Haha, speaking of, bird, remember when I thought of this exact phenomenon when Blake was going round 2 with Ur because it's just that fucking awful to experience?
lol 1
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A bird 🐦 19-Aug-19 08:56 AM
Poor Blake
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 08:56 AM
okay not the exact same context, but the same phenomenon Lords I hate that so much
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A bird 🐦 19-Aug-19 08:56 AM
Also you should clean your desk
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 08:58 AM
You have no concept of the amount of meaningless clutter that's on my desk right now in no semi-organized fashion. Much of it is edible to ants and I already fear punishment for my folly
ohno 1
Great black tracks marked the surface of each arm. They were great thorny branches, grown mature. No birds, but innumerable feathers, one bird’s skull with a branch growing through the eyehole. Here and there, the branches stood alone, as if they’d broken off and fallen to earth. Not a healthy tree, but tinder, the limbs of a great tree frozen and cast to earth by the weather.
Uhhhhhhhhhh,,,Uhhhhhhhhhhhh
(edited)
The branches crawled up my arms, past my elbows. One reached to my shoulder. I couldn’t see how far up my neck it traveled. The other was denser, painting my left arm black and brown with branches and feathers, respectively.
So wherever he is, it's the level of conception that his tattoos resided on, and now he's just Like That!?
And of course they're in horrible shape right now because of his general state of being
thorny- bird skulls that's really gross and I'd be freaking out
I was deathly afraid of skeletons(pun intended) until I was like ten, I couldn't even see a movie that had them...and that fear of dead things, of husks and body parts, never really left all the way
I know that if I found a bird skull being part of my fuckin arm I'd just flip the fuck out
but honestly I'd've flipped the fuck out at the bugs at this point
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Wildbow 19-Aug-19 09:01 AM
I wonder how jaykidiac would've reacted to someone telling him his bones are wet.
I know that gets to some people when they think about it.
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 09:02 AM
well jaymaniac just vigorously shook his arms to get rid of the sensation that those words you said created, so probably not great
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Elliot (Boy) 19-Aug-19 09:03 AM
I mean bones are in the body
aren't they always wet?
it's just like if someone mentions the manual breathing thing
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 09:03 AM
see, yeah, but Jaykidiac was not the most healthily minded individual and would've had sloshing, creaking nightmares for weeks
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Elliot (Boy) 19-Aug-19 09:04 AM
or like, think about how wet your mouth is. About all the saliva dripping around your tongue. It's always like that you're only just thinking about it now.
fine 1
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A bird 🐦 19-Aug-19 09:05 AM
To be fair to jaymaniac, I'd have flipped the fuck out at the thorny bird skulls in 1.2
same 1
and never recovered
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 09:07 AM
things in pact that would've induced weeks and quite possibly years of nightmares: -This. This entire area and what's happening to Blake -The fucking doll scene, I actually was scared of moving dolls for a year, to the point where I wouldn't be alone in a room without anyone else in it -Ur -Craig dowght's dog -the thorny fucking bird skulls in 1.2 holy shit -The Hyena -June. friggin June -Evan. Couldn't handle ghosts, man. Wouldn't've gotten to the part where he was chill -most things actually
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Elliot (Boy) 19-Aug-19 09:08 AM
Yeah like Bird said I think I would've tapped out on about every level by the end of 1.2
I would've just asked the lawyers to bring my gamecube to the house and holed away inside Mario Sunshine or something
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A bird 🐦 19-Aug-19 09:09 AM
TL;DR: I'd have gone out the same way Molly did
same 1
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 09:09 AM
Oh no I'm saying that reading all of this would've traumatized me for life. Living it would traumatize me now
Or....deathing it
whatever blake is doing
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A bird 🐦 19-Aug-19 09:09 AM
Suffering, mostly
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 09:11 AM
Wounds I’d healed with glamour. The glamour had been left behind, the wounds had yet to heal properly. I’d only forestalled it, painted over it. Why would my body heal a wound that wasn’t there?
It never sat quite right with me that the glamour part of things never really paid off in a way that hurt blake...and here we are. I wonder if that means that there'll always be some level that glamour doesn't fool, no matter how real it becomes
The demon had closed around me, blocking every avenue of escape. Getting help had been impossible – my connections to the rest of the world had been severed. That I was as alone as anyone could ever be. Or, as it happened, so alone that I couldn’t be. The world had broken away around me, no longer seeing the value in holding me up. Cracks had yawned open around me, and in my hurry to get away, I’d fallen through. Putting me here.
Good to see a more complete explanation, because this is kind of what i've been assuming...well, since the end of last chapter, but I like that Blake reflects specifically...I still wonder if his connections were severed both ways.
Does he remember?
Evan?
Rose?
Alexis?
...Mags?
Every second he goes without mentioning them is a second I worry and assume the worst.
My hands were wringing out my shirt and sweatshirt when I saw the first other living thing in this place. Female, emaciated, her eyes reflecting like a cat’s might, but as pale green circles instead. She was perched on the heap of wood and the torn-up shopping cart. Only her upper body was visible, collarbone and ribs standing out with skin stretched taut around them. Her naked breasts were small, her arms tense with the exertion of holding herself up. Her hair was plastered to her head, her face looked like she was wearing a section of someone else’s skull as a mask.
Ah, that's...distubring company. Not that I think Blake probably looks much better, but yeesh.
The numbness at the core of me gave way to a profound uneasiness. Spelunking, the art of exploring caves, was terrifying unto itself. The idea of getting stuck, of getting turned around… even if one was traveling a route others had taken a hundred times, it was a fear that lingered.
Don't think about it, just don't think about it and everything...well it won't be fine, but it'll be better than if you'd thought about it. It's not real till you think it, Blake.
I'm really curious what this arc is going to do? Are we going to spend the whole thing weakened, sloshing through this drain? It feels intentionally at a loss for trajectory, which is making me anxious about what happens next.
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A bird 🐦 19-Aug-19 09:19 AM
Wildbow is a pig that likes to wallow in misery more than mud
and he is doing some top tier wallowing in 9.1
agree 3
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 09:20 AM
When we -and we felt painfully hazy right here- had been discussing the factory, the topic of the urban explorers had come up.
uh, that's not good
I flinch away from thinking it confirms my worst fears, but with the amount that Blake usually relates things to Rose, to Alexis, to his friends...I think it's a confirmation
That hurts more than anything here
fuck
that really really hurts. It's as bad as Alexis and Ty and Evan not remembering him, because I have to mourn those precious, meaningful, loving relationships again, and I don't know a way to get them back.
They were eaten by the demon
and what's eaten by the demons of the first choir...is gone. No getting it back.
Fuck.
Thin odds, but I’d take what I could. I couldn’t move forward without addressing the creature in the water, so I decided to address it head-on. I extended my free hand, and with my finger crooked, I made a ‘come hither’ gesture, beckoning it. My other hand gripped the plank, ready to defend myself if I had to.
I'm so desperate for contact, human or otherwise, in this chapter right now that I really hope this thing is friendly and honestly I'd probably hug it either way.
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A bird 🐦 19-Aug-19 09:25 AM
Hug enough random encounters and the suffering might stop at least
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 09:26 AM
I played undertale I buy that
“Hi,” I said. “Hi,” she said. Her voice was airy, halfway between hiss and whisper.
It's a good start, Blake. You're making progress. Come on, the more friends you make the mo- wait no that was Mags. But I'm sure you and this...uh...person? here can haul yourselves up better with four horribly fucked up arms than two.
“You were like me, then,” I said. “I don’t know what you’re like,” she said. A pause. “But I was human.”
I like her already and she's said like three things and one of them was vaguely threatening but I don't care because blake found someone and he really needs someone right now.
greeneyes 2
“Well, my name’s…” “It’s okay. It’s hard to remember names here.” “No, I remember. My name is Blake.”
I wonder what exactly this says..maybe she bled herself out, or lost her name before all this hullabaloo like Mags, so Blake has a bit more of his identity with him down here than most. Hell, he's got identity growin out the wazzoo with all his tattoos and stuff. I don't know, it's an interesting wrinkle in this whole situation.
“It’s okay. You get used to it,” she said, and I imagined she was trying to sound soothing with that thin voice of hers. “The dark, the cold, not being on the top of the food chain, always being worn down…” “That doesn’t sound the least bit like I want to get used to it,” I said. “No offense.”
I think you're further along that path than you might realize, my friend
like you said, kind of close to your themes there
"not the top of the food chain"
"always worn down"
sounds like it's describing a certain Fool
the dark's new, though
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A bird 🐦 19-Aug-19 09:33 AM
Blake can translate to black
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 09:34 AM
This is true
I did in fact also watch rwby
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A bird 🐦 19-Aug-19 09:34 AM
and you could say that he was screwed over by the Black Arts
I have not watched rwby
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 09:34 AM
or just a Black...void-y...demon
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A bird 🐦 19-Aug-19 09:34 AM
Our poor little lamb
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 09:35 AM
Rwby is not good, but it is fun. It's Red/Black/White/Yellow, and the Black aspect's name is Blake.
I thought of my bird watching, not long after I’d gotten my own place, with… With a friend’s help. Alexis’s help. Right.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I DIDN'T THINK I'D BE SO HAPPY TWICE IN ONE CHAPTER
THEY'RE NOT GONE, THEY'RE NOT
He just needed a conversation to jog his memory and he'll get them back. Please, please get them back.
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A bird 🐦 19-Aug-19 09:37 AM
Man, this chapter is a lesson in using positive and negative punishment
On Blake and the audience
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 09:38 AM
Oh yeah feel free to analyze and study my emotional reaction for science
(not sarcastic)
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A bird 🐦 19-Aug-19 09:38 AM
You're so happy that he only mostly lost everyone and everything he cared about
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 09:39 AM
Well you don't have to make it sound so depressing...
no
yeah
you're absolutely right
“I don’t think you find your way down here without dealing with something bad. That’s how I think about it. There’s- there’s a relief in all this, Blake. Putting it behind you. Whatever was burdening you, it’s gone by the time you come this far.”
That's...an interesting way of looking at it that I don't necessarily agree with...but I'm glad that this girl came to some sort of catharsis on the matter.
…on Rose’s shoulders. Right. Why had the name been so hard to conjure up?
Yes, yes, keep remembering them. This is making me so happy and I know it's sad because it's so little, but I'm grasping at it. I know it's probably gonna get harder to remember but maybe he can make it back to them
if he makes it back and can't recognize their faces that's when I break down crying
I’d wanted to get away from it all, to put it behind me. Now, well, I had my wish. Be careful what you wish for. “You might be right, but how do you get out?” I asked.
Fuck yes. Fuck. Yes. Blake doesn't give up, for better or worse. Let's pidgeonboard this shit
“Yeah. I found a group of people, and they told me that there was nothing there. That it’s just landscape, for show. They laughed at me and took what little I’d brought with me. I ran before they could hurt me, and I got here, after a couple days. Except I didn’t get far. I stepped onto that broken bit of ledge right there, and I fell. Just like you almost did. Water pushed me down, and I wasn’t strong enough to swim against it. Someone saved me. He wasn’t strong enough to lift me up, either, so he pressed his lips to mine, and breathed for me.”
And that's what's happened on the higher levels? closer to the surface? Fuck. I'm not sure what exactly to make of her experience, and she's not exactly giving Blake any clear goals or direction, but here we are
“I was in a state where I couldn’t swim. He went to get food for- for me, and one day he didn’t come back. Eventually I had to swim, and I did. Now it’s just me.” “Waiting at that same ledge?” “I thought I’d save you if you fell in, like he saved me,” her voice was a thin whisper. Almost reluctant, abashed. The shiver that took hold of me right then was more profound than any the cold had gotten out of me so far.
Oh. That's not actually so bad, and it's totally understandable and almost a little cute, but it's the perfect kind of thing that would get right exactly to blake and his discomforts.
I couldn’t let myself blame her. She’d been genuine in other respects, and quite frankly, I couldn’t afford to give up even a tentative friend. Not the first time I’d been in that position.
Oh, Rose
Probably others too, but that's the one I thought of
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A bird 🐦 19-Aug-19 09:47 AM
Fell?
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 09:48 AM
Yeah!
That's a good pull! Aw, I remember their frenemiship...good times, before he was shot with an arrow and Blake was cut loose from existence.
Sure, they didn't seem like good times right then,
but we've recontextualized
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Elliot (Boy) 19-Aug-19 09:49 AM
Yeah I was listening to the Pact Audiobook the other day, and it's up to the part where Fell is driving Blake around for Conquest
and Blake is so stressed out about all of it
which is like... "oh honey"
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 09:50 AM
Oh you sweet winter child
That's the fun part, by comparison
“Green Eyes, if and when I do fall in, if you can’t or won’t help me get somewhere with a secure grip, can you kill me instead?”
Like, now, for instance, we have this
A pause. “After I kill you, can I eat you?”
Well, you know what they say...if you can't fuck it, just...eat it
don't know who 'they' is, but I never want to meat them
suspicious 1
that wasn't intentional, I'm just tired, but I like the pun now that it's there
“Go to town,” I said. Better to say yes than risk her not killing me. I heard a short, reedy laugh. “Cool.” She said it in a way that made me think it would be spelled ‘Kewl’. I suddenly had a very clear vision of her as a teenager, stumbling into here much the same way I had.
That's two morbidly awful beats right there, that it's better to die and be eaten, and also that she's in just as tragic a position as Blake. I wonder if she was even a practitioner?
Maybe this is the half-forgotten Knight?
“Can I trust you?” I asked. “Yes,” she said. I hesitated. “Can you lie?” “…You know about that?”
I don't know if this means she is or isn't a practitioner.
“That some things down here can’t lie?” “Yeah,” I said. “I guess I do.”
Not the half-forgotten knight, then. Just a girl with some really, really awful luck. Lords, not even a practitioner.
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spinagon 19-Aug-19 09:57 AM
She might have been a practitioner once
Not like she remembers everything
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 09:58 AM
True, but I think she'd go more Other, be just as bound. Unless she was already forsworn, and that's part of how she got here.
“I’m not one of those things. They don’t tend to be very pleasant, just so you know.” “I know,” I said.
Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna argue with that, and then I remembered how dumb it would be to argue that on the whole, Others and Practitioners are perfectly pleasant.
She let go of it. She’d been holding it secure. I was upright, safe on the other side.
But as Elliot was just saying on that podcast I listen to, the ones who can lie, are usually the ones that don't, which is a trend that continues here. She could be trusted.
“Thank you,” I said. “I don’t have much to offer you in gratitude. I’m sorry.” “Then, can we keep talking until we have to go separate ways?”
She's just so tragic, and I wish that Blake could help her at all, but...he doesn't even know how to help himself.
So if you want out, the only way I know is to go through. Change, adapt, eat, and get stronger. Then there’s places where it’s closer to the real world than others. You gotta get to those places, and it’s not easy. One part, you have to swim against a current that’s three times as fast as this, and you have to do it for a while without a chance to surface.” “That’s not an option for me, then,” I said.
This is something, and I realize I'm desperate enough for direction or a trajectory for this arc that I'll take pretty much anything at this point. Swimming really hard without breathing? Why not?
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Wildbow 19-Aug-19 10:05 AM
Just gotta do it for 20 minutes
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 10:05 AM
ah yeah, no sweat!
I can hold my breath for a whole 0.5 of them!
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A bird 🐦 19-Aug-19 10:06 AM
Hey, it never said you weren't swimming in sweat
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 10:06 AM
that's a nice callback to "no shit" "sometimes there's shit"
“But if you do get to one of the exits, there’s usually someone or something there, or so I hear. They sit there and they get in the way and they make you work to get past. Usually, you’re really tired, and they eat you. Or you can put up a bit of a fight, and they make you promise to do something for them. To carry something back.”
Here we go, this is...well, it's something. Maybe there's a challenge blake is particularly suited to. maybe he'll get eaten again. Maybe the challenge is getting eaten, who knows?
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Elliot (Boy) 19-Aug-19 10:08 AM
lol the full name of the arc is Null and Vore
lol 1
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 10:09 AM
I knew as soon as I hit enter the types of jokes I had just opened myself up to, but by then it was too late
I nodded slowly, continuing my slow, careful, shuffling progress. “There’s no way out that doesn’t force me to give up my Self?” “Sort of, but I wouldn’t count on it.” “What is it?” “Sometimes someone comes, and they pick a few of us and take us with them when they leave.”
👀
Scavengers? Good samaritans? Somehow I find it hard to imagine that there are practitioners who go out of their way, way out of the way, to rescue the half-forgotten souls
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A bird 🐦 19-Aug-19 10:13 AM
You know practitioners, always spending power to help those less fortunate with no advantage to themselves
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 10:13 AM
“If you’re thinking someone’s just going to show up and help, I wouldn’t count on it. They only come for the worst monsters, and I don’t even think they ever come looking for anyone specific. That would be almost impossible because this place is a maze and it gets more like a maze all the time, when stuff breaks down. Just like people break down. It’s just what this place is.”
Ah, wait. Yep, that makes more sense
I was going to jokingly say the other way to get back up is to find midge and hold on real tight waiting for some pseudo-diabolist to summon her again
then when she gets back up to the surface, just hop off, go "thanks for the ride" and try to run before whatever she's being summoned to fight kills you.
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Elliot (Boy) 19-Aug-19 10:16 AM
of course the problem with that plan is Blake doesn't like hugging people
apart from that, sure!
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David Hunt 19-Aug-19 10:16 AM
Well, that's definitely one idea...
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 10:16 AM
of course
only problem with that plan
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A bird 🐦 19-Aug-19 10:18 AM
Seems surmountable
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 10:19 AM
“That’s how I think of it. It’s what this place is, what it’s meant to do. It wears you down and grinds you up, like the water would have done to me if I hadn’t been rescued. The mold gets you, or the rats gnaw you up, or something. Then you’re gone. Some like me eat and we get by, but we have to fight constantly and in the fighting we get worn out and hurt too, so we get worn down there. The strongest… the strongest eat and get powerful. And because they eat a lot of things and they get scarred, and they get ugly, and maybe they lose some big part of whatever they were before they came here. They get composted,” she said. “Then they leave, and I dunno what happens next.” “I imagine they become bogeymen,” I said. “Maybe,” she said. “But in all that eating, they’re still giving up more than they get, and this place still takes pieces out of them. It’s the whole purpose.”
I like that, the compost. And it's also a fun story metaphor, considering what it is in terms of the author and readers. I have my own compost with forgotten characters, strange amalgamations, and broken ideas, places, settings. They always become something different by the time I'm ready to use them again. Not something worse, necessarily. Just different.
And I like the connection to bogeymen, though I'm sure that's not where they all come from
Joseph Attwell's Familiar might've come from the compost though, he seemed like one of those types
what with all the eating and the wearing the things you eat
Not Corvidae though, i feel like he was made intentionally, not through...this
“Anything I need to worry about?” “Not unless you go for a swim. One of them, they’re only a threat to me, it feels like.” “Duly noted,” I said. “You’re so calm,” she said, again, almost in awe.
I like that Blake comes off as this grisled sort of veteran who's taking it all pretty well because he's seen some shit before
To her, this was confusing, mad, impossible, supernatural
to Blake, it must be tuesday
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A bird 🐦 19-Aug-19 10:24 AM
Chewsday
lol 1
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 10:24 AM
“Good luck,” she said. “Good luck. If you wanted to stay here or come back sometime, that’s okay. We can talk, and I could show you where the stuff is on land, for food, while I get the stuff from the water. Some rats here can get pretty fat. And if you die, I can eat you, and that can be your payment for me showing you the ropes.”
Well that's...uh...touching, in a weird way. I'm glad Blake met Green Eyes. She's a bit strange, but friendly and trustworthy and I like her.
“I owe you one,” I said. “You said that some of the guardians of the exits, they ask for people to carry favors or carry things back to the real world. Is there anything I can take back for you?” “You really think you’re going to make it back.”
I can't tell if Blake's super optimistic and he's the one who doesn't understand this place, or if she just doesn't understand the kinda shit that Blake has made it through before.
I'm guessing it's both
“Would you want me to come back for you, if I could?” “I’d like to get away from the black fish… but I can’t think about the future like that. I have to think about food, and keeping certain areas blocked off, and figuring out where and when to rest where I can’t get surprised or cornered.”
It's sad, but giving green eyes hope for the future could be a bad thing for her. She sees this as kind of a release already, and it would take away that one maybe okay aspect of this whole fucked up situation.
“A kiss?” she asked. I startled a bit.
Oh
Oh no
the one thing she wants, that Blake is physically capable of giving...but he probably can't.
“I… it’s something I let myself think about, sometimes.”
We just gotta break my heart one more time
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A bird 🐦 19-Aug-19 10:30 AM
“That’s how I think of it. It’s what this place is, what it’s meant to do. It wears you down and grinds you up, like the water would have done to me if I hadn’t been rescued. The mold gets you, or the rats gnaw you up, or something. Then you’re gone. Some like me eat and we get by, but we have to fight constantly and in the fighting we get worn out and hurt too, so we get worn down there. The strongest… the strongest eat and get powerful. And because they eat a lot of things and they get scarred, and they get ugly, and maybe they lose some big part of whatever they were before they came here. They get composted,” she said. “Then they leave, and I dunno what happens next.” “I imagine they become bogeymen,” I said. “Maybe,” she said. “But in all that eating, they’re still giving up more than they get, and this place still takes pieces out of them. It’s the whole purpose.”
❓ 2
The kiss could be seen as a sneaky way to grind at who Blake is just a little more
Is that a stretch?
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 10:34 AM
I mean, I think that this place, like any good writer...sort of puts you and your discomforts in close proximity
and in that sense nothing's that much of a stretch
but I wasn't thinking of it in those terms. And now I will be
I still felt numb inside. A kiss, bodily contact, that was scary unto itself. But all of that, even that part of the past, it felt so far away.
Well that's good, on top of being pretty troubling too
She heaved herself partially out of the water. Two transparent lips brushed against my cheekbone. I flinched, despite my best intentions. Then she pushed herself away.
bulba
the tears at the edge of that bulbas eyes have never resonated with me so much before
He actually did it, because the Blake who can't stop himself from being kind and helping everyone he meets, is stronger than the Blake who can't stand physical contact. Not so much stronger that it isn't a struggle...but it means something.
The drains and grates and pipes all led onto ledges and balconies, or emptied water intermittently onto broad bridges, or simply dropped vast amounts of liquid into vast, empty darkness. Here and there, I saw figures, most furtive, moving quickly from one area to the next. Here and there, I saw others.
I love this imagery, and I can picture it perfectly
It was loud, here in this central hub. Green Eyes had said the whole intent of this place was to break things down. The cacophony of noise would be intended to erode at sanity.
I like the idea of this kind of being the digestive tract of the universe, like it's all being broken down in order to build the pieces of the world that's still up there. Like the ouroboros, eating its own tail. Don't know how much weight there is to that, but it's what I'm rollin with
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spinagon 19-Aug-19 10:40 AM
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 10:40 AM
“We’re in!” My head turned. A voice. A recognizable voice. “My gut was right,” another voice said, her voice quiet. “I was never that big on trusting my gut, but now…” That second voice was Rose. “As haunted houses go, this is pretty flipping cool,” a small boy’s voice, excited.
Wait
wh
what!?
Excuse me!?
ARE THEY COMING FOR HIM?!?
Is this the third beat of the Jay is happy three beat!?
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spinagon 19-Aug-19 10:41 AM
Sure, why not
When ever things got worse in a WB story
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 10:42 AM
I saw a flash of Rose’s face in the gutter, before a drop fell from above. The water rippled.
it's not quite it...they're not there, but I'm happy either way
It resounded through me. “I just don’t get why you didn’t do this ritual earlier,” Alexis said. Her tone was vaguely accusatory. “Or how you didn’t do it earlier.”
Is she awakening, finally? It didn't work the first time, I think. This means they're in the hillsglade house!!
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Fursuit Lightsaber 19-Aug-19 10:43 AM
............For now
fine 1
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 10:43 AM
Are we gonna be able to keep track of The Gang through Blake while he's down here? because that would be awesome
“Something to do with this Blake Mags mentioned?” Tiff asked. My heart pounded. They didn’t know me? ‘Mags’ knew me?
You don't know Mags!? That's a surprise
and v sad
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David Hunt 19-Aug-19 10:45 AM
“As haunted houses go, this is pretty flipping cool,” a small boy’s voice, excited.
Yep , I think Evan was talking about Hillglade House
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 10:45 AM
Except the stab in the back didn’t come from the Drains. “There was a reason for it,” Rose said. “Had to be. And I’m sure we’ll find the clues here, given time to look. All I know is, I fucked up my awakening ritual on purpose, last time around. This time, right here, right now, I’m gonna do it right.”
NO HOLY SHIT
WAIT BUT
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Fursuit Lightsaber 19-Aug-19 10:45 AM
It didn't work the first time, I think.
Oh how quick you are to eat those words :p
Are we still on real Jay happiness hours? greeneyes
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 10:46 AM
She was the Thorburn Voice? Others trusted her word. Could she lie the whole time?
We're on Jay needs to go to bed hours and also Jay's mind is fuckin blown hours and Jay needs to go reread the entire book hours
lol 2
The fuckin Holly
Maybe this time, though, Elliot gets his wish and blake can listen in?
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Elliot (Boy) 19-Aug-19 10:49 AM
Yeah I still stand by this but clearly there’s at least one exception
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 10:49 AM
She's a practitioner at heart and you know it
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Elliot (Boy) 19-Aug-19 10:50 AM
Yeah same as Paige
She doesn’t count
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 10:50 AM
maybe that kind of backs reuben's point, that people who are honest wouldn't rush to the practitioner life in the first place
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Elliot (Boy) 19-Aug-19 10:50 AM
Yup
Something something the types of people who rise to the top something something
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 10:51 AM
fine
Anyways
that was the chapter!
we can officially mark a agree on the jguesses list! Blake is back! Blake is suffering! Blake is screwed again and I've never been more happy to say that.
Anyhow, to all a good night
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Fursuit Lightsaber 19-Aug-19 10:52 AM
sharkhi
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 10:52 AM
today was a helluvaday, as I crossed the halfway line
but I enjoyed most minutes of it
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JayManiac 19-Aug-19 08:16 PM
Pact: the elements, yes. They exist as a part of the magic system, but we're going to slowly tease them out unti- ATLA: Water. splashy sounds...
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JayManiac 20-Aug-19 01:09 AM
The radiation...it'll infect us all...
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JayManiac 20-Aug-19 03:26 AM
So I just finished listening to Deep in Pact 8.6 (I'm a smidge behind) and I really like the conversation you guys started about Johannes and his methods. It's obviously going to evolve to accommodate the giant speech we get from him in 8.7, but as a discussion it's a great start, and the parallels you made were just my cup of tea.
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JayManiac 20-Aug-19 03:33 AM
For a start, we've got the central Elliot/Reuben divide on vestigialness, which is one of the first big ideological arguments you guys have had on the show (and that's one of my favorite parts of analysis podcasts). I don't think I side with either of you as passionately as you do, but that makes it even better because I can clearly see the arguments for both. I think that Elliot's a bit more in line with my reasoning, being that I'm not sure that consciousness is something other than ones and zeroes, and that on a level these vestiges do experience consciousness and pain; they're not just exhibiting those symptoms for the benefit of Others. But I'd argue that it's on a level that doesn't make it even close to just as bad as if a complete human consciousness were being tormented.
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Elliot (Boy) 20-Aug-19 03:35 AM
That discussion is essentially the basis for my pick for this week’s Media M.D.
I fully expect a big chunk of that episode to be a continuation of that argument
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JayManiac 20-Aug-19 03:42 AM
Damn, now I've got to watch whatever it is, because I'm sure I haven't seen something that explores this concept thoroughly. To summarize my thoughts on vestiges and this method, let's take Rose as an example of a vestige, because I think she's an interesting case. I've theorized a bit that when Rose was created she might've been closer to half of Blake, making her just as much of a person as he is: half a person (because I don't think the book's message is going to be "actually rose was measurably less human than blake and he was always in the right"). On the other end of the spectrum, we have ghosts. They're rote suffering, they clearly echo the trauma they were based on, but they're almost entirely not consciousnesses, and I don't think their suffering means quite as much if it's literally everything they are. These kids, then, are likely somewhere in between. Not as vestigial as a ghost, perhaps, but kind of echo-y and irreal. They're portions of consciousness, like you could even say my characters are for me. I have no ethical problem with putting a character- even one that's very developed and functions close to how I think an actual human would- through torture so long as it's for a purpose, whether that's to improve my writing, to learn from the emulation of experience, or to keep the deeper, darker things from getting to the real me.
That said, on another, societal level I actually disagree with what Johannes is doing a bit. It's only a slightly more altruistic version of what people who run actual amusement parks are doing: telling themselves a story and pocketing the cash. He's driven by ego, kind of like me sometimes and he tells himself a story about how his business is an act of charity. Which doesn't mean that it doesn't help, it simply means that his mega corporation is optimized not for the help, but for the power. It's optimized to prop johannes up, not to "save the city".
Furthermore, thinking of his North End as a gentrified sector where the Others- standing in for the rich- come to play at the direct expense of the rest of the populous, is pretty in line with the metaphors the story is working with. Getting a small piece of you taken each day as privileged upper class people aligned with the megacorporation (Johannes' domain) spend the day in what used to be your neighborhood, sounds a lot like how I've had gentrification's effects explained to me. And in the context of Jacob's Bell, the North End is where the new station to Toronto is, where all the new stuff is being built for the people who've moved in recently because of the easy access to the city. Is it a coincidence that it's also where the closest Practitioner parallel to a corporation has set up shop?
I know there's a lot I'm probably missing, but it's really interesting to talk about.
Which is one reason that every time Reuben says "yeah, I think we might be getting too political again" I get a little internal scream of rage
I feel like you can't go as Deep into a work this politically charged without crossing the line of what's 'too political' for an analytic podcast. Which isn't your fault, but it does frustrate me sometimes, because from my point of view there's a fine line between talking about fiction and talking about politics. Engage me in a conversation about either and I walk over that line like it barely exists.
Have you guys had a conversation about what role politics can/should play in your podcast? I am curious about that particular rationale, even if I won't necessarily adhere to it with my read.
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JayManiac 20-Aug-19 04:49 AM
I can absolutely see that as a factor, and I respect that choice. My policy here has pretty much been that if I admit to my biases and ignorance on the matter and show an interest in a deeper understanding, then talking about it regardless is a good way to open up the conversation.
Also I hope y'all would correct me if I said anything that stupid.
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JayManiac 20-Aug-19 06:34 PM
You know when you get those moments of "ah I really should've caught that"? It happens to me all the time during DiP, but this time it was particularly brutal: R: How do you know greeneyes'll continue to be a part of the story? E: She's our thumbnail Me:....Ah fuck, he's right
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jsoh 20-Aug-19 06:35 PM
shes just really cool in her only appearance obviously.
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A bird 🐦 20-Aug-19 06:36 PM
She does work well with "Deep" in Pact
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JayManiac 20-Aug-19 06:38 PM
Can't wait till Elliot and Reuben go so deep in Pact that they slowly start becoming nameless boogeymen fine
Also I accidentally recommended pact to my friend before realizing that the reason I hadn't told her to read it yet was because this is the same friend who read worm in two weeks with a three day break in the middle and I'm gonna be spending the next four months reading Pact at least. So she's totally gonna overtake me but I'm happy I got someone else to read!
sharkhi 3
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A bird 🐦 20-Aug-19 06:46 PM
I'm gonna count the pair of you as a half reader each on my readers converted tally
Kind of cheating, but I'm comfortable with that
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JayManiac 20-Aug-19 06:51 PM
You can take credit for pushing me over the "read Pact" edge, f'sure
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JayManiac 20-Aug-19 07:32 PM
👀
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JayManiac 21-Aug-19 04:35 AM
Update on friend: she's killing me
lol 6
What she just did took me 2.4 months
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JayManiac 21-Aug-19 08:38 AM
Yeah, I don't know exactly when I realized "oh, okay, chapters take three hours each now", but I certainly didn't know it going in. I recently remembered my proclamation that I regretted not livereading twig (which was my preface to livereading pact), but....I no longer regret not livereading twig. I would still be reading twig.
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JayManiac 21-Aug-19 07:39 PM
It is my hope to eventually, one day, catch up with DiP
I go to college uh...tomorrow tho, so who knows if that gives me more time to read or less time to read
but let's make the most of this time to read, 9.2!
When we last left off, Blake was screwed! sharkhi
She fucked it up on purpose? My thoughts were slow to get going as I tried to dredge up memories. Promises she’d made, that had no real power behind them. A promise to help me, to work with me, even.
Hey, remember those two or three chapters where Rose and Blake were almost kind of getting along and there didn't seem to be a ton of animosity and it was all going to be okay?
Yeah
neither does Blake
How many times had I thrown myself into life or death situations, and all this while, she’d been holding back? Keeping hands off? I’d scratched, fought, and bled for power and she’d just turned it down?
That's a new angle on this that I hadn't really considered. Could the Thorburns have been more powerful, had Rose awakened but still been trapped in the mirrors? Possibly, but also having a Thorburn Voice that can lie was probably more useful than Blake currently has the faculties to give her credit for.
All because she’d wanted to be able to lie to me?
I'm obviously not advocating that Rose's decision was the right one or anything, but I also wouldn't say I'm not defending it either.
It’s this place. There’s a reason I saw it. This place wants to grind me down, and it thinks giving me a glimpse like that is going to help do it.
Lords, having a place like this in your story is just perfect, isn't it? It plays straight into the meta-nature, since in some sense a story's purpose is to grind our protagonist down and force them to grow or become a monster...or both. And that there can be this meta explanation for why Blake always runs into the worst possible thing...it's just fantastic.
The ‘ground’ here shuddered with some great mechanism, an endless roar of pouring water with a grinding of machinery, like the endless crush of some great millstone. I felt like the trembling of the ground might make me simply bounce off, lifting my feet clear of the ledge, letting them slide to one side and off into the depths to one side.
But it's one thing to have a place like this in your story. It's clever, sure, and it gives you an 'out', but it's really the creativity and the skill of the writing that sells it. This unique little purgatory would be nothing if the story didn't beat its purpose into us with the language and the metaphors and the pure discomfort that's coming in the form of these lines about bugs that I'm about to read.
I want to pull every beat, but suffice to say that each paragraph sells me on this point. it's all about forcing blake into new positions of discomfort, of claustrophobia. About taking away his light, his movement, his sense of self, his memory.
More metal and wood formed a broad, flat, somewhat uneven bridge over the rushing water. There were people gathered on and around it. Kids. Old people. Others.
Again I have to ask how normal ass people got down here? Is it all people who came into contact with magic in some form, whether it be a demon of the first choir, a faerie like keller who likes to fuck with mortals, etc? Or are there mundane ways to fall through the cracks?
Also
let's talk about society, because if the magic system of pact is society, and there's a way to fall through the cracks of the universe in this books, we have to imagine that there's a way to fall through the cracks of society.
I'm not going to go super hard on equating this to poverty but also I just typed that and then looked at this sentence on my screen right here:
Shacks had been erected with more debris and sheet metal, fallen signs and collected branches. When I’d been homeless, the accommodations I’d been able to manage had been better, on average, than what I saw here.
This is the book clearly drawing that line, I think, and that expands this metaphor to potentially work on a lot of levels. What does it say about poverty, if this is something that stands in for it in the book? Does it say, maybe, that poverty grinds you down? Forces you to give up parts of yourself, and to become 'what you eat' in a way? To subsist on things with no nutritional value, chemicals that just sit there and barely keep you alive? That people who rise out of poverty often cannot do so without becoming in some way monstrous?
I don't know, but I'm kind of afraid and excited to find out
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A bird 🐦 21-Aug-19 08:07 PM
Poverty certainly works as a specific metaphor, but I think saying that Blake is in poverty might be ignoring the many and varied ways in which he is currently stuck between the ass end of society and complete rock bottom
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JayManiac 21-Aug-19 08:07 PM
Of course
yes
Blake is in a fantasticalization of poverty, a metaphor for poverty
which in wildbow terms, means everything is exaggerated, mountains higher vallies lower, in order to portray to us the reader the reality of the situation. The metaphor helps my understanding of poverty along by saying "okay, but this is what it feels like. This is the reality of some people's existances, and we can only show you by putting it here"
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David Hunt 21-Aug-19 08:10 PM
I'd have thought that here, the drains were a comment on homelessness in specific instead of poverty in general. However, I'm just giving my immediate impression because I'm dense and stuff like this flew over me in first read because I wanted to race through and find out what happened.
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JayManiac 21-Aug-19 08:11 PM
Well, I think that's also a fair read, I mean none of these people seem to have even a shitty home, because of how this place would remove that and poke and prod at that comfort you found
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David Hunt 21-Aug-19 08:11 PM
But that's a nitpick, even if I'm right
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JayManiac 21-Aug-19 08:11 PM
No, no, no I like that you pointed that out
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A bird 🐦 21-Aug-19 08:12 PM
The beauty of Pact is that it's perfectly interpretable like that
Any of those three options work
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JayManiac 21-Aug-19 08:12 PM
because it ties in with how people get here. By being nameless: a name is sort of like your credit score in the practitioner world. Without it, the deals you can make are limited, the amount of weight you have to push around is limited, and you're coming apart at the seams
you could get here by being connectionless, with no one to turn to, no couch to sleep on, no funds or friends to your name- if you still have that
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A bird 🐦 21-Aug-19 08:14 PM
Or just getting caught up in a disaster outside of your control that wipes out your supporting infrastructure like Green Eyes
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David Hunt 21-Aug-19 08:15 PM
And Blake explicitly compares the Behaims and Duchamps to magical trust fund recipients. The Man is keeping Blake down. Granted, he's basically the scion of an organized crime family in that metaphor...
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JayManiac 21-Aug-19 08:16 PM
But one in which everyone he can hire/has clout with has one talent and it's torture
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David Hunt 21-Aug-19 08:16 PM
Yep.
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JayManiac 21-Aug-19 08:16 PM
Metal sang with the impact of my landing. One or two heads turned. One man reached to his belt, where he had a makeshift skewer ready, deemed me no threat, and dropped his hand to his side.
Like, this is a world that's just brutal, right? And now that I've drawn that comparison, every beat of what this place does to people hits that much harder. Pact is amazing because it ties the meta story concept into the magic system, and ties society into the magic system, which I now realize is saying implicitly that society and culture is built out of the same processes that build stories. Which is both true, and wonderful.
I've seen magic based on lots of things, by which I mean magic has been a metaphor for lots of things in lots of stories i've read.
Stormlight: magic as honor
Homestuck: magic as growing up
American Gods: magic as belief
and the thing I love about Pact is it just says "fuck it, we're doin it all"
Which is why I'd call it the quintessential urban fantasy
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spinagon 21-Aug-19 08:22 PM
Drains reminds me of games like Rust
Where everyone is by default hostile, but you only want to fight if you gain more than you lose
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JayManiac 21-Aug-19 08:23 PM
I've never played Rust, but that sounds brutal and I kinda want to now
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spinagon 21-Aug-19 08:24 PM
You can watch "Random Rust Bullshittery" videos, it's all the best parts of playing, but without frustration
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JayManiac 21-Aug-19 08:29 PM
A little boy wore only a sash of cloth around his hips, more a skirt than anything else, and his back was riddled with ulcers. A girl had patchy fur in two colors, black and part white, and snaggle-teeth that looked like they’d make it impossible to open or close her mouth, one arm ending in a scarred stump at the shoulder. The biggest of the boys, who’d somehow managed to be overweight in a place like this, had bulges under the skin I could make out, like worms had nestled in deep. A goblin rode on his shoulders, pulling his hair, but he didn’t seem to mind.
This is, I think, the value I get from reading Wildbow stories- and stories in general sure, but I think he's the most effective storyteller at conveying this aspect than anyone else I've encountered. I read to build empathy. To start understanding. And it happens in a lot of ways: interludes that put you in the heads of psychopaths, of semi-humans and certifiable madmen 🐰 are one. But this is another: making how bad it feels, exactly how bad it is. Because that's what it takes for me to understand; I won't get it any other way. Of course, there are storytellers who can describe how bad it is in a way that indicates how bad it feels, while keeping everything realistic, but I don't find that that's quite as effective when it comes to me.
The woman had a heavy net folded and thrown over one shoulder. She pointed. The destination I’d been headed? When I looked at her, she gestured, making a scary face, turning her one free hand into a claw with fingers and thumb hooked.
sweet jegus, Blake is gonna double die here isn't he? I mean probably not, surely Wb wouldn't kill our protagonist...again
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spinagon 21-Aug-19 08:36 PM
You have to consider which path will lead to more suffering
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JayManiac 21-Aug-19 08:36 PM
The woman looked over her shoulder, waved a bit to get someone’s attention. A man, bald. I couldn’t see what was wrong with him. It maybe said a lot that I had to define people in this place by how screwed up they were.
Yeah, I was thinking about that, and wondering if it was a thing in Blake's narration before, or whether it's new. I think it's new. He's kind of abandoned his old way of defining people, by age and general time-based appearance in favor of...uh...this. And that says things about his steadily contested identity. I wonder if it's a trait we'll continue to see on the surface, that he looks to the flaws and the screwed upness of people first. I wouldn't be surprised.
We'll put a pin in that 📌
The bald man, his limp aside, moved with grace and ease across the ledge. Familiar ground. Months or years of experience, easily.
Then again, the time isn't necessarily gone, just pushed to the background a bit
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spinagon 21-Aug-19 08:37 PM
Don't forget to unpin it later, someone might get pricked
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JayManiac 21-Aug-19 08:37 PM
No see it's the other way around
after I take out the pin I have full reign to stab someone with it
or accidentally impale my thumb
it's safe where it is
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spinagon 21-Aug-19 08:38 PM
Is it a witch-finding pin?
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JayManiac 21-Aug-19 08:38 PM
👀
Oh actually we're in the drain so maybe I should be using
greeneyes
“You’re new,” he said. His voice sounded disused, creaky. “Yeah,” I said. I ran my hands through my hair, where it was sticking to my forehead. How was it possible to be so cold and yet so sweaty at the same time?
I wonder if this place hired an incarnation of Conquest as its interior designer?
lol 1
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spinagon 21-Aug-19 08:41 PM
Why hire an incarnation if you can suck one in through the cracks
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JayManiac 21-Aug-19 08:41 PM
I mean hey, there's one of em in a mirror that you could probably suck down pretty easy
imagine if Blake just ran into Conquest down here
I wouldn't know whether to laugh or cry
I'd probably do both
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spinagon 21-Aug-19 08:42 PM
I fell like Conquest wouldn't stay there for long
agree 1
He's a pretty powerful guy still
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JayManiac 21-Aug-19 08:43 PM
And pretty willing to conquer people in order to leave
“You got choices,” he said. “You wander until something gets you, you find a place you can hunker down and you wait until something gets you, or you decide it’s too much trouble and get yourself.” “Or you get others,” I said. He gave me a look, about as dirty as they came. “Y’think you’ve got it in you?” I sighed, then shook my head. “Good. Because I’d throw y’off the edge here if y’did.”
Wow, thanks bald guy, for showing me exactly the worst case scenario for Blake, and the one I least want him to end up in! That's just delightful. I'm glad that there are people looking out for each other in this place, to the point of hucking newcomers off cliffs. It's kind of touching in a weird, chilling way.
“The kids,” he said. “Not mine, they washed up alongside us.” “Washed up?” “Bad weather hit, could be hurricane, but I dunno, don’t watch or listen to much. Next thing, we’re all collected in some shallow drain with a whole lot of debris and dead.” Washed away, I thought. Had the storm erased their ties to the world as surely as Ur had eaten mine?
I continue to wonder how mortals get here in the first place? But it looks like this is one way that could be pretty mundane, being washed out to sea and drowning where none of the spirits can see you...
that storm could also have been how the mortals interpreted encountering a demon, from their unawakened state
I nodded slowly. “What is it? A goblin?” He gave me a dark, suspicious look. “What?” I asked. “Yeh, it’s a goblin, or so we’ve heard. Not what most people would guess. Dragon? Sure. Bat? Yeh. But goblin?”
Oh fuck, he's been outed as one of those. The ones who can't lie and who've got a distinct advantage when it comes to getting themselves out of here.
Goblins seem to be the most prevalent kind of Other here, and I wouldn't be surprised if the goblins here were created here, just kind of collections of all the ugly that came from people when they fell apart.
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spinagon 21-Aug-19 08:50 PM
Goblins might even like it there
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JayManiac 21-Aug-19 08:51 PM
“Yeh,” he said. “She’s dangerous. Not always. Not even some of the time, but she’s unpredictable, spiteful. We mostly steer clear, but sometimes if we’re hurt or something new’s come up, we ask, and we pay.” “Well,” I said. “I’m not dangerous either, but I’m not all that unpredictable either. I was a beginner, before I found my way down here, and I’ve lost just about everything I had.”
This is an interesting angle to interpret Blake from. He could be a real asset to these people if he stuck around, as someone who maybe would help out knowledge wise just because he wanted to, could teach them about things to look out for- well, whatever he knows about.
“Whatever’s keeping you going,” he said, “Hold onto it.” “Yeah,” I said.
What's keeping Blake going, actually?
He had that entire list, when he was convincing himself to move after being confronted with his echos
His friends? Maybe, he hasn't thought about them much.
He doesn't seem to remember Evan or any promises he made there 😭
he can't focus on improving the world
the thing that kept him going during conquest's fight was the simple fact of not wanting to die, and that's a goal with a whole lot of leeway morally
But there's something else, something I might lock in as a jguess from how it's been set up: Rose
Maybe his anger at Rose, or simply his need to know why she did what she did, will be the thing that drags him up and out of this place
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spinagon 21-Aug-19 08:55 PM
I wonder what kind of a person he'll end up if he focuses on that
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JayManiac 21-Aug-19 08:56 PM
Days, weeks, years? No, not years. Months, at most. It was hard to keep track of time. Green Eyes had been so right. It was all too easy to focus on the now.
I mean he's just focusing on stay alive right now, but revenge could absolutely be driving him. Or not revenge, but anger and need to confront her. Which is...yeah, it's a terrifying prospect.
When I was so tired or sick that I didn’t think I could go on, I tapped into anger. Rose and the others spoke up from time to time. It helped to keep the anger stoked. I couldn’t even remember what exactly had been said. I only remembered the resentment, the self-hatred for feeling resentful, the fury at realizing what Rose had really been up to, the hurt.
Ah look, it's literally exactly what I was talking about
that's good storytelling right there, since I'm thinking in the same ways the book is moving, and it's only because I'm moving so slowly that I thought of it before reading it. Normally this transition would've been pretty seamless but here I am
talking about the book
not reading it because I'm typing right now
slowing myself down
Whatever was down here, the basic rules I’d learned were the same. Goblins didn’t like metal. Faerie, even the sort of Faerie that lurked down here, they didn’t like crude things. A little bit of ruthlessness, a goblin’s hide to keep myself warm, a bit of glamour to mend injuries… Well, that made it easier to get the ball rolling.
And as soon as he stokes that fire he starts thinking past the now, to the future, to getting out.
But it's with ruthlessness
it's with glamour, some of the same mistakes that got his body to this fucked up of a state
it's troubling
I unfurled wings.
But also I don't know how much to care about that because wings!?
I reached the corridor that opened up into the Cistern.
also before we talk about wings let's talk about this timeskip because there's a bit of a timeskip
and it's one of those things that works, because time is so disjointed down here, but we get to see how it changes Blake in small ways. He has names for things, he has a little bit more progress, he knows this place a bit better. And that's all kind of just signaled to us here.
More bat wings than bird wings, which was disappointing, but I had feathers, both real and tattooed, across the flaps. A part of me liked that on a visceral level. Another part of me felt like it was tainted, a gift for bending to the rules of this place. Becoming a part of the system, cooperating with this small universe in helping to break others down.
But back to wings
I don't know what to say about wings that isn't said here, they're just troubling and awesome and badass and monstrous and horrifying and incredible
I glided more than I flew, and I watched for potential prey. Only the ones that were further gone. Less human. They were more nourishing. If they asked for mercy or drew weapons, I left. If they roared or screeched, I killed and I ate.
stare
Huh
that is uh
well, I think it's probably a good policy, but...fuck
Everything here was human once
Do what you gotta do, I guess
and this is how Blake makes it out: by serving this awful, horrible system for a little bit
probably letting it steer him towards the people whose days he'll ruin the most
I hadn’t given up on getting out. Not long now.
sharkhi
“Blake,” Green Eyes said. Most of the others that had known me as Blake were gone now. The ones who were still around would be the targets of my revenge. Simple, but it was still what drove me.
I'm starting to get very uncomfortable about who exactly our protagonist is, about what exactly our protagonist is
because I'm not sure it's blake anymore
certainly not the Blake we know
She ran one hand along my long neck. I didn’t flinch.
Certainly not
I don't know when the narration started to feel alien to me, but it does now and it feels like it has for a while
I think I’d known, as I made that choice, what I’d be giving up. Even why and how. It wasn’t long after that that Blake Thorburn had crumbled as a person, leaving room for me to become this.
Yeah, I don't like it. It's not comfortable, and I'm really kind of afraid of what this thing could do if it got up to the surface
“Soon?” Green Eyes asked me. No longer able to speak, I bobbed my head in a nod. ■
AAAAAAHhhhhahHHHAH that's the worst part
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spinagon 21-Aug-19 09:10 PM
Yeah but wings though
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JayManiac 21-Aug-19 09:10 PM
I woke up. I spent far, far too much time staring at my hands, convincing me it had all been a dream. Except it hadn’t, I realized. It had felt real, as had the weight of memories, dim as they had been for my monstrous self. They faded as quickly as I could reach for them, useful details dancing away. A portent, then? A suggestion of what could easily come to pass?
Oh you motherf
Oh that got me
that got me pretty dang good
and it looks like it had Blake too
The act of flying, or gliding, and the feeling of security. Of being one of the bigger threats in this particular area.
And part of this is what Blake always wanted, on a level, which is the worst because I feel like I'd make these choices if I were given them
but I hope he doesn't
If I didn’t want to go to the trouble of eating or sleeping, I just… didn’t have to. If I didn’t want to feel cold, I could just stop. Flick that switch in my head and stop worrying about it.
In a sense, this is always what becoming an Other has been all about: giving up that which makes you human, whether it's ugliness or divinity or suffering or the ability to lie, because maybe you don't like that part of yourself, or it's causing you pain, or you just want to exchange it for power.
The bug bites were stinging. I cursed myself for not thinking to ask about it. The mark on my cheek where Green Eyes had kissed me stung too.
Have any of y'all ever read Elantris?
this place reminds me of Elantris a bit: where no pain fades. Where stubbing your toe means agony for the rest of your life, where you can't die and the hunger and pain keeps accumulating until you just go mad from it.
I had little doubt I could simply shrug off all the pain. Push it somewhere deep inside me, where it wouldn’t touch me. I wasn’t sure I wanted to pay whatever price this place would exact from me.
But this is so much worse, because he actually could get rid of the pain, he could just change his mind about whether he wants to feel it...but then he becomes something I'm afraid of, the protagonist I'm rooting against.
How had the other Bogeymen gotten by? Had they found their way to these same Drains, or had they discovered other places like them? A ghost town shrouded in mist for the Tallowman to claim a building and resume his practice? Had Midge found a place in the wilderness to set up a shack and live much as she’d lived in life, only becoming harder and meaner as she spent more time there? Was she there now, so rooted in this Limbo that she would simply find her way here if her material body was killed a hundred more times?
I like this reflection on the other bogeymen we know, and the other forms of limbo that could exist. I'm wondering if, outside of the drains, there are other hells for different kinds of society. I think that might even tie in with a discussion question that Reuben and Elliot teased in 9.1.
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spinagon 21-Aug-19 09:19 PM
Elantris is pretty cool
Even if people say it's his weakest book
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JayManiac 21-Aug-19 09:20 PM
I think his weakest book is still a damn strong book with a lot of good qualities
it's got its flaws and I'm not sure it all comes together, but the magic that makes mistborn and stormlight what they are was there
I felt it draw nearer, and in the darkness and near-silence of this chamber, my other senses were painfully acute. I felt the cold increase by steep degrees, reaching from my left shoulder toward my chin and collarbone. I raised my chin by mere fractions. It was a matter of an inch or two away from me. Some reaching hand. I felt the cold envelop my neck, and held my breath and my voice both.
This is so horrifying and awesome and awful and I have no idea how you'd even portray it cinematically, but that doesn't matter because I can feel it here
I felt it reach down along my spine. Too many turns. It wasn’t an arm.
hahahhahahhahahahahahafine
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spinagon 21-Aug-19 09:24 PM
Depict just the feeling of cold
Frost appearing on the body
🤔 1
Mist condensing from air
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JayManiac 21-Aug-19 09:25 PM
that'd be a good way to do it, yeah
“Alexis?” Tiff’s voice. A sniffling. “I’m okay. I don’t even know why I’m crying.” “You really need to sleep. Things are getting ugly out there.” “I know. I’ll try.” It was like a slap in the face, the knowledge that I hadn’t left the world a better place than it had been when I’d come into it. Not for Alexis.
Gods this is just the worst...okay not the worst because I'm sure it can get worse, but it's just the perfectly awful moment to get this beat, in the middle of all this literal tension that's playing out in the fight
It was just in front of me, mouth open. I acted on instinct alone. I held the remaining bit of plank in both hands, and I struck out. I hit something solid, and, using my two-handed grip, I raked the ragged edge of the plank across flesh.
This is one of those fights where I simulate the horror of it in my mind and suddenly I'm shivering and gagging as I'm reading
it's one of those things I feel a lot more in these stories than in any other
like videos of people getting hit in the balls, except it's just splinters across your face, awful scents and sensations, cold and disgusting warmth and HhhHhhHhh
There was no relief on the other side. No remedy from the sharp pain that jolted from my shoulder to the fingertips of my good hand, nor the blistering cold that made me feel like my leg had fallen off.
These beats of pain and cold and shock are right after blake has realized that it could all stop if he just becomes a horrible monster and that's troubling
I had to get out of here. Had to.
But at what cost, and what will you allow to drive you?
Had to help Evan and repay debts and keep this fucking pattern from continuing with the Thorburn line. I wanted to see Alexis and Tiff and Ty but especially Alexis.
Yes!!!! YESSSS THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED! HE REMEMBERS EVAN AND EVERYTHING!
When it was "a little kid's voice' in the hillsglade house I was ready to cry
but we're good
he remembers his familiar
I wanted to kill that freaking motherfuck of a demon who had put me here.
That's ah, well...it's not great, but it's hilarious and that counts for something
and plus, it's better than wanting to kill Rose
Priorities. Getting information was one. Green Eyes had suggested a way out. Maybe there was another way out. If the Witch had a measure of respect and power, maybe I could get something, or barter my knowledge and meager expertise to obtain something. A better weapon would do worlds for my mental well being. Medical care too, if it meant not letting my body be corrupted or degraded or whatever this place wanted to do to it.
I think this is really a kind of progress, and it sets the stakes for the whole arc, because this is still the Blake that we know and love and we need him to remain that way
“Blake.” I stopped short. That voice- I turned. To say my heart dropped out of my chest really didn’t do the feeling justice.
????!????!?
It was more like a great brutish fist just reached up from under me, fingers gripping everything inside the ribcage, and tore everything out, leaving me hollow.
I keep thinking that maybe this is someone we know, some Other that could get down here and taunt Blake, but I think there's a worse possibility
“Long time no see, Blake,” he said. I swallowed hard. “What the fuck are you doing here?” I asked. “I think you know exactly what I’m doing here, Blake,” he said.
I think it's the other possibility, fuck
An easy, genuine, disarming smile. His eyes crinkled, betraying his age. A little older than thirty, maybe.
At least he's going back to his old ways of describing people?
That thought made me think of a fleeting mention Green Eyes had made to something. A black fish.
Please, don't tell me that everyone here gets an awful shadow of their worst nightmare to follow them around
“Carl…” I said, and the name felt heavy on my tongue. “Don’t follow me.” “You know I’m supposed to, Blake”
ARGH, I was wrong, this is the worst
, he said, fully aware that there's worse
He was faster. When I glanced, I saw him pass by them, running just as fast. They didn’t react, didn’t see him. He was here for me and me alone.
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHfinehhhHHHhhh
“Mann, Levinn, Lewis,” I said. My voice was hollow in the darkness.
wAIT
I understand the choice, but...
“Mann, Levinn, Lewis.”
How is this any less monstrous?
There was no clap of thunder, no fire and brimstone. Only a long pause, and heels striking the bridge.
You know you don't have much to give them besides, well, becoming one of them
(edited)
“Let me help my friends,” I said. “You win. This place wins. Just let me help them, and you have me after that.” A deal with the devil. “No,” was the reply. “Too late.”
I'm just sitting here in stunned silence
I don't know how to convey what that did to me
He really just
that's
it's got to be just a...horrible feeling
that you can't even properly give up
That doesn't make it stop, because it's too late for that
I've never seen the lawyers as a safety net, until now when it's pulled out from under him
Great chapter, freaking gutting ending
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JayManiac 22-Aug-19 08:54 AM
What the fuck do you mean Magsack!?
Ilovethis 3
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A bird 🐦 26-Aug-19 10:21 AM
Chekhov's nuke, more like
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keira 27-Aug-19 02:16 PM
fuck this is real good tho
👀
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JayManiac 27-Aug-19 02:16 PM
sharkhi
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JayManiac 27-Aug-19 09:41 PM
Maybe it'll be different for Keira, Queen of Livereads, but the fact that I've been livereading this book is a big part of why I'm 99.9% sure it'll be my favorite serial work of text. I'm not even sure that quality-wise it's "as good" as Twig and Ward or whatever, and I'm not sure I care. Not only is Fantasy m'thing even more than superheros or (Twig)murderchildren, and thus of course I'm gonna gravitate towards the best-magic-system-ever that Pact has going, but also taking my time with this one and engaging with it like this has been one of my absolute favorite story-experiences ever.
same 2
Ilovethis 2
bulba 2
spoopy 1
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JayManiac 07-Sep-19 05:41 PM
Hey look, I randomly have a few hours and I left the book on a pretty fuckin literal cliffhanger so...let's keep reading my favorite book guys, I hate that it took so long
I can't promise that something won't interrupt me, or that I'm gonna completely throw myself back into my usual schedule, but I'd like to start reading again at a moderate pace (three chapters a week is pretty manageable, and I might be able to fit a lot more into my schedule if I didn't stick to "whole chapter in one sitting") because god damn I'm just looking at this page in front of me and remembering how much I miss this book in my life.
That said, Keira's comments have been so friggin cool to keep up with in the meantime, she really is the Queen of Livereads.
That's an interesting point, actually; should I be like...spoilering everything I say that's a spoiler, now that she's potentially in the channel? I feel like that would get annoying for me and you guys alike, so maybe I'll just hide my read between walls of "KEIRA DON'T READ THIS" text
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Jess Zendrex 07-Sep-19 05:47 PM
She won't be in the channel except to liveread, probably
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JayManiac 07-Sep-19 05:47 PM
Oh I know, it's just I don't want her clicking and then seeing Haha remember that time Blake died and how we all know that because we've read this fuckin story
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Jess Zendrex 07-Sep-19 05:48 PM
You should be fine as long as you put a page worth of spoiler free stuff at the end
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JayManiac 07-Sep-19 05:48 PM
I'm sure I can come up with complex spoiler free bullshit to tack on to the end, yeah! Thanks for the heads up!
9.3!!!! (finally)
I clenched my fists, but neither was in particularly good working order. My left hand was split in two, the wrist of my right hand butchered by the way I’d slammed it through the side of the bridge.
Ah yeah, almost forgot to say my catchphrase: when we last left off, Blake was maybe the most screwed he's ever been? Not the most screwed he'll ever be, probably, because I know better than to make that assumption, but he literally just used the safety net that he Wasn't Gonna Use Under Any Circumstances and that's a pretty good indicator of the headspace he's workin with
Ms. Lewis was already walking away. Her suit and clean, shampooed blond hair were eerily out of place in here.
As much as I hate Ms. Lewis and as much as she's like 3/4 of the way to being a demon...oh man is it cool to see a familiar face. A creepy, unnerving, out-for-your-soul-as-long-as-it's-fuckin-worth-something face.
Have I mentioned that I friggin love pact gods damn
With a quick glance over my shoulder, I looked for Carl. He was gone. For the time being, I was sure.
Well that's good....and not ominous at all (Oh look I told the same lie that Blake told right after awakening)
“Talk to me,” I said. Demanded. “Talk to you?” She turned. “Who are you? Keep in mind, that’s a very complicated question.”
Ouch. That is a pretty complicated question, since Blake is here due to a lack of identity, Rose probably has a lot of his personhood points right now, he doesn't seem metaphysically bound to things that should have sealed him for life, etc.
That said, he could always go with "I'm the fool, drawn with the right hand..."
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Wildbow 07-Sep-19 05:58 PM
"Who are you?" "I'm the fool." "Well, okay, then you're ~definitely~ not worth talking to."
lol 3
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JayManiac 07-Sep-19 06:00 PM
“‘Blake Thorburn’ has no power. He has minimal presence in the material world. He has a minimal presence even here. The spirits no longer pay him any mind. He can lie. Did you know this? Your words have no substance anymore. The only person who actually knows about you is your goblin queen friend, and she recently finished a ritual that obligates her to stay in Jacob’s Bell. You can’t throw your name around if it has no weight.”
Fuckin hell, that's just what this story needed right exactly now: someone to kindly exposit all the other ways Blake is screwed that we didn't even know about! Yaaaaaay!! Blake can lie now, and I can't even think of it as a good thing...okay maybe sarcasm will help him deal with his issues better, but that's about it. I didn't even think about the fact that Mags straight up can't go rescue Blake...unless parts of the Drains count as Jacob's Bell for some reason.
Speaking of lies, karma, story analysis and more, you're now listening to a Jay who's taking the "Quests and Adventures" english class, a sociology seminar, intro to psychology, and...well, and Drawing 1, which...might not be all that relevant compared to the others, but it is fun (and maybe I'll draw a fuckton of pact fanart who knows?). Point is, I might have more to talk about. For example, we're reading and analyzing The Odyssey rn and hospitality plays a pretty key role in that story, as do identity and connections.
Ilovethis 1
“Yes. The demon primarily cut connections to those who were gathered outside the building. When you lost your grip on the world, other connections broke. Your home, your parents, your little sister… I held onto mine, as your goblin queen friend did, though her remembering was more an accident of the ritual she was performing at the time.” “And I know about me,” I said. “You do,” she said. “Why?” “That would be telling.”
I suppose I didn't think enough about why Ms. Lewis could remember, although I just kind of assumed that whatever demons do doesn't apply to her connections since that would be inconvenient and self-sabotaging on the part of demonhood. Looks like my theory about why Mags remembers is pretty solid, and it's good that we get an overview of what exactly happened and why it wasn't quite as absolute an effect as it seemed at first. Also might explain why The Shepherd remembers a little more than usual, since he had a presence at the site of the incident but wasn't physically gathered outside the warehouse. But why weren't the connections cut two ways? Why does Blake remember!?
“Whether you’re talking about the errand I promised or joining the firm, we’re simply not interested. You’ve served your purpose, you’re spent, as currency goes. Inviting you back would only undermine everything we put in place for our client.”
So clearly Rose is gonna welcome Blake back with open arms if he ever claws his way back to the surface, because he's gonna slot perfectly into her plans and not be a pain in the ass at all
hey that was pretty fun! Blake, Wanna try? You can do this too, now!
“I understand you’re upset, Mr. Thorburn,
How very tactful and empathetic of you, Ms. Lewis. I'm sure this is why you're the charismatic one.
I’d been there for a reason. Buying time. Buying Rose time. I’d been there to absorb the initial hostility, to put Rose in a good position. Then Grandmother’s ideal heir, custom made, got placed in the real world, replacing me, consuming my energy to become real. Any enemies vicious enough to put her down would be bewildered. Rose, knowledgeable enough to know what to do, would capitalize on the confusion that came with her appearance. Except I’d gone down in the messiest way possible and buggered up that part of things.
That's rough, buddy
It also might explain why Isadora was under the impression that this was the messiest way for Blake to go, where Elliot and Reuben and I seemed to be under the impression that it was the perfect way to go
from Rose's pov, at least
But now she has all these gaps in her memory that tank a lot of the advantage she might've had if Blake had died in a more traditional way, I assume. I mean, she doesn't even know why she flubbed the initiation ritual, and she probably doesn't remember a lot of what she and Blake figured out together
Isadora had known it, and she’d tried to offer me a clean death rather than this.
oh look, literally the next line confirms exactly what I was thinking, almost as if I should be reading the book
I could understand Isadora knowing because of what she was. I could understand Rose knowing because she’d been tipped off. Given a nudge or some lawyerly advice. How had Laird known?
Hey, you never know, it could've been his idea. Fucker. Not actually, probably, because this seems like a pretty Rosalyn thing to do, but I don't think Blake knows exactly how privy to Rosalyn's Demon Dealings Laird had the potential to be. I mean, we don't even know that, I just kind of assume that that's why he knows.
“I was the sacrificial pawn, then,” I said. “That’s all it amounts to? I die, so Rose can live?” “Effectively,” Ms. Lewis said. “You were polite in our conversations, and that’s more than some of our more manic or deranged clients manage. I noticed your call, however small your voice is, and I thought I would stop by to urge you to make peace with your circumstances.”
Hahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
This actually makes me love Ms. Lewis a lot more
Like, I take her kind of at her word here and think that she's at least 40% doing this out of the goodness of her heart. Which is both more and less humanizing because it also shows that she's just so detatched from everything in the situation. She's treating this like he lost his job, which is exactly how I'd expect her to treat it.
“It would be for the best,” she said.
Of course, the other reason is that she doesn't want to see Blake, against all odds, claw his way back up to the surface and fuck with all of Rose's plans
“You’re standing in quicksand, Mr. Thorburn. Thrashing means you only sink faster, exhausted and frightened. Go still, wait, and you might remain in the quicksand, but it won’t be quite so unpleasant.” “No,” I said. “That’s not me. I’d rather go down fighting and stupid. Foolish. I’m asking for your help because I have to keep going somehow, and I can’t keep going here. Not with the price involved, not when it’s going to grind me down and make me something different.”
YES!!! Ilovethis
I don't know what you're talking about Ms. Lewis, he seems chalk fuckin full of identity right now
I love the callback to the Fool, and how Blake kind of owns it now that he's gotten himself killed doing something stupid
it's like "yeah, might as well admit it, can't really deny it at this point" and then he just leans into it in the most defining way
it's wonderful
“…But you won’t get help from me. Unfortunately, that puts me in an awkward position.” “Oh, I’m sorry, did I put you in an awkward spot?” I asked, infusing my voice with weeks worth of repressed sarcasm.
Hahahahahahahahaha
that's such a cool beat, first because I've been waiting for it ever since he could lie again, second because Ms. Lewis was the one to let him know he couldn't be sarcastic in the first place
“Dramatic irony at its finest,” she said.
Welcome to Pact, where the story does all of my work for me, but I keep talking anyways
I love that this book is one where a character can just fuckin Say That
“I can’t have you following me out,” she said, “And I’d rather not make waves by leaving more dramatically. People aren’t the only things that come to this place to be worn away. Many a Demesne or forgotten god have fallen through the cracks, nothing to tie them to the world above. I would rather not disturb the more powerful locals.” “You’re saying there’s an exit.”
The idea of "once a god is forgotten it fades" is one that I see all the time with Neil Gaiman, Rick Riordan, and anyone else who brings gods to the modern world like that, but Pact goes one step further of course, and says "ah yeah, and once they fade they end up here". Even if this is the only little bit we get about this (which I'm not so sure it is, given Blake's response) I love it as part of the world
(edited)
The darkness pressed in. I couldn’t shake the idea that the darkness was as solid as hard earth, and it extended for miles in every direction. Any progress I made was at the expense of scratching in dirt. There was only this little patch of reality, and then only constant resistance that cost me more than it was worth to make headway against.
Blake is such a cool protagonist, I love where his voice goes when the story needs to hammer something in
I would have been lying if I tried to convince myself I managed to compose myself, but fuck it, I was allowed to lie now. ■
And that's probably the perfect way to end this section
Hard shoe heels struck the tiled floor. The church was dim, with some multicolored light streaming in through stained glass windows.
I don't think we're in kansas anymore (and by kansas I mean, of course, a limbo that grinds you down and swallows you while the world forgets)
For one thing, I haven't heard of the sun being a thing in the drains
Sandra stood in front of the altar, not at the altar. It loomed behind her, but the fact that she wasn’t using it as a stage to speak from suggested this wasn’t a proper assembly. Her familiar was perched across her shoulders, body bent to accommodate her neck. She wore her hair in a braid that draped over one shoulder, and a long coat with a fur ruff around the hood. Her family was arranged on one side of the aisle.
Oh FUCK we're back in Jacob's Bell!
Mid chapter no less
okay, sure, we're here now
Uh
okay
we're in a church, does that mean wedding? is wedding still happening, now that Laird was killed in a way that somehow evades definition?
Probably, if her family is arrang-im just gonna keep reading...? it's not a proper assembly?
Mags sat on the edge of the stage, to Sandra’s left.
sharkhi
Her dark hair turned away from her head in twisted little curls, and only the metal hairband kept her from looking too shaggy. Her t-shirt was black, with a bloody cartoon character on it, her jacket too small for the deep winter. Her denim skirt had threads hanging from the hem, and her legs were in black tights, jammed into sneakers. She looked painfully out of place with the modern clothes, and she looked worn out, with dark circles under dark eyes, little injuries everywhere. Still, the goblins around her were obedient, and formed a kind of unconscious tableau.
Ilovethis
it feels like we're calling so much attention to her because we're trying to hammer in at the identity that's her own again, and that's a moment that feels triumphant as someone who watched her go through that journey
of course, she's worn out, but I'd guess that Jacob's Bell needs its ambassador a lot these days, maybe establishing the state of the town in this little section too
A younger Aboriginal girl sat on a pew, all alone. Nobody sat next to her, but the Briar Girl and the Briar Girl’s familiar sat in the row behind her.
So I'm guessing this is a council meeting, and not a wedding, but I think I was still supposed to wonder if it was a wedding from Sandra's intro
I forgot that the gathering took place in a church
is that inconvenient if you have, like, vampires? Can they go in churches?
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JayManiac 07-Sep-19 06:48 PM
that's fascinating, and quite on-brand
I suppose that on the meta level of the universe, it's probably because vampire culture is so over saturated that real vampires end up looking like the lowest common denominator of all concepts of vampirism
Eyes were on Rose. Alexis, Ty and Tiff had joined her, and each one of them was backed by a summoned Other. Alexis had a knight in rusted armor, Tiff was joined by a small child with white hair and pale pink eyes, lower face hidden by a scarf, and Ty was accompanied by both a mangy-looking Evan and a hulking brute of a man draped in what might have been necrotized flesh or seaweed. It was hard to tell.
Ah, there they are! And they're the center of attention like good protagonists, probably pissing off everyone in town! And does this mean they have familairs now, or are the Others just...like...bodyguards and various shows of strength? I don't know, but I like how each Other kind of fits its practitioner. Tiff's is timid, hidden, with a bit of innocence to it; Alexis' is strong, but also damaged; and then Ty has two Others who seem like polar opposites because he takes every path at once(also I looked up necrotized and clicked on google images because I'm an idiot apparently)
Corvidae met the eyes of the small Aboriginal girl who’d partially turned around. He smiled, a slow, wide smile. The girl twisted around, sitting back down, eyes forward, but she smiled a little too. Rose wasn’t in a position to see either smile.
👀
what could they have to do with each other, other than the fact that they've both been on this continent for a pretty long time?
Corvidae represents something to do with race, I'm guessing, specifically black vs white racism...I don't really have many ideas of this one
“No,” Rose said. “A circle. I haven’t taught them anything that would qualify them as a cabal, not yet.”
Oh, good. Not yet. Very reassuring.
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Wildbow 07-Sep-19 06:53 PM
Corvidae isn't black.
I think you got too snagged on the Jim Crow notion.
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JayManiac 07-Sep-19 06:56 PM
Hmmm...see I've gone back to his description a lot, and it's pretty vague with regard to race, except to imply that he isn't white. But I have been thinking of him mostly in terms of the Jim Crow notion ever since we learned his name
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spinagon 07-Sep-19 06:56 PM
this is Blake's PoV, but he shouldn't know Mags's name yet, right? (edited)
suspicious 1
agree 1
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JayManiac 07-Sep-19 06:58 PM
“Geneva conventions?” Mags asked. “In a sense,” Sandra replied. “I don’t want this to devolve into the same sort of mess that apparently occurred in Toronto. I would propose a series of rules, to keep this contained and to keep it private."
Good call, Sandra. That said, what occurred in Toronto- and I wouldn't expect anyone to remember this, because it's a little fuzzy without...anyhow, what occurred there was relegated by a set of rules and measures to keep things contained and private. Shit when right the fuck off the rails after that, but measures were taken
“I’m not against the idea,” Johannes said. “So long as they’re new rules, not some convoluted tradition that we can’t hope to study before events come to pass.”
And you'd be one for new rules, wouldn't you Johannes?
Now that we know him better, I'm finding conversations that involve him just that much more delightful
“People can declare themselves out of bounds, with the caveat that they cannot participate,” Duncan said. “Those who cannot speak for themselves can be named by another.” “While they are present,” Johannes said, “With room for objection.” Duncan nodded.
A blacklist on all out war sounds a lot more dangerous than a whitelist, which is I suppose exactly why Johannes agrees to it here
“I have no objection to that,” Sandra said. “Innocents, and anyone who names themselves or is named by another and cannot or will not speak against that?”
Oh this is gonna be a disaster
“A show of hands, then?” Sandra asked, raising her own hand. “Who is interested in making a bid for power?” She kept her hand in the air. It was joined by Duncan, Johannes… And Rose.
Oh fuck
I guess that's the plan that Ms. Lewis doesn't want Blake messing with, holy shit
We don't know exactly what's motivating Rose now, which troubles me. Before, it was pretty cut and dry: get the fuck out of the mirror, don't become one of the bad diabolists. But now she's out of the mirror, and we don't have Blake as the angel whose shoulder she was on anymore, so who knows what she's willing to do?
Also I can't help but laugh at the fact that Duncan makes a bid for power
just
if you end up with Duncan as Lord, you know how pitiful that makes the rest of you look
“And your, ah, Circle?” Johannes asked. “We’re standing by her,” Alexis said.
And we don't exactly know what motivates Alexis here, given that she was here for Blake and didn't even seem to like Rose; same with Tiff. Ty was always in it for Blake and the opportunity to do twelve different kinds of magic, so his motivation is once again the one that I can parse and relate to most (plus he got along with Evan so he's got even more reason to stick around, assuming Rose is responsible in part for Evan's continued existance)
“I have to ask if there are any explicitly neutral declarations? A role to play in the contest itself, or in relation to the city?” Andy and Eva’s hands went up. Mags raised her hand too
I'm so excited to see what Mags' role is going to be; this is a position with so much conflict potential
I also like that we don't spend a whole arc away from Jacob's bell, that we remind the readers what's at stake and what the fuck is happening
“Very well,” Sandra said. “Any altercation should involve a clear declaration of war. Where allowed and fitting, I would like to do this with clear rules of engagement. Contests, rather than outright fighting and murder.” “This is getting tiresome,” Johannes said. “Of course you want contests rather than murder. You’re an enchantress. Assassination and violence remain on the table, or this is a farce.” Sandra smiled. “Good. Declarations of war, then. Fair notice, confrontations should take place behind closed doors, the public none the wiser. I’ll just suggest it’s more Lordlike if one can best a foe without such barbarism.” Johannes smiled just a little too much at that. “Of course.”
Sandra and Johannes are living for this; I don't see any of their smiles as anything less than genuine. And I especially love thinking of Johannes as the devil; I relate to him so much, but I think he's probably the most unpredictable and powerful person here
And everything he says is so devilish
I can see how he convinces angels
“I object.” Rose’s voice was quiet, but it carried.
Okay, powerful yes, unpredictable...I think Rose has him beat
I love how little we understand about her right now
because this seems like a generally good set of rules, or at least the best set of rules that this group is gonna come up with
“You keep telling me things like I was born yesterday,” Rose said. “I know. I don’t particularly care.” “You’re making enemies here,” Sandra said. Rose shrugged.
What the fuck
what the actual fuck happened
This is so far from the Rose I though we knew when we were with Blake
I mean, I can see paths she could've taken to get here, but fuck
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spinagon 07-Sep-19 07:15 PM
She was just hiding her powerlevel
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JayManiac 07-Sep-19 07:15 PM
Johannes spoke up, “Your circle will be obvious and easy targets to weaken you. Surely you’re not that heartless.” Tiff fidgeted, hands out of view behind the back of the pew in front of her. “It certainly looks like I am that heartless,” Rose said.
Yeah it certainly fucking does, and when even Johannes thinks you're off your rocker you're doing something very very wrong
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spinagon 07-Sep-19 07:16 PM
Actually it's over 9000
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JayManiac 07-Sep-19 07:16 PM
“They’re open game, then?” Johannes asked. “Try,” Rose said. She stood, fixing her coat, then strode from the church.
Like, this is super disturbing, but sweet Scion was that a badass move
She just made every god damn spirit in this church swoon with that display of supervillainy
Megamind would be proud
“Well,” Mags said. “That happened.”
Well put, Mags. I'm unironically glad to have your input in these trying times
“It would be far weaker as a group-sworn Oath than it would be if everyone was involved, and it would put us at a disadvantage in relation to our prickly miss Thorburn there, tying our hands while leaving hers free,” Sandra said. “I’d rather not, not officially.” Johannes smiled, leaning back on his pew. “Honor system it is, then.”
Hahahahahahahahahahaha
I thought it was gonna be a disaster with the rules
this is gonna be...what did they call that worst case scenario? Practitioner equivalent of Nuclear Armageddon and all that?
“So refreshing,” Ev murmured to Keller, practically squirming with excitement.
Again, the Faerie become the ones most aligned with my personal interest
Okay that's all I have time for right now, I'm gonna finish the chapter by the end of the day so bye for now
K
E
I
R
A
_
D
O
N
'
T
L
O
O
K
U
P
,
O
K
?
That should work, probably
see you in an hour or two!!
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JayManiac 08-Sep-19 12:46 AM
sharkhi
Yes Jay do
Jay will do more of that now!
I intentionally walked through the open pool of water, disrupting the image and sounds. Nobody else had caught them. The scenes were just for me. What the fuck are you doing, Rose?
Yeah, I'm glad Blake is on pretty much the same page we are. Except no because maybe he shouldn't develop that much of a hatred of his other half, probably
Me being a pawn was bad enough. My friends being used as pawns?
Blake may, may be being a bit unfair to Rose. I mean, I agree that the thing we just saw looked pretty fucking bad, but I still don't think Rose is all that bad of a pe- okay, I don't think she's leading Blake's friends to their doom...intentionally. Man, maybe he is being fair to Rose...not lookin good.
This wasn’t that point. Like I’d told Ms. Lewis, I wasn’t about to lie down and die.
This turning point where he realizes that he can't throw a temper tantrum and he just has to do is fantastic. Let's get you out of this hellhole, Blake
I needed a weapon. There were people selling them here, further into the settlement. I needed information.
Interestingly, the thing that Blake might be able to barter is his information. If there aren't too many practitioners down here, he's got a pretty distinct advantage that he can use to get the rest of the information he needs. Then again, they could just kill him.
Light, it seemed, was another convenience, many shacks built to covet and borrow the light of a given lightbulb, their windows and shoddy construction allowing only slices of light through for others to use. Safety was yet another, and the only apparent safety here was the safety of being in the middle of the herd. As I drew closer to the heart of things, the houses were crammed in closer together. It was like a very young child’s experiment with building blocks, sloppy, haphazard, and it didn’t make fundamental sense. Everyone knew that when one laid down bricks, they staggered it, so each brick was supported by the two below. Kindergarten level architecture. Yet over and over, I saw sloppy construction where people had somehow, for some reason, decided to build their shack as an extension of the place below, increasing the pressure, making it all just a touch more wobbly and unsteady. The people, too, didn’t feel like a society. The crowd didn’t function as any crowd should. Individuals stopped in the middle of the footpath, walked against the unsteady flow of people, and ranged from the openly hostile to the hyper-passive avoidant types.
I love this as an extension of the idea that nobody here really plans for the future, everyone's living day to day, and they don't have the support structure that civilization would entail. They don't have the structure or security to worry about structure or security and it's heartbreaking. There are so many people who society fails, who it dumps all of its garbage on and forgets about, and this is how they live with it.
“The witch?” I asked.
Alright, let's mentally prepare ourselves for this. And hope that good ol fashioned deals can still be made when Blake can lie and the witch might also be able to. This is gonna go great.
The witch was surprisingly normal looking. Back in what Ms. Lewis had called the material world, the witch would have passed for a homeless woman.
I think David's right that the Drains are commentary specifically on homelessness, for how often the story hits that particular drum beat down here. I'm also interested in the people of the drains that don't look mutilated in any way, because we've seen the guy who only had a limp and he seemed pretty cool and human and stuff, but the witch is also normal-looking, so this is the second beat of that.
“You practiced,” the witch said. “Before.” I nodded.
That was quick. What was it, the general diabolism-look? the bird-skulls?
“Everyone has the same question, and I’ll ask them if I’m curious in exchange.” “I like fairness,” I said.
Is the question "how the fuck do I get out of here?" because that seems like the most pertinent one right now.
Shirtless, cold, I held out my t-shirt and sweatshirt. “Sorry this is so impromptu. You can have either one, your choice.” “You’re new here,” she said. “What makes you think I want a filthy, sweaty piece of clothing?” “I was homeless once,” I said.
I like that Blake is uniquely suited to understand this place as a magically exaggerated version of what he went through. It's always been a part of his character, but this place gives that part of him the chance to flourish in the narration.
You know
while it's beating every other part of him senseless
“There’s always a use for an extra bit of clothing,” I said. “And I assume people are bringing you the wood you’re using for that fireplace, as gifts, and I can’t imagine you won’t find some use for a reasonably clean, intact shirt.” “You’re not wrong,” she said. She took my t-shirt, smiling. “I like you. Offering accepted. Sit, please.”
Yay! sharkhi And also, the witch seems, similar to the bald man, like a pretty cool and human character who hasn't been forced to give up empathy and stuff, which is all the more confusing since she was a practitioner before all this, and they don't tend to be the most empathetic of types. I mean, what is the Practice but a way to exploit society
“How do I get out?” “There it is,” she said.
Hahahahahhaha, popular question? I blame absolutely no one for wanting to know this.
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JayManiac 08-Sep-19 01:16 AM
I nodded. “My… visitor commented that there were powers best left undisturbed.” “You know of demesnes?” she asked.
When I first saw the elipsis I jumped straight to "blake's being careful with his words" before realizing he doesn't have to not lie-
oh hey also speaking of that
Now Rose can't lie and Blake can, which is already a small reversal of their previous dynamic (though we were unaware of both the fact that Rose could lie and the fact that Blake can lie until recently)
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JayManiac 08-Sep-19 01:26 AM
“Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know everything. I would venture a guess, fellow practitioner, that it was a demesne once, and it was attached to some vital process of our reality. Through this vital process, it came to devour other demesnes and objects, and it swelled in size. It connected to other such areas, and formed the backbone for what might otherwise have been the original void.” “Nothingness?” “In the earliest creation myths, void was not nothing, but raw chaos. Nothing was not a concept. Void was an endless storm of everything under the sun, a great elemental grinder to churn up all which fell into its reach. But over time, this place became more civilized. Gods, you see, fall through the cracks as well, without worshiper or memories to hold them in place. They sleep inside the walls, and bring a kind of logic to this place. Demesnes bring memories of their masters. Every visitor shapes this place in little ways. The drains are but one manifestation of this essential need the universe has, for healthy entropy.”
I love it I love it I love it, in any other book this would be the coolest concept in the entire story; in Pact, it's tuesday (or saturday (I actually have no idea when this updated)). Wildbow's always great at finding the reason that the world behaves a little like a story. There may be the high brow concepts and lovecraftian terrors that comprise the "true chaos" or whatever, but we never engage with them directly, we engage with how people have interpreted them through stories. This explanation is essentially "everyone has their own story about what will break them, and this place is everyone's story". Having the process of breaking down things as an environment in your story is a lot more relatable and believable(?) than having True Chaos in your story.
It's nuance, right? We can't conceive of Void, but we can conceive of things being on the path to void, of what that could look like. We can apporach the concept and imagine that
“There are other ways,” she said. “You know of bogeymen?” “Yeah. They get out.” “Hot malice drives them, anger. They boil up much as heat rises, and crawl free. Particularly gruesome, iconic ends give them this strength.”
Fascinating, since bogeymen are such a diverse kind of Other. I mean Midge certainly fits this description, but Joseph's face-stealer? I dunno, he could be really angry and just wearing a gruesome mask to cover it up, sure. I could buy that. Mary's a dead ringer, but I'm not convinced about Corvidae. I think he's not human derivative. I also wonder if all bogeymen are the things that crawled out of the drains.
“There are other ways, but they are very specific ways,” she said. “I’m open to specific.” “I couldn’t name them all, and I couldn’t be certain about them all either. At times, it’s ambiguous. Did they escape, or did they die in the process?”
Hahahahahaha, that's so fuckin reassuring
I'm beginning to wonder if there's a way out that doesn't force you to become some sort of monster
even if you're not one in appearence
“What is he? No, scratch that, dumb question. How do I fucking deal with him?” “Most decide to run,” she said. “I’m not most,” I said. “How do I bind him? Or seal him or banish him or whatever?” “Ah, and I was starting to suspect you weren’t a real practitioner. Unfortunately, our like don’t have our true power down here, only our knowledge, and some tricks here and there.”
Noooooooooo I want m'power back :(. Also can the witch lie? If she knows she's powerless, she probably knows that not lying isn't gonna help.
“You’re right in that, but you’re wrong in one element. He’s not Other. Not quite.” It wasn’t hard to put two and two together. If he wasn’t Other, and he obviously wasn’t human, or animal, or plant, or mineral… I groaned a bit. “No. That’s so cheesy.”
...said the character in the story, about the story. I love this. I mean it's awful, and terrifying, but I love it.
“A part of you. A reflection, twisted in a distorted mirror.” “I’ve spent way, way, way too much time already dealing with a distorted reflection already,” I said.
I almost made the joke, then scrolled down to find that Blake had made the joke...also Rose is starting to look pretty dang twisted too...
then again, I'm gonna go back to blake being unfair to Rose, because the drains are showing him visions specifically to piss him the fuck off, so he's certainly getting them out of context
as for what context would make what the fuck rose did acceptable....we'll see
I only had to ask, and I could be rid of Carl, of those memories. “Oh fuck,” I said, burying my face in my hands. “Don’t tell me that.”
But didn't he already know the answer, deep down? We think of Blake's trauma as a flaw, because it's so often something that gets in the way of what he otherwise might want to do (whether it's threesomes or y'know, not stabbing someone to death with a stick). So this is such a fascinating angle, that actually Blake's trauma is what makes him human, and to give it up would be an out, a cheap escape.
In the same vein, it's kind of not a new angle in these stories, that recovery has to be earned and can never be easy
it's been a theme throughout worm, ward, pact...okay analyzing the twig implications could take me all night but you get the point
it's just that here, it's possible to do, just the wrong decision, it's how people become Others
“I believe in the bastardized notion of karma that suggests that if one is just and good, then justice and goodness will find them.”
Also this witch is such a cool person I love that she's so....good
and because of three beat rules im gonna be so fuckin suspicious if we meet another normal lookin dude down here
“I don’t think that’s the question,” she said. “The real question is, what are you?” “That sounds an awful lot like the question I just got from my visitor.” “It’s an important one,” she said. “I’m… Other,” I said.
Ouch.
“I don’t…” I started, but I couldn’t put thoughts into words. I was agitated, upset. “All I ever wanted was to wrap this stuff up. To go back to something resembling an ordinary life, to have my bike and my familiar back, and just, I dunno… wander?” I felt like I was going to throw up. She wasn’t responding. But she was listening, and that meant something. I spoke, just to fill the silence, to unload something more that I’d bottled up inside me. “I… every step of the way, I feel like I’m getting further and further away from that.”
I don't think he's just talking about his time in the drains anymore
“It’s what it is,” she said. “I’ve mused before on the paths some take to escape. That this place tells them. Perhaps this vision of your future is suggesting you need to let go of this dream of yours if you want to find a way out of here… except…” “What?” “You have a shadow as well. By my theory, you’d need to confront a reality about your past.” “Confront the shadow?” I asked.
That's always been the answer, to deal. To not fall back into denial, not shrink away or avoid your trauma because that's just glamour on the wound that won't ever heal. But that's so much easier said than done, especially with the knowledge that you have a safety net, whether it's the lawyers or just becoming a boogeyman
Okay I'm gonna have to pause because I need to have dinner and I have too much to say here, sorry for the weird rhythm!
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JayManiac 08-Sep-19 03:12 AM
Okay, okay we're back
“It means there’s a present reality you need to confront or resolve. I’ll put it simply, stranger. These things are anchors, tying you down to keep you in place. This place is taking those anchors and using them, giving them form, to put you off balance. I’ve never run into someone with three, not that I’ve noticed.”
It looks like Elliot was right about the Drains piggybacking off of existing connections, finding the weak links and anything it can use to pull Blake down. Interesting that he has so many, I'm guessing most people get the dreams or the black fish or some echos of the present...but I suppose that if Blake can win any contest it's the "whoever can suffer in the most distinct ways wins" contest
“How does a boat deal with its own anchor?” “Haul it in,” I said. “Get it onboard. Oh fuck no.”
the doofscord emojis do not have a glyph to properly express how uncomfortable that felt to read; and I think that there's a genuine demand for such an emoji when reading this story. I've needed it more than ten times, I think.
But this is interesting, right? The idea that maybe part of what's keeping everyone down there is the fact that they won't face their traumas, won't touch their anchors. They choose this limbo, they choose monstrosity, or they...deal
“You know,” she said, “I came up with this theory based on personal experience. Glimpses of what was waiting for me if I made it back scared me off when I was drawing closer. I decided it was easier to remain here, than to resolve the issue and face reality.” “I can’t be complacent,” I said. “It’s just not in me.”
And I love that that means, by necessity, that he's being told this by a hypocrite, someone unwilling to take their own advice; the idea that this awful place is better than getting back to reality and having to face it. But Blake is gonna go, he's gonna keep moving, because that's what he does. In a sense, it's why he's not cut out for the practitioner world. That's a world that'll leave something like the Hyena to terrorize helpless souls and ghosts and Others for decades- maybe centuries, and Blake is the one that's gonna hang that motherfucker from a tree or get mauled trying.
“I was going to ask about medical care, how to treat my injuries, but I’m already worried I owe you too much. I jumped into the questions without asking what the proper price would be. The shirt was just for the sit-down?” “The shirt was a convention, not a rule,” she stressed. “As for this… if and when you fail, stop by and tell me. Or leave me some sign if you can’t speak. Further my research.”
I kind of love how Blake is still thinking in terms of the truth, in terms of practitionership. He's ready to pay a price, he calls Rose a doppelganger only "for the sake of argument", he's careful with his words and wants to repay. Hell, he wanted to do that before he ever awakened, didn't he?
“If you felt compelled, and if you were ever able to travel like you dream, I think my family has a gravestone with my name on it in Wisconsin. Zoey Artana. A flower would be nice.” “That sounds like a proper wizard name,” I said. “I’m jealous. You’ve got a deal.”
Zoey you're like...one of the nicest people in this book. You may not be willing to deal with your issues, but at least you're not letting them turn you into an Other
Sometimes we can't deal, and all we can do is...survive. Don't give in. Which is its own definition of dealing
“We’re all on the same side here,” she said. “Us against this place. Doesn’t mean we’re all friendly, but it does make this sort of thing easier.” “You’re not wrong,” I said. “If there’s anything that might make me want to stay in this place, having people be decent to me is a hell of a trap.”
Aww, blake 😢, that's so accurate and so very sad
There was no standing water for me to glimpse Rose and the others. I wasn’t about to sleep to confront the future, and I wasn’t sure that was the route I needed to take to pass that particular hurdle. My focus lay elsewhere. The first hurdle, the most concrete one.
Sweet scion he's just jumping right into it isn't he? fuck.
Carl stopped as I made eye contact with him. “You got me,” I said. “I’m not running.” “Think of everything you could have avoided if you’d done that from the start,” he said.
That felt absolutely disgusting to read, and I'm sure it just gets better from here
He stopped a foot from me. He wrapped his arms around me in a hug.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanopeidontlikeitidontlikeit
I’d expected something bad. The shelter, cold, fear, panic, shame. This place wasn’t that kind. I felt warm, sunshine, safety. I smelled literal bullshit and cut grass. I felt at peace.
I'm confused and horrified and I don't want to think about it and i do want to think about it ahahhhhhh
Really great chapter to get me back into the book, I couldn't think of a better place to be reminded of everything, set Blake on his journey with an objective, and then totally game change it right there at the end so I'll want to read the next one
that's all for tonight, folks; I hope you enjoyed because I sure as hell (or limbo between reality and true chaos, whatever floats anchors your boat) did.
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Wildbow 08-Sep-19 03:36 AM
Thanks for sharing, Jay
Glad to have you back
bulba 1
same 3
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JayManiac 08-Sep-19 03:37 AM
Glad to be back! It'll probably be this kind of shaky for a bit until I have a better grasp on the impish little spidermonkey that is my schedule, but I'm to be considered fully reminded of how much I love this.
Charmander 1
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JayManiac 10-Sep-19 04:01 PM
You never know, sere could've been rooting for their brethren in that encounter 👿
Also: let's keep reading this book!
CharmanderHi 1
9.4....when we last left off, Blake had just been told that one of the only potential ways out of here is to deal with his trauma...yay? This is gonna be rough
I guess I’m starting from the beginning. It wasn’t a memory. More like a stage play, an act, the objects around me were props, not replicas.
I love this conceit, and I'm interested to see how that actually physically looks. I'm not sure if it'll be better in an irreal environment, or worse...
knowing these books, almost certainly worse
The lighting was strange, without source, but sufficient to give me a glimpse of a landscape that extended from horizon to horizon. Flat, checkerboard patterns where the dirt or grass were in different states
Okay, that's cool and kind of creepy, if I'm imagining it right
Here and there, I saw animals in the distance. A gaunt horse, a cow with some prolapsed uterus or intestine dangling from its rear end, a goat with blood on its snout.
Yeah, okay, yup, this is gonna be worse, then. Hhhhhh
I recognized it, in a way. This was where I’d stood, a little more than two years ago, when I’d first been okay. Maybe okay for the first time I could remember. No stresses of family, or school, or ambient hostility, no pressures, no watching people I cared about tear each other apart… It was okay, but not perfect. I did have worries looming on the horizon, but it was a damn sight better than it had ever been, and there was hope it could better.
Oh Blake...the very nature of this book is such that we've never really seen you okay, making it that much more heartbreaking to get a glimpse of it, especially knowing what's coming. And knowing that everything he ran away from is everything he's going to have to face if he actually does get out of here.
Eerie, to have two functioning hands, a working leg. I could see out of both eyes, and the vision out of my right was somehow too sharp, the outlines too defined, as if my brain was overcompensating after the recent lack.
Hahahahahaha, I love that Blake is still thinking of things in terms of his actual physical brain, knowing all of the abstract-ness that surrounds this particular situation.
I bit my lip, and I kept my hands where they were. I watched the field instead. Intentionally breaking from pattern.
Having your own volition could be so much worse than just being a passive observer, in the same way that the drains always tempt you: it gives you a potential out that you can't afford to take. Of course that's a bit of a guess, because we don't know what would happen if Blake just started running across the field and breaking the pattern in bigger ways.
An actor, so to speak? He looked Other. His face was pale meat, eyes invisible in the midst of puckered, infected flesh, his mouth a slash across the lower half of his face, the vague hole that was his nose was off-center.
Aaaaa what the fuuuuuck, I mean I know we got hints of this with the rest of the dream but this is just a super blatant example. Is there something more to this, or is it just the Drains being The Drains? Is it supposed to wear on him? Or is this just the kind of imagery the Drain can muster?
“Everything’s great,” I said. The rain was falling harder, the light not so expansive, if I was noticing right. Was that the result of deviating from the script?
Oh good, some rules
I mean, this is Blake guessing, which is really only one step removed from me guessing, but I'm willing to take it
I hated to see someone I’d looked up to made into something so disgusting. It was a slap in the face.
Alright then, definitely supposed to wear on him in specific ways. I mean, it's probably a bit of both, but this seems to confirm that the drains are just as against him here as they are outside of this particular vision
“Might have to let you go,” he said. “Just to be safe.” Oh, the anger that the me of then had experienced. The frustration, even. Not so different from my recent experience in the drains.
On a level, it hits me as unfair and what the fuck and just...frustrating. But on another, this scene is just kind of dead and dry, in the best way. Blake isn't giving many descriptors, it feels like we might be skipping parts of the script, and the 'actor' seems kind of...bad at it.
Oh. That was how this worked, wasn’t it? Just like the witch had told me. All I had to do was say no.
Aaaaaaaa there it is
Lose-lose, in the end. Either I said no, and I gave up, or I said yes, over and over, knowing what was coming. ■ It wasn’t as fragmented as I’d hoped it would be. No jumps from scene to scene.
this is an awesome little subversion for the section change
Because it lets it break, then feel continuous, while actually moving us the reader through the scene more quickly even as Blake isn't
I was making my way through this with hindsight, and wherever that hindsight helped me against what had been unfamiliar or uncomfortable before, this landscape replaced it with ugliness. The food was an unfamiliar taste, the dynamic at work still uncomfortable, and that was represented in the meal. The me of then hadn’t quite been able to trust people. People were made monstrous. The end result was that I was more or less on the same equivalent footing as I had been back then.
This 👏 is 👏 so 👏 awesome 👏
Ilovethis
it's the same thesis as everything I say about the purpose of fantasy: since you can't actually live someone else's experience of being homeless, to really get that empathetic connection everything has to be turned up to eleven, hence the drains; to understand a crisis of identity, the protagonist is rendered literally nameless and falling apart. And so to see that thesis reflected so well here, in a microcosm of the book's purpose as a whole, is just the most gratifying thing. It places us the reader on equivalent footing...so to speak. More equivalent anyways.
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JayManiac 10-Sep-19 05:03 PM
bulba thank you so much, guys! I don't know if I ever could've expected how much I'd love this! (and also I'm sorry I keep getting interrupted I'm back now)
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck this reality. Fuck the Drains.
agreed, one thousand percent
The small town came into view. Old buildings, peeling paint, all under a dark sky. The streetlamps and lights from inside the buildings were the sole illumination. Fuck, fuck fuck.
Now that the link has been made between what Blake was feeling then and what he's literally seeing now, every bit of description is that much more powerful at setting tone. Side note: Blake has the emotional side of the reactions covered.
But one building loomed, larger than it should have been. Restaurant, cafe, tavern, all of the above, none of the above. The lights inside were brighter, and the illumination extended further, reaching across the street to where I stood. Fuck this place.
It's especially awful since we know what's coming, but the vision shows us that Blake of the past seemingly doesn't. He sees this place as bright, laughing...hopeful, even? And the fact that the vision knows exactly when to ignore details, when to contradict itself, makes the whole awful mess that much more relatable
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Wildbow 10-Sep-19 05:19 PM
Out of curiosity, what do we 'know what's coming' ?
same 1
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JayManiac 10-Sep-19 05:30 PM
I mean, I'm guessing it's Blake's most central trauma that we're working up to, one of the things that's anchored him for the entire book, the vision that he and Evan were able to avoid confronting
Also I'm sorry I keep getting interrupted but I forgive myself this time because the custodians came into my room and asked what I was doing and I think they're both gonna read Pact now
Ilovethis 4
I'm also also gonna have to take another quick break to sign the beam that's going in our college's new library before eleven apparently because that sounds like a cool opportunity that exists for the next twenty nine minutes
I should do that now so that I can be here uninterrupted for the rest of the chapter actually
agree 2
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JayManiac 10-Sep-19 05:48 PM
Alright, beam is signed and I'm ready to be prosodically tormented again
suspicious 3
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A bird 🐦 10-Sep-19 05:49 PM
Is that a real word?
It is!
That's a chocolate frog word right there
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JayManiac 10-Sep-19 05:52 PM
I made it up so I'm glad it turned out to be real!
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A bird 🐦 10-Sep-19 05:53 PM
It sort of fits the usage
Enough that I thought you'd learned it in class recently
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JayManiac 10-Sep-19 05:54 PM
I knew the word "prosody" and like stringing together things that work in english to make things that logically should work in english regardless of word status
Carl. Just as he’d appeared in the drains, utterly normal, except the colors were off. Black hair and beard, black turtleneck sweater, black jeans, black scarf around his neck, more for fashion than for warmth. His arms were draped on the back of the booth, extended out to either side.
So we get the descriptions of these three normal girls, and they're all monstered up, and all this time I've been wondering what he would look like, and "normal" is just about the worst answer there could be. The vision (and the author) knows that any augmentations like that would only allow blake to distance himself from the situation, that this is a lily that doesn't need gilding- sweet scion that's a super out of place metaphor
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A bird 🐦 10-Sep-19 06:01 PM
Hypothetically, were Pact put to film, I would hope that the show would have a really strong usage of tableau shots. Conquest's little displays, obviously. Maybe some diagrams, some overt symbolism, some settings. The shot of Carl that you just quoted would be a perfect use case for this
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JayManiac 10-Sep-19 06:03 PM
I think the book is, in a sense, creating that kind of shot intentionally
agree 1
it's so cinematic
By pointing out what's at his right and what's at his left specifically it frames him in the center
and he's, of course, the center of the entire vision
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A bird 🐦 10-Sep-19 06:05 PM
The book explicitly points out that it's doing it, too, in Conquest's domain
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JayManiac 10-Sep-19 06:06 PM
I love when film and cinematography are used to that effect, and with Pact it's a must-have, since the shape of the world is the shape of stories. Things are dramatic, the spirits watch from low-angle shots, we call very specific attention. It's to the point where I don't know who I'd even trust with a pact adaptation, simply because it's such a daunting prospect.
agree 2
“Don’t worry. We don’t bite,” Carl said, smiling. He looked at Teeth, “Right?”
I shouldn't be laughing, and I really am creeped out, but this is the kind of horrorlarious situation that I laugh at as a defense mechanism. I again regret the lack of a teeth emoji
I couldn’t shake the notion that he was in on this. That he saw what I saw and accepted it. His expression and posture… he was on this stage that the Drains had created, but he wasn’t an actor any more than I was. Not really.
Ah, I hate and love this, because we've been told that Black Fish Carl is a part of Blake, meaning that the only reason he has this kind of freedom is that Blake has given him so much weight, and made him so powerful in this dream, as an anchor. It's not a criticism of Blake, btw, it's just really tragic.
“The only dumb question is the question to which you don’t know the answer,” Carl said. I hadn’t known how to reply to that.
Yeah, I still don't know how to reply to that. I had to read it a few times to figure out what it was saying and even then it makes little enough sense that I just have no idea what to say. It's off putting in the best ways.
I resisted, but something in the atmosphere told me I couldn’t bend the rules this much. I couldn’t improvise here, refuse an answer and expect this test to continue. Every second I waited, the contrast between light and dark seemed to sharpen, the noise of the light rain outside more intense, until it all felt like it might start to come apart at the seams. “Blake,” I said.
this is just...so awful, the idea that you have to feed the story that you dread the most, that you have to keep facing it or everything falls apart, that your ability to confront the things that happened to you is the only thing holding this hope together....But sweet scion is it hard hitting
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Wildbow 10-Sep-19 06:12 PM
Oh, I think that's a typo, actually. 🤣
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JayManiac 10-Sep-19 06:13 PM
Oh, gotcha- I was having trouble figuring out exactly how confused I was supposed to be
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Coro 10-Sep-19 06:14 PM
Shhh author, it's in the story so it's deep and meaningful now
suspicious 2
☠ 1
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JayManiac 10-Sep-19 06:15 PM
This shadow reality seemed to sigh. I blinked, and the contrasts eased up, the patter of rain against window growing quieter.
Now I'm just picturing this in dream sequence cinematics and this lends itself really well to that. Weird pull: the way I'd imagine this filmed reminds me of some of the flashbacks in Doom Patrol, within which the characters are forced by the narrator again and again into scenes from their own trauma, while being fully conscious and having the choice whether to play along with it or not. That's a really good show btw
“If you can get here, you can get there. It’s west off the forty-one rural. You’ll see a sign. Loon Lake. We’ll get you set up, Blake.”
Every word out of Carl's mouth seems...disgusting and manipulative and awful.
“We’ll see you in the next few days, then?” he asked. That… it felt wrong. I didn’t remember it. He was breaking from script. Making me say it.
sweet scion, and now the story's going out of its way to give him ways to get out, ways to stop this all from replaying, ways to deny that part of his humanity and remain in the drain
I'm really hoping that it's all just a test but that doesn't seem like the way this world works
wow I just realized that "this world", ambiguously refers to the general world, the world of pact, the world of the drains, and the mini world that the drains is creating for this sequence to play out in. I think the statement still applies at each level.
He gestured with his hands without moving his arms, “Got plans? You should sit. Partake of our fries.”
This sounds like something I would say and that makes me hate him even more
Making casual fantasy-speakers look like disgusting manipulative asshats
The past me had. Here, I took a different option, “No thanks. I’ve got someone waiting for me.” His smile was almost smug. Not Carl’s smile so much as it was my shadow’s. I was deviating from the script. I hadn’t ruined it, I wasn’t running, or refusing to continue, but I wasn’t helping myself either. Not on the surface.
Interesting...he kind of does take an out, but not completely, he just doesn't spend as much time here as he should've. I don't know if it's the right decision, but i certainly don't fault him for it
If this was a matter of simply overcoming one or two events, it would have been something else. Grit my teeth, fight. But this was a question of endurance, fortitude. Doing it all over, the bad bits, the stressful bits, the parts I regretted.
I love the reality of this irreal vision, because it characterizes the sacrifice not as a dragon you need to fight or a blow you have to withstand, but as it really is: a long-haul sort of pain that you keep living. It's something Wildbow always does really well; the worst part about breaking your arm isn't the part where the arm breaks, it's the appointments and the cast and the way it's always in a little bit of pain and the way you feel weak whenever you take the arm brace off and you have to do everything one handed for weeks or months...a lot of stories aren't concerned with that, and these ones are, whether it's a broken mind or a broken body.
My eyes roved over the lake. I could make it out, despite the lack of light from above. I was reminded of pictures of bioluminescent algae on the ocean, highlighting the cresting waves. It was beautiful, eerie, and unsettling. Doubly beautiful because it was in stark contrast to the ugliness I’d experienced for the length of my stay here.
The lake, like carl, is one of the least comfortable things in this world of twice-tall-teeth and never blinking and festering mouths and all
“In a way, it’s the point of no return,” he said. “Go any further, and you might feel like you have to do something stupid. Like punching that railing…” I touched my hand. The pain was gone, any wound already healed. “…Or one of us. You know there’s no situation where you win here,” he said. “Conquer this reality, attack me, dash any or all of this from your mind and your heart, you leave a hollow that gets filled by other things, and you become a monster. Abandon it, and you’re still there, in the Drains, for the rest of your short existence. Go through with it, and you’ll be less.”
What does that last option mean!? Why is the option we're gunning for the one where Blake becomes less? I mean, I could guess at it, but I wonder how many levels the sentiment applies to. I really hope that we get to find out, because I could see the story going monster too, blake responding to this the same way he did to Laird, letting something Other fill that part of his identity.
It was nice. The me of the past had found it a reprieve from weeks of hard farm work. The me of now found it a break from the hostility and grind of the Drains.
Oh, Blake
Fungus-face took my hand, pulled me to my feet. Mute, I followed as she led me to her cabin. I couldn’t see her face in the dark. I could only feel her lips on mine, her cheek against mine as she hugged me tight. There was very little ugliness here, because there hadn’t been much holding me back then. Nothing that needed translation.
This is strange, surreal, like the dream where he was sleeping with Green Eyes...just, doesn't feel like Blake, of course. But that unnatural quality is applied to what happened to make him that kind of person
“Basics only,” Teeth told me. The teeth were less pronounced. Unfamiliarity and discomfort translated to ugliness, but the group was getting more familiar, more comfortable for me.
I'm wondering if I was wrong about this leading into Blake's worst echo from back in toronto; it feels...different, like maybe this is an entirely different anchor. There's nothing that really ties the two together except for my own assumptions, that I assumed Blake's visceral reaction to Carl's appearance mirrored only one thing in the story so far.
The old man. The farmer I’d been working for, a basket in one hand. I’d never actually said goodbye or gone back. The look he gave me was one of disappointment, as he reached past me for a box of sealable plastic containers. Wordless, he moved on, leaving me behind. Yeah, I regretted that. Not making the trip by bike, not saying something to him there in the grocery store.
If anyone's ever heard of clueyness, that's the kind of profound sad that this makes me, except turned up to eleven. I'm not gonna cry, I'm not gonna cry, I'm not gonna cry.....yet...probably
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A bird 🐦 10-Sep-19 06:42 PM
Ahh I hate that term
I know the version you're talking about
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JayManiac 10-Sep-19 06:43 PM
I'm not a fan of the term, but it's the only one that correctly captures the feeling
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A bird 🐦 10-Sep-19 06:43 PM
but the word always described being well informed and clever to me
and they're such drastically different usages
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JayManiac 10-Sep-19 06:44 PM
Yeah it really makes no sense, but it's the only piece of cultural context I can use to bridge the gap in understanding. Curse you Tim Urban!
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A bird 🐦 10-Sep-19 06:44 PM
like an inverse of "Haven't got a clue"
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JayManiac 10-Sep-19 06:44 PM
and also Thank you Tim Urban!
lol 1
same 1
Snow fell. Of course this place expected me to go through it all.
This is exactly the kind of thing I didn't expect to encounter in the vision, it really is so different from the echos. It's a trauma that's riddled with context and pressure and things being set up over what looks like months
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A bird 🐦 10-Sep-19 06:46 PM
Link to the cluey thing for those interested https://waitbutwhy.com/2016/05/clueyness-a-weird-kind-of-sad.html
ty 1
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JayManiac 10-Sep-19 06:47 PM
Fungus Face, sitting on the bed that doubled as a couch. The others stood at various points around the room. Ten of us, altogether. There was only thing that would make one girl look that miserable, the other people that concerned. “Whose is it?” I asked.
He presumably knows all these people's names, but he still only refers to Carl by name, giving him that power again. I also wonder if some of these people turn out to be people we know...but somehow I doubt it? It was a fleeting thought, like "is this going to turn out to be Alexis?" but I don't think that's where the story's going.
“It’s not a problem,” Carl said. “We’ll figure this out. This sort of thing takes a village, and that’s what we’ve been building all along, isn’t it?” There were nods here and there.
See that's fascinating. I wonder, is it sort of a commune like situation, where they're trying to build a better society out here? Because that just opens up a world of possibilities and hopes and dreams and tragedy, because I don't think that this has a happy ending, whatever way it goes.
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David Hunt 10-Sep-19 06:50 PM
It was a fleeting thought, like "is this going to turn out to be Alexis?"
That would be a mind-fuck. However, I simply don't believe that Blake could encounter a twisted doppleganger version of Alexis and not comment on it.
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JayManiac 10-Sep-19 06:52 PM
Right, that's what I figured
“After what happened to…” I couldn’t say Fungus Face, and the only two names in this shadow-place were Carl’s and my own. “After the pregnancy… this feels less cool.”
Is the world repressing the knowledge of these names? Not letting them interfere with the central thing, with the task at hand, with the anchor?
It's a weird touch, but it fits
When I spoke, my words were quiet. “Around the time… your friend invited you to come here, she was talking about going home for a bit. It was getting colder, and she wasn’t enjoying the experiment so much.” The bit of fencing banged in the distance. “Now she’s pregnant,” I said. “And everyone’s just assuming she’ll stick around. I’m not sure I like that.”
Oh, that's...just a whole other possibility then. Did Carl do that on purpose to manipulate her into staying? What kind of experiment is happening? Is that why he was so cool and confident about it? This just got a little darker...and not in the ways I expected.
“Blake, is something wrong?” he asked. He dropped his hand and managed to look concerned. “I’m gone for a week and-“ “Nothing’s wrong,” I said.
The way Blake phrases that, like he knows now and maybe then that Carl is devoid of empathy (whether that's true or not)
“We don’t treat work like a currency here.” “I do,” I said.
Oh man
there's so much to dig into here
I don't know if it'll be distracting, but I want to talk about the social implications of this, because I've criticized the society we see in pact- and in our day to day lives- for being too economizing of relationships, work, pleasure, existence, humanity. I agree, in a sense, with a lot of the higher level ideas that experiments like this one are gunning for: that work shouldn't be currency-d, that sex should be an act free of shame and stigma, that Karl Marx had some good- if confusingly written- points. So this section of the story is almost a counterargument to that side of things, showing the darkness and manipulation you open yourself up to with this kind of community, the cultlike mentality it can accumulate, the manipulation through sex and pregnancy...it's something that I'm so glad the book is taking time to address
“It’s natural to have trust issues, coming from where you came from. But this is supposed to be a healthy place, Blake. A good place.”
I mean, right? This is a direct expression of where it can all go horribly wrong...I mean, I don't think the message of this chapter is gonna turn out to be "and then Carl was right and Blake was wrong and he actually has the perfect society"
He sighed. “Something’s going on with you, Blake. You’re confrontational. Did you just stew in that room for the last week, convincing yourself something was wrong? That because this works, there must be something wrong at the center of it? Because I know what it’s like to think that way, Blake, I did when I was your age. I only want you to let that go, so you can enjoy life like I do.”
Ever read "the ones who walk away from omelas"?
it's one of those fantasy distillations that really works
Someone had to jog to catch up with the group. She was lagging because she’d stopped to try and light a cigarette in the cold. Her hair blew across her face, very nearly coming in contact with the smoking cigarette. Only her cupped hands stopped it.
Oh?
Are we about to get another name? Because I feel like we're about to get another name
Younger than I remembered her. On the tail end of a very unkind adolescence. She had bad pimples, patches of acne. Her longer hair was meant to cover most of it. “Hey, Alexis.”
sharkhi
But at the same time, what does it mean that the only names here are now Blake, Carl...and Alexis?
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Seregraug 10-Sep-19 07:08 PM
Well, the thing is with cults that it's like 'give up your worldly possessions....to the Cult leader" Not exactly equality, and people that can't support themselves have no where to run.
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JayManiac 10-Sep-19 07:09 PM
“Manipulate us. Screw with us.” “To make you happy?“ “So you’re admitting it,” I said, and there was anger in my tone.
And is this...I wonder, because what if this is true? What if he's manipulating them for...well, what he thinks is good? I mean, I don't trust him obviously, because something happened to make Blake call the *fucking lawyers* when he showed up
“What are you saying?” he asked. “I’m saying just that,” I said. “That you’ve got this damn dream, and you’re twisting us all around in really subtle ways that make it really hard to point to any one thing. But somehow, on the days I don’t play ball or join the herd, there’s less food, less conversation, less… I feel sick saying it, less girls.”
Yeah...that's pretty fucking awful and probably true. It's interesting that this commune falls to the same problems that brought down nations, on a smaller scale
“Almost done,” he said. “Yeah,” I said. “Whatever happens, I win,” he said. “Yeah,” I agreed.
hhhhhhhhhHHhhhh
“This place is a cult, I said. “Not a drink-the-Kool-aid cult, but it’s still fucked. I’m leaving, you have five seconds to decide if you’re coming.” I didn’t wait for a response. I headed for the truck.
Yeah, but "see you shortly" though. They don't get away...so what happens?
Alexis put her hand on mine. I pulled it away, sharp, the gear-shift making a violent noise as it jerked in response. Touch was manipulation. Poisonous. I couldn’t trust it.
Oh. Oh
That's somehow so much worse, and we finally got to see it happen (edited)
I moved my arm to push past. He grabbed it. He wrestled me down onto the bed.
nononononononononono
“A small part of me has wondered, since all this with the practitioner stuff started,” I spoke, trying to disassociate, to distance myself from this, “Were you an Other?” “No,” he said. “But you’re a reflection of me. If I didn’t know-“ “You know,” he said. “I’m just a person. Well, I’m your Shadow, but Carl was only ever a person.”
The ugliest things are
“No,” I said. “Time works differently here. I’ve had time to think. Why? Isadora asked it. Ms. Lewis asked it, or something like it. Pretty much every powerful being I’ve talked to has asked it. Including Conquest, who talked to Rose, who apparently knows more than she’s letting on.” “You’re not afraid,” Carl spoke. “Which is an answer unto itself, isn’t it?” I asked.
Why? Why? Why were the people that weren’t Carl or Alexis just blurs? Why was I the heir, and not Paige? If Grandmother could set up a vestige, couldn’t she set up a heterosexual Paige?
I'm kind of just sitting here really confused
I don't know if I like where this is going
Was Blake the vestige?
Why did I remember everyone? Why didn’t the details add up?
Was he the one 'created?', through connections to people like carl and alexis?
“I can’t believe that I needed a Rose,” I said. “Easier to believe that Rose needed me, a little warrior. Someone to stall the inevitable. You cobbled this together, grandmother, my story included, to make it so I couldn’t get touched… because when I did, I got hurt. Not always right away, but my shoulder hurt after Tiff slept with her head there, and my hand, after I held Rose’s hand and even in the beginning, when I saw the visions, they said something moved… the connections aren’t real connections…” I trailed off. “I’m the vestige, aren’t I? Rose is the second Thorburn heir, I’m just the custodian. The sacrificial pawn.”
AHHHHHHHHHHHHAHHGHHHHHH WHAT THE FUCK
This is hitting me harder than Blake fuckin dying
The darkness broke away, crept in. The tattoos reappeared, the feathers, the birds. The branches crawled across my skin, my neck and chest, as the Shadow around me found its place. “That’s the situation I need to accept,” I said, making it a statement, not a question. I stood in the middle of the Drains. An Other.
Okay, I don't have like any time right now to dig into this so I'm just going to be thinking about it
because holy fuck
what an end to this chapter
This was a huge turning point, and it landed so well
I'm sure I'll have more to say in a bit
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JayManiac 10-Sep-19 11:02 PM
Yeah, I really loved this chapter for so many reasons
I didn't expect it to be one of those friggin game changers, but it was for so many reasons
agree 2
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David Hunt 10-Sep-19 11:05 PM
I must now admit I stole the three languages and a trenchcoat joke from Twitter...
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Elliot (Boy) 10-Sep-19 11:07 PM
I gotta admit I’m envious of how deep you get to go in each chapter during your livereads - you pull out so much more than I get on my first read-through (and even things I didn’t get in any). This was a particularly great chapter for that.
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JayManiac 10-Sep-19 11:08 PM
Going this slowly is pretty great sometimes, but I'm still somehow sure you'll've pulled something I never even thought about.
But man, this is a good chapter for that
I mean, there's the whole vestige thing, obviously, but then there's also what we're learning about Blake (which is I guess, rather than being what happened in his literal past, a bunch of vestigial history that nonetheless influences so much of who he is throughout the book).
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AquaBuddha 10-Sep-19 11:09 PM
I'm enjoying it as well. I've only read Pact once and I kinda blew through it. It's why I'm listening to Deep In Pact as they point out things I absolutely missed. And having another deep dive is always fun.
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Elliot (Boy) 10-Sep-19 11:11 PM
Yeah for sure Jay - I mean I love how at the start you think this is all leading up to the capital t trauma, and it does in a way
But also that’s not it at all
Blake isn’t defined by his trauma, he’s defined by his grandmother.
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JayManiac 10-Sep-19 11:14 PM
Yeah I'm actually gonna do my response to the backstory now, since I've had a bit of time to think about it.
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spinagon 10-Sep-19 11:18 PM
You thought this is gonna be regular trauma, but it was ADVANCED TRAUMA! YOU FOOL
agree 2
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JayManiac 10-Sep-19 11:24 PM
So we’ve made this assumption about Blake, one that DiP pointed out for me and that was then reinforced throughout the book, most particularly in the sequence with the Toronto Echoes. I think we're meant to assume that Blake's sexual assault is responsible for his issues with physical contact, his mistrust of patriarchal figures, his need to not be conquered again. And we're right, but we're wrong, because it's so much more complicated than that. We thought we knew this thing about Blake, and the story just flips our entire understanding of that.
Of course, we don't know what actually happens in the original version of the memory, but I don't think that Carl physically sexually assaulted Blake right there in the shelter; I could be wrong, but that's what I come away from this with. The capital T Trauma is well underway before he steps into the room. The 'rape' that we've been assuming wasn't a stranger in an alley, it was the fact that physical intimacy was being used to manipulate and control Blake for months, by people that he trusted. His trauma didn't happen in the room at the shelter, even though that was its confirmation; it happened in his room at the commune, where he realized that every good experience he'd had for the past few months had been a targetted attempt at controlling him, one person's method of manipulating him into the position that they wanted. Which is, as it turns out, has striking parallels to the exact circumstances he ran away from in the first place. And that's so much more powerful, tying it back to his family, who used any ammunition they could to get ahead in the desperate contest for the house.
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JayManiac 10-Sep-19 11:34 PM
And it's also a lot more realistic, and shows a much more nuanced and- I hate to say- common side of sexual abuse that we don't usually see in the media. The abuse that's not in one moment of awful, even if it does culminate in that, the abuse that's committed by people you trust, the abuse that feels good and even safe in the moment, because that's what the abuser wants you to feel. I don't mean that it's nuanced because Carl isn't a bad person- Carl is a horrible person and what he did was awful. It's nuanced in that he doesn't seem that way, in that the people who abuse you won't always seem like creepy monsters, they won't always be strangers you can demonize in your head after the fact, with ugly faces you've never seen before.
they won't always be someone you can Other
Ilovethis 3
Sometimes, they'll be human I'm sure we're gonna talk a lot in the coming chapters about the fact that all that shit was made up and that Blake isn't even a Real Boy (I mean look at him he's made of wood already). And that's why I thought it was important to set aside a moment to talk about this slice of the story. (edited)
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Elliot (Boy) 10-Sep-19 11:43 PM
The amount of times Pact hits you with the old “yeah in retrospect that makes more sense”
So Jay now we come to the question
That I’d like to hear your thoughts on
Why?
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JayManiac 10-Sep-19 11:52 PM
Why which exactly? Doylian or Watsonian?
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Elliot (Boy) 10-Sep-19 11:52 PM
Oh fuck I hadn’t even made the made of wood connection
Damn that’s good
ty 1
Watsonian
Although it’s Pact, so are the two completely distinct?
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Phaerlax 10-Sep-19 11:54 PM
wood's a dying element too
Ilovethis 2
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JayManiac 10-Sep-19 11:57 PM
No, not really, although I'd argue that the Supreme Thesis of all of Wildbow's stories- as far as you can actually distill one- is that everyone tells themselves a story about what happens to them and that you don't understand what's going on in everyone else's story, or what's really going on in your own sometimes. which is why twig has my favorite pov of all time
agree 1
but Watsonially speaking, I'm guessing the question is "why construct Blake to have this backstory?" since I the fact that he knows Carl's name in the visions points pretty strongly to that being an intentionally crafted connection
And I think the answer might be somewhere along the lines of: Blake has the history of being someone who broke free. Someone who saw a system that was disgusting and manipulative, used every opportunity to control people, etc. and left. He broke out of that society and brought it crumbling down behind him.
in other words, it's exactly what Rosalyn wants to happen to the core cyclical values and perpetuations of the Practice
My guess, is that Blake was meant to call bullshit on the system if he ever got far enough to do so, and that if he failed then he would merely serve as a sacrificial pawn to put the actual best candidate to do exactly what she's been doing this whole time in charge
I admit it's got a few holes, but I don't think I can construct an airtight jguess and this is the best I've got. Some issues being: if this is what Rosalyn really wanted then why did she doom Blake to die? Why put Rose in power- Rose who has far less qualms about manipulating those around her, who doesn't have as much empathy, who thinks a lot more like the practitioners that are continuing the cycle? Was she hoping that Blake would last longer? That he could cause enough strife to the system while he was around while not having enough time to completely bring it down?
If the question is "What about this backstory made Blake a better sacrificial pawn?" then I don't know that I have an answer
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JayManiac 12-Sep-19 09:37 PM
Alright, 9.5, let's see how Blake uh...deals with his fabricated existance!?
One trial done. I still had others to face down.
Oh man, what a thought to have after that realization. It's so very Blake.
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spinagon 12-Sep-19 09:40 PM
sharkhi
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JayManiac 12-Sep-19 09:40 PM
We're rounding the end of the arc, and I'm not sure how exactly we're gonna take these two chapters. It seems like Carl was- while far from the easy one, probably the simplest. How do you get those other anchors on board? Where do you go?
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spinagon 12-Sep-19 09:40 PM
Time to get creative
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JayManiac 12-Sep-19 09:40 PM
We promised
to never be creative again
This was a kind of relief. Things made sense, and knots were coming untangled. Some things still didn’t make sense, there was a kind of horror to this, but I wasn’t burdened by my past anymore. Because I didn’t necessarily have one.
Well hey, that's a pretty healthy way of looking at it, except for the part where having a past is part of what makes you human and you're trying not to give that up remember? I mean, he is still partially human, and has those things to hold onto, right? I guess it's good that he's not falling into utter despair like I probably would upon realizing that I'm a Doll with an artificial personality.
Also that reminds me: Reuben what the actual fuck!?
You knew vestiges were internally close enough to human to care if they get hurt this entire time, so what gives!?
Was it just to throw elliot off of the trail that he wasn't even on?
Is Blake not a person to you!?
okay I'm done with that particular line of thought
for now
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Seregraug 12-Sep-19 09:47 PM
Vestige prejudice disdain
When have actual humans ever been good disdain
Evan > other people
agree 3
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JayManiac 12-Sep-19 09:51 PM
Some branches were still growing, trying to find places on the exterior of my body to entrench themselves. There was a sound like splintering wood as they lurched and spasmodically grew to reach their new vantage points. I could feel them embracing me.
I'm not entirely sure what happened at the end of last chapter, except that Blake figured out his Magic Destiny of being a tool in someone else's plan, and then this shit started happening. He didn't fail the test with Carl, he didn't set aside his humanity, so why is he becoming more Other? Is it just what he always was? Or- no, the shadow that was part of him, the anchor, the black fish. Is that what's doing this? Is this what Blake + Shadow looks like?
it's cool, don't get me wrong, I'm just not sure if I'm supposed to feel good, bad, a mix of both? I mostly just feel confused.
There were more birds on me now. All tattoos, still, some hiding among the thicker branches, only the dark circles of their eyes peering out. “I’m guessing you’re the spirits that possessed me as I cracked?” I asked. Filling in the gaps.
Like, this for instance: when was he possessed? Was it when he bled himself out? Was it just now? Was it shortly after he was created?
I feel like there's a lot of somethings I'm missing
But if no one chimes in I'mma just assume that's how I'm supposed to feel
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spinagon 12-Sep-19 09:54 PM
I think it happens all the time
When he gets damaged, he gets a little more possessed
🤔 1
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JayManiac 12-Sep-19 09:56 PM
I wasn’t breathing, and I hadn’t been since I’d intentionally exhaled, but I wasn’t purple in the face either. I reminded myself to keep up the act. Breathe in, breathe out, just like I’m supposed to. I found the breathing became automatic.
Okay, so he is still trying to be as human as possible, that's good. It's interesting that this doesn't really change his goals or his approach very much, despite being a fucking killer revelation
There would be rules to be followed, as an Other. As a vestige. Sucks that I don’t know exactly what those rules are.
Well I'm guessing that lying is a no, and that you got like 2 years to live...but luckily you're already dead so that's taken care of. Yeah, you're doin pretty good by the information I have access to.
rules wise
he's still screwed
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A bird 🐦 12-Sep-19 09:58 PM
when was he possessed
I think at the end of the last chapter there was an aside about him being hurt by simple bodily contact
Like Tiff's head on his shoulder (edited)
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JayManiac 12-Sep-19 10:00 PM
Ah, so "when I cracked" was like, whenever I cracked, not like that one time that I cracked, then.
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A bird 🐦 12-Sep-19 10:00 PM
Or both?
I imagine being made involved a fair amount of spirits being cobbled together at once
And bleeding himself out at the station couldn't have been good
But I'm gonna duck out, look forward to seeing what you think of the next parts!
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JayManiac 12-Sep-19 10:04 PM
Alright, thanks for the tip 👋
Maybe I could connect the dots if I had another dream, but I didn’t feel like sleeping anytime soon. Not so recently after that experience. A part of me still felt like I could embrace it. I could just… give up and let it happen. Accept somebody else’s idea of peace. I felt a thrum of alarm and unease in my chest at the idea, as if my heart was a box and something was inside, fluttering in momentary panic. The vibration of it ran through me.
It doesn't really affect his priorities because, y'know, he's still friggin Blake. He doesn't get to stop being him just because he knows that "him" is something cobbled together from warped connections and demon-weirdness. Well he could, but then he'd probably be more tree than person and we'd have another problem on our bark-covered hands.
I turned. I had questions, and I had only one place to go to get them.
Zoey! sharkhi
she's the best
In the swaddle was a very small, frail woman or maybe a child. The individual was riddled with the long, hard kind of mushroom that grew on the sides of trees, nearly to the point of being buried by them.
hey so this reminds me of (twig spoilz)the fucking nightmare that was the red plague in the worst fuckin way and I'm so glad it's just a minor drains-setting detail here...so very glad.
“The only gift I can offer is a bit of story, knowledge.”
Hey, I'd take that gift any day. I'd even hypothetically dedicate 400+ hours of my life to receiving it, if one was so inclined to offer
“It’s only a convention,” she said. “Not an obligation.” “I remember coming to a decision, maybe a year ago,” I said, “I wouldn’t accept something for free. I didn’t want to give someone else that power over me. To make me dependent. I just discovered that that decision was only an illusion. I’m honestly not sure if it holds any weight, but I feel like it can’t be a bad decision.” “If everyone felt the same way, the world would be a fairer place,” the witch said. “If you’ll tell me what happened, I’ll give you my attention.”
I like that Blake sticks to his values and doesn't just go "hey what if all that stuff I like is just bullshit and I shouldn't follow any of it anymore". It'd be one thing to do it subconsciously, but it's powerful to hear him affirm it. And yes, this was a very intentional built in decision
I met her eyes, “And you knew.” “I had an idea,” she said. “Vestige isn’t the idea that leaped to mind.”
That's not something I was expecting, but I suppose she did comment on how...connected to the upper world he seemed to be, how there were small differences about him. Making her the latest in a long line of people telling Blake to get his shit together and figure out what he is
I nodded. “It’s funny, but names mean so much, symbols, all that, but all the same, at the end of the day, labels are a bit of a trap.”
Such is the contradiction of society!
Gods, I love this magic system
“The Fool can be the lowest value or the highest value card. The ‘zero’.” “I know that bit.” “Fitting, for someone who doesn’t really exist.” I grimaced. “Ugh.”
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha, that's so awesome. It's not one of those things that should've been obvious by any means, but it's a lot of fun once you Know
“I don’t know the exact ritual or the exact meanings. I do know the most basic aspects of the left and right hands, practically and symbolically. The right hand is the active hand, the hand fixed in the now, the one with which you address the world.” “Sure,” I said. “The left is the hand we use when we’ve got our hands full, in times of stress, more clumsy, but we’re strongest when we use it in concert with the other, rather than relying on the other alone.”
I love that we just get to go "hey let's symbologically break down the meanings of left and right hands!" in this story. And I think that this is pretty accurate with regards to Blake and the way he- for lack of a better framework- uses his connections. He'd love to go alone, the fool, but he relies on connections when he needs to, and he's at his best when he's well connected and a bit Foolish.
“The left hand has another meaning. When referring to the parts of the body, terminology for the right side is Dexter, as in dexterity. When referring to the left, the word is Sinister. In superstition, the left is viewed to be the side closest to evil. When we spill salt, we’re to throw a pinch over our left shoulder to ward off evil. When the angel and devil are depicted sitting on a man’s shoulders, the appropriate representation puts the devil on the-“ “Left side,” I said, in concert with her.
I wondered if we were gonna get to this; I used left/right symbology in my first ever short story, and it wasn't one of the numerous awful and unreadable parts of the project.
“So,” I said, “What does that mean? This decision I just made is evil?” “Not necessarily. As I said, the left hand is the hand you use when the right hand alone isn’t up to the task. We use it when we’re in a desperate situation,” she said. She gestured at our surroundings. “And our actions tend to be clumsier. Not wrong, not evil, but it’s not a stretch to jump to that conclusion, when all’s said and done. I’d worry more about when the High Priestess intrudes on your life and it’s not in moments of desperation.”
This is kind of Blake's whole thing, that he turns to these kinds of solutions because he really just friggin has to, and he's not exactly the most dextrous with their execution. I mean, just look at how he turned to connections post-bleed-out. He initiated his friends, and then...well, that was pretty much as far as he'd gotten with that line of thinking, so I'd call it pretty clumsy, and not altogether syncronous with his right hand play
“Uh huh,” I said. I thought of the Behaims. “I’m not entirely sure what they were planning. What about the Hanged Man in the right, the Chariot in the left hand?”
We haven't really talked about this at all since it came up, to the point where I completely forgot this was a thing, but I'm super excited for the Witch's breakdown, now that we've familiarized ourselves a little bit with Blake's pulls and we've got a better grip on the magic
on this part of the magic, anyhow
“The Hanged Man suggests suspension. Patience, waiting to act to achieve a better outcome. Being stuck. Despite the implications of the name, the man is often depicted hanging from his ankle, not his throat.”
Hahahahahahahahhaaha yeah that's pretty much perfect
friggin patient people. Can't understand em one bit
“Victory, control, overcoming obstacles. It can mean travel, reaching a new point in life. It suggests aggression finding a clear outlet, being honed, often in the frame of being articulate, winning arguments, and confidence.”
Ooo, yeah this is pretty accurate too, and I've always thought she was quite skilled at the pRose part of all this; I also wonder if the Chariot would be one of Paige's cards, if hers were pulled
“For that, we can look to the image on the card. I’m working from memory, but the card usually features a man with a laurel or crown on his head. The victor, if you will. The conqueror.”
Ah, fuck
I hate that guy
This was pre-radiation, too
Did we ever check whether Rose was left handed? Just wondering
“The black and white sphinxes that pull the chariot frequently refer to mysteries, and the stance of the man in the chariot suggests will being enforced, not strength. Schemes, rhetoric, arguments, travel, it might point to some reckless path to ruin, or to glory. Just like your High Priestess, it’s not necessarily an evil path, but on the crux of this, she may find glory or ruin.” “Sphinxes, conquest,” I said. “No, this is suggesting ruin more than anything else.”
I agree completely, and I think it's super easy to pull exactly those things out of what the fuck was just said...
however
do we think, that perhaps Blake is being a little unfair to Rose? Just a smidge? I mean, the Drains are showing him the worst of her, and also I think I wouldn't be too thrilled if the real version of me was running around living my life. There's not not motivation to give her a super duper biased read here.
“The problem is… if you were anyone else, if you just had the Shadow plaguing you, then I’d expect this to be it. You gave this place what it wanted, it broke you down on a level. It should cooperate with you. I don’t know enough to guess what you’ll have to deal with here.”
Cool, cool. So we're just as lost as I thought we were!
“A gift, to wish you well on your expedition.” I unfolded the bundled sweatshirt. My sweatshirt. “It’s warm,” she said. “Fabric’s pretty good quality. Do what you can to hold onto your humanity. Keep the best parts. Take the good that comes with being Other, too. But don’t just throw any of it away. Be smart about it.” I gripped the sweatshirt a little tighter.
Ilovethis
Don't let the checkered scarf blow away, blake
“I’m right handed.” “Okay,” she said. “Your mirror self is a southpaw, then?” “No,” I said. I searched my memories, before coming up with a fairly confident, “No.”
Huh
Okay
sure
I'm sure that's not gonna come back and make me feel like an idiot in three arcs
agree 1
I started walking. Back the way I came. Along the posts. Back to the dark tunnels. I’d had one fleeting vision in there. A starting point. ■
So present is the visions, and future is the dreams. But there's not a way to really confront either one? Well, I'm curious, but I'm gonna come back to this in ~ 20 minutes? Assuming nothing distracts me, which is a pretty big assumption. I'll be back.
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JayManiac 12-Sep-19 10:59 PM
“What the are you doing here?” Rose stared as her parents came down the driveway, Ivy in their arms.
I'm not entirely certain Rose had a significantly better relationship with her parents than Blake did here. Which is a shame because they could've bonded over that.
Oh also I'm back- might've forgotten to mention
Her parents, not mine.
I like the italicized Blake here, to make it clear that we're actively watching along with him. It's been used a lot in Bow's stories, but always to great effect
Specifically it's usually used when viewing an alternate version of the self, like in (ward)Rain's dream visions, which makes this particular situation a fun little twist.
“I’m not selling the house. I can’t.” “That’s fine,” he said. “Whatever you want to do. We just wanted to see you. Are you okay? With this whole thing that happened to Molly, and what Irene was saying about how she was acting…”
Well, on the other hand, Rose is the one acting coldly here, and her parents seem genuine, although I'm sure Blake wouldn't trust that and frankly I'm not sure if I do.
“No. For you. You’d tell us if something was wrong, wouldn’t you?” “No,” Rose said. “No, I wouldn’t.”
Part of me almost thought "is she cold to them because she knows how they treated Blake?", before realizing that...uh...she wouldn't know that at all. But maybe there's still a bit of non-blake-related hard feelings there. I'm super duper interested in everything we're almost learning about this relationship
“You’re implying we did something wrong,” he said. “Yeah, yeah I am. So I was about to make a deal with you, but now I have to amend it. If you want us to get along, I’m going to need you to sign a statement that swears you won’t take any money or profits from sale of the property-“
I mean on one hand, go off. On the other...well, it's pretty clear at least one reason the drains are showing Blake this particular vision of the present. Doesn't exactly paint anyone in a good light
“Well, congratulations,” Rose said. She spread her arms. “This is it. This is me. You want to blame Grandmother for making you into who you are?” “Shh,” her mother said. “Don’t wake Ivy.”
I love how this is done; there are no exclamation marks, no "Rose yelled", because I'm not sure Blake or Rose would've realized how heated this was until their mom said that, so the audience is in about the same position and it's real clever
“That’s okay. We can leave it at that. But right now, I want you to take Ivy. Because whatever’s going on, between you and us, that doesn’t impact your relationship with your sister, okay? You have to admit that’s the case.”
I think we could all do with seeing Rose care about anyone except herself right about now. She hasn't really had a chance to do that too much in the story, and if she has she certainly didn't take it.
“We made mistakes,” her mother said, in a low voice. “I won’t deny that. Help us avoid making the same mistakes with Ivy. That’s all I ask.”
I love and hate the fact that I still don't know whether to read this as genuine or not, even this far down in the conversation. I doubt Rose does either.
“Okay,” her mother said. She reached out, and Rose began the process of handing Ivy back. Her mother, however, hugged her and Ivy both. Rose, still rigid, allowed her forehead to rest on her mother’s shoulder, eyes still open, moving by fractions, as if she were thinking and calculating about things far beyond the realm where she could see.
Ah, yep, that's why we're seeing this
because that was fuckin creepy
I'm very scared of Rose
I laughed a little. Not loud – only a little. “She’s real. She’s busy plotting? Spooky, when I’ve seen the recent vision, but good for her. I’d hope I’d be taking every chance I get to plot as well. You want to get to me, Drains? Try harder.” In retrospect, it might not have been the most brilliant idea to taunt the primeval engine of entropy and destruction. The compost heap of reality.
It's a good thing Blake is allowed to lie now, isn't it?
Then again, these lies are all worded in the right ways, so he'd be fine either way
But also Blake wouldn't be plotting; he'd hope he was, sure, but really he'd probably be out causing a different kind of chaos
Cooler still. My skin would have prickled with goosebumps, if I were still human. I wonder if I can get wings after all.
Hahahahahahahahaha
but also please that would be awesome
Taylor gets a wing pack, Blake can get wings.
He'll be the birdest boi of them all
I felt the cold radiating from my right, and I very nearly hissed in pain at the sharpness of it. Nearly.
Oh? Has he decided that this is what he has to face as "the present?" E&R mentioned how it's pretty much the only thing that's been outright malicious to Blake in the Drains so far; everything else seems pretty cool. No pun intended.
It was frustrated. Was I a little crazy? No. Well, yes, maybe. But that wasn’t exactly it. “I’m not so afraid anymore,” I murmured to myself. “For better or worse.”
this is so friggin Badass
I don't know how I should feel- which doesn't really matter because I just love it
■ The Astrologer stared at the burning building, tears streaming down her face. ■
Uh
what the fuck
was that another vision? Of the present?
I mean, at first I thought that maybe it was her staring at the warehouse; then I realized that she wasn't even at the warehouse, so I'm guessing it has something to do with her war with the Sisters
is she crying because her mentor's setups were destroyed? Crying because she just killed a bunch of the Sisters? It can't be good, whatever it is
are we gonna get more fast paced with the visions as he stays down here? glimpses he has to keep facing, interspersed between action? Because that's kind of awesome, if so. It's a more...now way of confronting.
I edged above the slumbering greater goblin that served as the omnipresent terror to the small cluster of people on the watermill bridge. For long moments, I contemplated attacking it.
Scuse me, question from the back? Yeah, jay here, you said you want to attack the fucking goblin!? The Greater goblin, that's a tier above the god damn Hyena? What the fuck, Blake?
Something told me that in the vision of the future I’d seen, an action like that had been what had started me on my path.
Which means it's pretty much lose lose, because you ain't gonna beat that motherfucker, and if you do then you'll become a monster
But also now that he's confronting the future, I'm guessing he beat the present by not being afraid, which makes more sense than the thing I was saying
but also then we don't know why he got the Astrologer vision
The vision taunted me. The knowledge that I could do this, I just had to decide to. The knowledge that yeah, maybe I could have wings.
You know what? Sure, you've sold me. Humanity < Wings. Hell, I'd probably do it.
What was my dream? What did I want? I wanted peace. To be left alone. To explore, and not be bound to one place.
Breath and Blood are resonating again
I might never get to ride my motorcycle again. In a way, my heart broke a little with the thought. Owning that little piece of work had been my first real accomplishment. The first real thing I’d bought that hadn’t been for my own raw survival. The first thing I’d wanted to buy. It was a symbol for me, symbolic of a lot of things.
Implement? Implement. Can Blake even like...get implements anymore? I'd kind of guess no, with how not-a-practitioner he is, but I can dream. Implements are like my favorite thing and I hope Blake gets one and also I hope it's his motorcycle
But, if this even counts as a third trial… I’ll accept this reality about my future. I probably won’t ever ride again.
Fuck, that's almost the story directly answering my question and I don't like the answer
You want to take something away from me, Drains? That hurts more than losing my humanity. Why? It was simple. Motorcycles rocked. Humanity? It varied.
Guys this book is awesome and I love it
“Yo,” Mags said. Alexis and Ty exchanged glances. “I’m the postman today,” Mags said.
Speaking of things that I love, look! It's the like three alive human people that I like in this book! (i'm kidding, I love Rose and Sandra and Lola- but these are the ones I'd be friends with...I guess Tiffany too, if I knew her a bit better)
“Rose is sleeping. She was up late,” Alexis said.
I know that feel, being an Adult is hard and there are lots of responsibilities, get some rest buddy
“Something about a Barber?” Alexis asked. “Any idea? Might have something to do with what she was saying about us needing the big guns.”
Oh, cool, cool
Yeah maybe that's not a thing you should be doing instead of sleeping, whatever you're planning to do with him. Maybe you should just stay asleep like...until Blake gets back and fixes everything
That sound good?
“You should sleep,” Ty warned. “It conserves energy, and it delays the time until your next transfusion.” “Bring it,” Evan said. “I’m saying we should do the fire spirit thing. Make me a phoenix, bro. C’mon.”
I love Evan and Ty so much they're the best of buddies this is the greatest connection that exists in the book and also make Evan a phoenix, cowards!
Ty looked to Alexis for help. “You got him started on that,” Alexis said, “You egged him on.”
And now Blake's not around to say no and Rose probably doesn't care enough about anyone's well being to pass up a chance for more power under her control so you know what that means 🔥
“Tiff’s hurt,” Ty said
Unacceptable. We riot at dawn
Ilovethis 1
“For all three of us?” Ty asked. Mags shrugged, “I can only assume.” “Picking off the pawns before going for the checkmate, I guess,” Alexis said.
Don't u dare hurt my kids...who are all older than me, and also in the service of a burgeoning diabolical who's probably Bad Friggin News. Still, don't hurt them because I'll...cry, probably
He slumped against the door, while Evan fluttered up to the top of his head. “Damn it,” he said. He looked utterly miserable.
Noooooo, Ty
The guilt that fixed me was like a spear to the chest. Violent in its intensity, force, and the pain that hit me where my heart was supposed to be.
fuck I'm just gonna cry right now aren't I. I can relate to Ty so much, and I think I can guess what he'd be feeling even more than the people whose heads we've been in. This is like an arrow straight to my heart
the drains have impeccable aim
I had asked this place to try harder. Now it was dawning on me. The objective, the message. Hitting me where it hurt. I didn’t want to wrestle with the idea until I had more validation, more confirmation.
Welp, I'm a bit too devastated to be dawned on right about now, I have no idea.
I saw light at the end of the tunnel. My path was lit up, brighter than I’d seen yet.
Is this the way out? Why else would it be a light at the end of the tunnel?
I rounded a corner, and I was blinded.
Hmmm, I'm not exactly sure what to make of this but here's one of those weird section breaks.
■ Fell’s grave, the snow falling heavily. “We’ll come back tomorrow,” the old woman told the little girl. ■
First of all, you can't just hit me with Ty and then that in one Fell swoop (I'm not proud of it, but I'm not holding back)
psyduck 2
lol 4
second of all, I wonder if these visions are shorter because the Drains doesn't have as much of a connection to piggyback off of, since they're not happening with or around Rose
In the midst of whole sections of the Drains that had broken away was a cavern. Quite possibly what the Drains had been before they’d mutated into the drains. In the midst of that cavern, a face stood out from the wall. It wasn’t stone, but it looked like something close. Bone, perhaps, or calcified flesh. I had to wrestle with the idea that it was simultaneously further away than it looked and very, very big. Especially for a face. It could very well have been as large as a mountain. The area between it and me was empty of anything, vast, a chasm as wide as the gap between countries, maybe.
Holy fucking shit; I wondered if we were ever gonna get to see any of those gods that keep falling down here. I don't think this is like capital G God of bibble or anything, but the description was powerful enough that the thought occured. This is just...hhhhh, I love it so much, and I don't understand any of it at all but it's majestic and magnificent and kind of insane
A lesser god? Forgotten, fallen through the cracks, swallowed up by this place that had existed before the Drains were Drains?
The fuck do you mean lesser!?
It came back to the same question I had just faced. Why?
Please, enlighten me, because I'm so confused
😏 1
In that deep shadow that remained where the light couldn’t quite reach, I saw something move. I saw darkness move. My ‘heart’ beat its mad panic beat inside my chest. I knew the name of that particular darkness.
OH SHIT
This is part of what Isadora was talking about, the full scope of the demon, how far down it reached. Is this Blake's way back to the surface? Is there any part left of this god? what is Ur doing?
Okay we're going rapid fire right here with the visions
Ty giving Evan a push, sending Evan fluttering off to where they’d stowed the video game console. Evan was slowly dying, even his flight faltering, and he didn’t remember our bargain, he wouldn’t know to keep it, to move on. Ty was too weary to move away from the door, too stressed to even want to.
I'm not gonna pull everything, but this one broke my heart so here it is
“I made a cabal, just like Carl made his cult. The world was worse off for having me in it?”
Fuck, fuck
I can't accept that, I can't
but also, Blake might have to
Again, I tore at brick to kill the tendrils. I leaped to one side to put myself in the light, to catch a breath.
I'm just swept up in the motion of the scene; sorry if I'm not pulling out as much
Metal gleamed in the dark. A rod, radiating with spikes.
It may not be the best implement, but it's its own kind of reliable
Tendrils seized me around the middle, and they bit into my sweatshirt, consuming it, finding gaps in my flesh.
if blake fuckin dies again
I had to… Ask for help. I screamed. I screamed guttural, as close to the same tone as the god that shone its light into this dark chamber, fighting Ur for as long as he lasted. I worshiped that lost god for just a moment. The light grew more intense, and Ur burned away. Even the pieces in my arm.
THIS IS THE BEST DEUS EX MACHINA EVER I LOVE IT
I was in the factory, lying in a heap, the dim morning light streaming through the windows, basking me in everything that was ordinary and warm. The same place from which I’d entered the Drains.
yES!!! HE'S BACK MOTHERFUCKERS! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA
Ur, too, recovered. Shadows breaking out of the walls, cutting off my escape.
hahhahha..hah...heh...ehhh....fuck
couldn't be that easy
This was such a good friggin chapter
It was kind of wild and I was confused for most of it and I have no idea what next chapter's gonna be about but I loved it so much; this was some of the best writing this book has had on like...all fronts. Maybe it just feels that way because recency bias and stuff but I really love this book and I wish I had more time to keep reading it and I don't so I'll see you later!
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JayManiac 14-Sep-19 05:52 PM
Alright, I don't know if I'll have time to finish up the non-interlude part of the arc right exactly now, but I'm sure as all Hells gonna try! 9.6! When we last left off, Blake had managed to unscrew himself a smidge, but was still pretty screwed!
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Wildbow 14-Sep-19 05:52 PM
Out of the frying pan, into the fire
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JayManiac 14-Sep-19 05:53 PM
I’m back. The demon pulled itself free. A long limb here, serrated on one side with teeth, like some horrifically long jawbone. A length of connective tissue there, with flesh sloughing off. A pillar of flesh, extending floor to ceiling, like a long neck or a torso without ribs… all pitch black. Welcome home, Blake, I thought.
And if only Blake had lots and lots of fire right now. Wonder if this feels almost nostalgic the third time through?
Time seemed to move in slow motion. It didn’t, but it seemed like it. I had no heartbeat, no breath to mark the seconds. Motes of dust moved lazily through the air, stirred into flurries here and there by Ur’s movement.
I love this, but it's kind of concerning too; we don't exactly know what blake is at this point. Not a vestige, though he does show similar symptoms to when Rose was a vestige (although I think she still had a heartbeat, however faint).
Also let me just say that the language here is intoxicating, it gives a whole new layer of...well, reality to the environment
He was vast in a way I couldn’t put words to, the sort of massive that meant he extended from this reality to the Drains, and maybe to other places.
I kind of want to go back and read the words that Isadora put to it; I wonder what other realms there are, besides the Drains. I mean, the drains is the one that kept getting referenced whenever there was talk of falling through the cracks. I suppose the land of the Fae is separate, as is the Dreaming (I don't actually know if it's called that, but wherever Tromos is from). Then again, I just see Ur and the Drains as very connected.
Comparatively, I was less than I had been. Which wasn’t a bad thing, not entirely. The meat had been carved from my bone, metaphorically speaking. My ears, after that constant noise, were almost ringing in the silence. No blood pounded in my ears or made phantom noises. Every noise I heard was real.
This is so cool! I love the metaphors and the focus on sound, the setup of noise as a part of the battle- just as light and dark are, the awesome subtle inhumanity of what he's describing
I pulled myself to my feet. I didn’t stand in the darkness. I stood at the center of the grid of light. Almost the center of the factory floor, eyes on the ground. A makeshift diagram of light, diamonds and squares drawn out by the natural intersection of light coming in from the windows.
I've heard it mentioned that wildbow doesn't often deal in heavily fantastic descriptions, but when he does it's so effective. Maybe it's just early in the morning and I'm feeling this more than I would be otherwise, but this is such a dynamic, powerful, cinematic fight. Other fights have their merits, being complex combinations of various rules, or steady marches towards certain doom, but this fight is relatively simple in its premise, we know the rules well, we've dealt with this specifically twice before, and the only thing left to do is make it super fuckin awesome to read. I don't really care whether it's the best fight in the book, because it's the best at what it's doing right now
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JayManiac 14-Sep-19 06:16 PM
One lunging hand plunged past a shaft of sunlight, briefly illuminated, crumbling in the light even as it reached. Past the second shaft of sunlight- half the size. Past the third- flesh sloughing off to reveal a reaching, grasping claw, smaller than my own hand, but with fingers like kitchen knives.
I mean, I want to analyze everything about this whole section; word choice: sloughing off, reaching, grasping, lunging; the frantic yet moving-in-slow-motion rhythm that the sentences create; the recurring beat of sunlight shafts. It's really beautiful, and I don't have the time or the know-how to analyze every part of it, which is a real shame since I think this might be among the more slow and methodical reads of this story and I still don't have the time, but sweet scion it deserves so much more close attention.
He slowly dragged me toward the darkness, inch by inch. I didn’t pull so much as I angled my body to make dragging me harder. Low to the ground, legs straight out, feet skidding on the floor.
One thing that doesn't come through in these quotations is the italics, which are used sparingly, but to friggin perfect effect, dragging out or emphasizing the right parts of the text. Gods, I'm constantly stuck between pulling every single sentence or being pulled along with the story and with Blake, currently.
Those knife-fingers wove themselves around the blade, wrapping around it in fits and starts, extending, then reaching further.
I'm gonna try not to pull too many sentences because "look how cool this is", but also look how fuckin cool this is! If you told me this sentence was from the grand recesses of epic poetry I'd be surprised at how awesome epic poetry suddenly was; real William Blake Thorburn hours here
Side note: I've always wondered whether that name was a reference, but it's probably only because I found Pact and William Blake at around the same time in my life so I made a pretty direct correlation. I mean, what else do you do when you get a book that says Blake on the front of it and then the picture on the cover is someone in horrible pain?
Was it still alive? Couldn’t be. No, it wasn’t the sword. It was something reflected in the sword.
The paragraph structure strikes me as equal parts carefully planned poetry and stream of consciousness thought and they don't even contradict each other, just work together to instill this sense of terror
Somewhere outside, a cloud moved over the sun. My diagram began to come apart, and Ur gained ground.
This was just the perfect moment of "oh fuck". Are we sure karma still doesn't have it out for Blake at this point? Actually now that he's back on the surface I'm willing to believe that the universe has noticed him agian
"oh, this fucker. Thought we got rid of him?"
Spindly arachnid legs unfurled from the thing. The ones that didn’t crumble away in the light poised, their needle points aimed at me.
reading this is like watching the tide come in, the constant steadily-advancing push and pull
I was just about to pull another quote for pure awesomeness reasons but I've been doing that so much I'm just gonna read
Good Lords of Gimel I almost just did it again
I heard something behind me and turned, slashing out again- This time to no avail.
Rule of threeeeeee
A moment later, the sword began to move of its own accord, twitching. In the corner of my eye, the weapon was dark, and the cracks got darker, widening- I tossed it down into the nearest, brightest spot on the ground. It spun in place, smoking. I saw a piece of Ur slip free and try to find its way to darkness, only to disintegrate before it did.
I want this as a filmed/animated scene so badly but doubt that it could ever capture this motion, this spinning, smoking, desperate mess of a confrontation
Reflections were a means for Ur to travel. Reflections were also a means for light to travel. This weapon cut both ways. My heart thrummed in my chest, but my body was still. I recognized the pain of holding the Hyena, the spikes piercing flesh, but it felt distant.
I love the details of what may or may not be Blake's heartbeat here, so human and frantic but so equally Other, and so quintessentially Blake. It's just these four things interacting: Blake, the Hyena, the darkness, and the light. And the way they play off of each other, the way they each interact and flow and puncture and trade blows is so beautiful. No fanart I could create would capture it (but if any has, send it my way!)
I could feel my tattoos creeping in to replace the flesh that had been torn away.
I don't think we'll deal with these repercussions now, but this is definitely something to watch out for in the future: Blake's struggle with his tattoos, with his slow slide into Other.
As the sun rose, I’d lose ground. It wouldn’t be soon, but given time, the lights would no longer intersect. The diagram would come apart.
This is just ratcheting up the tension; I love the characterization of "the diagram", the last vestige (no pun intended) of hope and light Blake has here, the dynamics of this constant losing game- I'm not gonna be able to stop reading, am I?
Could Ur anticipate me? How smart was the demon? I bolted. A reckless, headlong rush.
Here he is, Blake motherfuckin Thorburn. He's pretty much as real as it gets.
Ur got his claws and teeth in me. Ur took chunks out of me. If I’d taken a second longer, I might not have made it through. Sun-weakened limbs failed to hold me. I collapsed, losing my clutched glass and rocks.
Gods, if this is the three beat of the chapter: Blake trying to make it out of the warehouse only to be forced back into his diagram...this is gonna be harrowing
if he gets sent back to the drains after this I'm gonna be devestated
Rock and broken glass.
still, the glass is hopeful
as I mentioned, it's been so far an interaction between these four forces, and adding in more complicates things in a way that gives us hope, further raising the tension
Instead, I used the rock to scratch the blade. One side, roughing it up, grating metal with stone, until it was too scratched and too embedded with dirt to reflect anymore.
I didn't even know how he'd use the rock, but this is brilliant...or I guess the opposite of brilliant since it doesn't reflect anymo- y'know we're just gonna keep reading
But Ur was, above all else, a demon of oblivion, of erasure. To oppose him, I had to create. Where the blade scraped ground, it left white tracks.
YESS!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA
I love the subtle difference between creation and structure here, it really helps to characterize the choirs
The baby crying- lines radiating from its open mouth while two crude figures stood above, impassive. The baby walking, arms reaching out, the parent facing away. So it went. A small child pushed to the ground by a fat teenage girl. By his cousin Kathryn.
I'm trying to figure out what exactly Blake is doing here? What is he creating? Is this his fake past? A reimagining?
In the fourth, the small child pushed to the ground had a rectangle for a skirt, no notch for shorts.
Rose? Or maybe Keira was right about Blake the whole time? 🥚
The images were drawn to sit opposite one another, and even if my ability to draw wasn’t all that, I had a keen sense of space honed by years of work. False, imagined, but they were skills I possessed all the same.
This is an aspect of Blake that I'd almost forgotten, but I'm so glad it comes back here, in this kind of affirmation of identity that works on multiple levels
on one level he's creating art that characterizes him, feeding the self and asserting identity. On another, he's doing it to oppose the thing that robbed him of his identity in the first place; it all works on the level of the larger story metaphor, and on this basic level of the battle. I fuckin love this book.
Struggle with identity and feeling like you don't belong in the universe? Yeah, sure, except it's a friggin darkness demon with knife hands
Four images to a face, eight for me, eight for Rose.
Cool, cool
Ur lunged for me as I drew the fourth line. On a level, I’d expected it. On another level, I’d made the mistake of letting the shadow I cast give him an avenue for attack.
and this was a good reminder of the tension, that Ur is still right here, and that we can't get caught up too much in the art that we forget the stakes
This is the tale of Blake and Rose, I thought. Was it coincidence that the images I’d drawn of Rose seemed thicker, the lines stronger? Had I been leaning harder on the Hyena, or had the work earlier blunted the very tip of the shattered blade, allowing for a broader, clearer groove into the floor? Or was it representative of something else?
This is an excellent callback to Mags' pen, even if it's not explicit. I love that concept, and I love that it's probably all three.
agree 1
The binding on the outside… it only dawned on me now. It was a creation of a sort too. Not just words hidden in graffiti, but the graffiti itself.
Ilovethis (edited)
I think we intuited some of that when we saw the graffiti a second time, but I still like the reveal
I’m a false man, I thought. A vestige, maybe, a boogeyman. I could do this for days, I thought. I hated the idea of waiting, of taking hours or even days to do this, but I could cover this floor in images.
Hahahhahahahahahahaha
this is such a euphoric moment of victory
He's kind of the perfect weapon against the demon now, the perfect broken sword to use against them
Maybe the Hyena's not such a horrible implement after all, now
nah, it probably is
also there's the whole "maybe not a practitioner, so maybe can't even get an implement" thing
The factory empty, the way utterly clear. Deceptively clear. It was if Ur was communicating with me. Negotiating, maybe, or tempting. Aren’t your hands tired? Aren’t your hands hurting from this tedious, awkward work? Don’t you want to go back to Jacob’s Bell and help your friends?
don't fall for it, Blake!
Then again, if he was given the actual, spoken choice to leave this factory without adding to the binding...I wonder what he'd choose?
Also I wonder if the imps are gonna come into play at any point
I kept scratching. Thirteen year old Blake and his first crush. If I couldn’t remember her face, was that because the event wasn’t real, or was it just faulty memory at work?
i dunno, I'm eighteen, and I remember my crush from nine years ago. I think those people might just be seared into your mind- if you had a mind at nine years old, which you don't, because you don't exist...
This is still adorable
no matter how nonexistant
and it's really beautiful and heartwarming too? And heartbreaking? So many emotions, seeing Blake sketch out a representation of his life
Binding diagrams, as I understood it, extended all the way up and all the way down. Ur couldn’t loom above me anymore, not with the diagram here. Ur could, however, work in the abstract. The demon was devouring the roof. It was like something from a cartoon, but Ur was cutting a broad circle, further around than my own, and when the demon finished, the roof would fall.
dammit, this is so clever too!
also now im getting a bunch of nostalgia from that idea, since it's reminding me of the pink panther short where he fights the termite that can eat everything
Pink pest control! yeah!
okay I'm done with that nostalgia episode let's keep reading about how blake's about to double die via roof
Ur reached for me, and he succeeded in catching me: teeth clutched my injured hand. This time, I knew how to use the Hyena. A stab, extending the blade so it faced the nearest available window as I finished cutting, the light bouncing back to catch the knobby, ulcer-ridden head that had extended from darkness. Cut and light together, so the light could make the cutting easier and the cutting wouldn’t be undone by easy replacement of flesh.
this is basically a laser sword and it's the most badass thing in the blake-damned universe
I roared only to generate noise. To create that noise. The effect wasn’t tangible, but if Ur put more demon’s flesh in my way before I reached the window, I couldn’t tell with my eyes screwed shut. I felt him tear at me, scrape and clutch, and I only screamed louder, struggling to hold the Hyena at the right angle, so the light would help forge the way.
And the recursion of sound as a factor of this battle, imagery of the broken god of light, the primal struggle....Aahhhhahahhhhhhhhhhhhhh
“I am the Thorburn bogeyman!” I screamed, the words raw. “I am made of stick and bone and birds and spirit and false memories!”
YEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!
“Tear down the roof to hide it and you’ll let the sun in! Tear out the floor and people won’t come inside! I’ve won! I’ve won!” My words felt like they had power. “I’ve won, Ur!”
If the spirits like theatrics in any gods damned capacity, they'd better fucking bow down
With a final surge of strength, I heaved myself forward and through.
sharkhi sharkhi bulba sharkhi sharkhi
I feel like I've been holding my breath for the past hour and a half
that was harrowing
When I spoke again, my voice was quiet, the words for me, not for it. “I know how you work now. I’m weak and broken and flawed and fake, and I still beat you, you motherfucking fucker. You’re living on borrowed time. I’m going to finish that diagram, and I’ll squeeze you to pulp between diagrams. And I’m going to tell people exactly how to stop you, just in case something happens to me. There’s nothing you can do about it.”
and so fucking worth it. Blake has power over Ur now, since he essentially won their third encounter
and he did it by making the goal to escape instead of to kill the demon, this time, but it still counts
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Seregraug 14-Sep-19 07:13 PM
This was my favorite Pact chapter.
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JayManiac 14-Sep-19 07:13 PM
“I won,” I said, my words very small in a dark, still, silent Toronto. ■
And I can see the fuck why
Man, I've gotta go back and take a look at your read
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Seregraug 14-Sep-19 07:13 PM
I drew this thing after reading it: https://m.imgur.com/a/iitkZsD
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JayManiac 14-Sep-19 07:14 PM
OOOOOOO!!!!!
I knew there had to be fanart!
Except for some markings around my blind eye where Ur had torn the eyelid, it was still my face. Pale, with a dark circle under the one eye, some branches and darkness around the blind one. Amid those branches, three birds were clustered together in the corner where the tear had happened. Beady black eyes standing out from my flesh in three dimensions – one bird in profile, the other looking out straight on. Three eyes visible in total, matching the general curvature of my eye socket. I blinked, and they blinked slightly out of sync with me and each other.
The fact that the first time Blake sees his reflection in this story is when he's already halfway to being Other is...well, it's sad and it's wonderful and it's forboding and really really cool
and I'll also admit that fanart of Beast!Wirt is what's helping me picture this
just branches, bogeymen, darkness, pale eyes...that's not the specific one I'm thinking of, but it's close enough
It was dark, and it wasn’t dark with grime. Seen in the right light, it was just… darker. In the exact right light and position, I could see that same essence rolling off it like a kind of smoke, as if it were a recently extinguished candle. Brown-gray smoke, the faintest aura, clinging millimeters away from fabric. “You went through the Drains too, huh?” I asked my sweatshirt. “A little less real, a little more spirit. And you were a gift, too… shit.”
I love the idea that there's this weird parallel abstract narrative from the pov of the spirits that comprise Blake's sweatshirt, and how they were confronted with dark versions of themselves, put in situations that made them uncomfortable- just that the drains doesn't just do this to people
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Wildbow 14-Sep-19 07:22 PM
Started out existence in a sweatshop, got bought by some lunatic, dragged into multiple fights, plunged into the abyss, and almost given away to someone worse than said lunatic.
Trials of the sweatshirt
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A bird 🐦 14-Sep-19 07:23 PM
I'm sure a goblin smeared something on it at some point, too
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JayManiac 14-Sep-19 07:23 PM
the sweatshirt has had a difficult life and we appreciate it; hang in there, buddy
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A bird 🐦 14-Sep-19 07:23 PM
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JayManiac 14-Sep-19 07:24 PM
oh FUCK that's amazing
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Wildbow 14-Sep-19 07:24 PM
I'd make his hair messier/shaggier, but is really good.
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A bird 🐦 14-Sep-19 07:25 PM
Bonus points because I'm pretty sure it's art of exactly this scene
Blake looking in the mirror for the first time
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JayManiac 14-Sep-19 07:25 PM
and I love that the caption is what he screams at Ur
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A bird 🐦 14-Sep-19 07:26 PM
It's such a fucking good line
agree 1
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JayManiac 14-Sep-19 07:26 PM
If my bike wasn’t sold, he’d probably sell it sometime soon, or give it to one of our friends, same as the toolbox. My life, taken apart, the bits and pieces scattered. I could build something that resembled it, but I would never quite have it back.
he's not just talking about the bike now, is he? Fuck, all of his friends have forgotten him, and he's never gonna have that back in the same capacity. Good to remind me that this book isn't anywhere near done with breaking my heart
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spinagon 14-Sep-19 07:29 PM
hey its me ur friend
psyduck 1
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JayManiac 14-Sep-19 07:30 PM
That desire to stay and find my bike, to reach out to Joel and see if he had any word on the subject, it was a desire to be the old me. I’d never really had a proper trial to face my future.
I really relate to this so much in a weird, abstract, much-lower-stakes way, as a new college student trying to build an identity that works for me. It's not anywhere near the same situation, even in the first few layers of abstraction, but it's one of the things that always impresses me about this book. And I mean that in the sense of making an impression, of getting to me. If I wasn't sure that this is my favorite book before now, well then here we are
I could see my expression in the side view mirror of Joel’s car. Try as I might, I couldn’t twist my expression into anything other than barely repressed anger.
ah fuck, that's not good
I mean, I don't think he's one of the bad bogeymen, but...still
■ “Wait, it’s a demon?” Ty asked. “Yes,” Rose said. There they are. I hung back.
Oh fuck, we're doing this right now? This chapter? Am I emotionally prepared? Probably not holy shit
we're really about to do "hey, zuko here"
lol 2
“Factory, not warehouse,” Rose said. “And no. Not like that thing. The thing in the factory was a minor demon of the first choir, maybe on its way to becoming moderate, I don’t know. The Barber is in the middle tiers of the third choir, according to the books.” “Does that make it stronger or weaker?” “It’s stronger,” Rose said, confident but not sounding too pleased to be confident. “But, and this is important, it’s a strength we could control, if it came down to it.”
suspicious
first of all, I think Rose has no fuckin clue how powerful Ur is
second of all, i really hope the fuck she doesn't because if she's anywhere near right then this is way worse than a nuke
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A bird 🐦 14-Sep-19 07:35 PM
If we're going by tiers as stated, that'd make Barbatorum to Ur as the Hyena is to Buttsack
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JayManiac 14-Sep-19 07:35 PM
ohno
I mean it doesn't work like that
but also what if it works like that? fine
“The house spirit is reacting. Something’s inside,” Rose said. “Shit, shit,” Ty said.
speaking of things that I hope, i really hope it's blake
“Something or someone?” Tiff asked, her voice small. “Something,” Rose said. I was already stepping into view.
Oh fucking ouch, sweet scion Rose stop being a dick
that really hurt
But not as much as this is going to
I saw their eyes widen. I saw fear, I saw hands moving closer to weapons, and it killed me a little. Delivering a little wound as sure as a slice of a knife could, a little crack for another bit of spirit to get in.
Fuck im not gonna cry im not gonna cry im not gonna cry
Evan was the one who drew closer, before anyone else. Who let his guard down. He settled on the back of the armchair closest to me.
AAAAHHAHAHA NOOOO
I reached out for him, and my fingertips only touched my side of the mirror. Silent, I let the hand drop to my side.
wh
oh noooOOOOOOOOOOO
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Wildbow 14-Sep-19 07:38 PM
Yep. This whole chapter happened mirrorside.
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JayManiac 14-Sep-19 07:38 PM
I'm just sitting here in stunned silence
we knew it was possible, and oh man I probably should've guessed that this world is easier to get back to from the drains than like real world, but aaahahahahahhhhh
Holy shit, and with Blake's not-heartbeat an- oh this is such a great reveal
fav chapter of pact? fav chapter of pact
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A bird 🐦 14-Sep-19 07:40 PM
Arc 9 is not shy about big moments, is it?
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Wildbow 14-Sep-19 07:40 PM
Wildbow of Then: Brother's wedding done, let's just kick shit off into high gear, woo!
Ilovethis 2
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A bird 🐦 14-Sep-19 07:41 PM
I mean... Fucking didn't he
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JayManiac 14-Sep-19 07:42 PM
this arc went ludicrous speed
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A bird 🐦 14-Sep-19 07:43 PM
My personal fave was the screaming prayer to the forgotten god
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JayManiac 14-Sep-19 07:44 PM
That was such an awesome moment; I'm not even gonna try to pick between all of these
But! That's my time today, hope everyone enjoyed because I really really really did. No guesses for what the next Histories but I'll see everyone soon for more of my favorite book
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A bird 🐦 14-Sep-19 07:44 PM
Thanks for the read, Jay!
Can I just say that you're doing a fantastic job of interpreting as you go
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JayManiac 14-Sep-19 08:52 PM
bulba thank you guys so so so much!! I hope you know how much that means to hear ❤
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JayManiac 15-Sep-19 12:12 AM
sweet scion that's amazing; two minds of the same kind! (the loves avatar the last airbender kind that is. Which is among the best of kinds.)
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JayManiac 17-Sep-19 02:43 AM
So I probably don't have time to finish the whole thing, but that won't stop me from at least trying to read 9.x! I have just under 2 hours and this is one of those Interlude Chapters™ so let's get started!
When we last left off...well, I didn't have the first guess as to who the fuck this chapter was gonna be about!
I mean, I'd love if we got the History of the Drains but that doesn't seem very likely; it could be Zoey but that doesn't seem likely either? I just hope it isn't Carl honestly
When you think about it part of arc 9 was already Histories (Blake) so I dunno what this chapter's even doing here yet....
didn't I say I was gonna just start the chapter?
The untidy man walked through the park. He looked like he’d been ‘preppy’ once, but was disheveled now. He wore a button-up sweater and a collared shirt with a tie that had been pulled loose, the knot a good half-foot from his collarbone. He wore slacks and shiny black shoes. His hair had been parted earlier in the day, but was now messy.
Always the goshdarned preppy ones gettin all up in the magic bullshit. I mean we've got the Sisters, that one utter disaster of a familiar, probably some of Isadora's students, maybe the people who are in the Satyr Frat who the fuck knows? You'd think it'd be the goths, but that's what they want you to think
Still no clue who this is tho
The youths were a stark contrast to him. Fourteen or so, some with hair bleached to a near-white, some with hair gelled into wicked spikes or flame-like wreaths around their heads, some with both. Most wore heavy eyeliner. Some had jackets with ripped sleeves.
Then again, you never know with those gothdarn punk kids either, who can say?
“You’re offering? How much?” asked the boy with the craziest hair. “Free,” the man said.
Okay, so the first thing this dude does is just altruistically offer a bunch of beer to fourteen year olds; I'm gonna guess this is The Drunk? That's kind of cool, since he seemed to sort of drop out of the story after not participating in the Conquestest! It's a hell of an introduction back into the story
“He’s cool, D. With it. Gotta give a little to show we’re honest. Make friends and he could hook us up in the future.” “I’d consider it my duty,” the man said. “But if you’re not interested, I’m gone. Don’t worry, you wouldn’t see me again.”
This is seven different kinds of shady and I don't know exactly what I expected but it probably wasn't this. I wonder what role we're gonna get to see Dionysis play in the Modern World? Is this kind of the MO? I mean, we saw the Satyrs as a fratlike group, kind of morphing to resemble the peer pressure that's involved in a lot of kids' first drinks, so that's the first hint of how the followers of the god have adapted to serve his interests in the present
“He’s creepy,” ‘D’ said.
He kind of is, isn't he?
plus there was that whole "the nymphs that are part of his harem look substantially less than 18 years old" thing that's sorta ratcheting up the creep factor
agree 1
The littlest of the group leaned away from the huddle. “You queer, mister?” “What if I am?” the stranger asked. There was a glimmer in his eye, more mischief than threat.
That's the Wrong Way to respond to that, but somehow it makes me like him more gods dammit
“Then why?” “Because once upon a time, I was where you are now, and a man did this for me. I’m hoping that one day, you kids will be in a position to do it too.”
Yeah, I'm thinking maybe "I'm recruiting kids to worship alcohol to further my employer's ends" has some thematic relevance to our modern society
perpetuating cycles, falling prey to all the base instincts that Dionysus represents, etc.
The drinking progressed, and the boys started to relax. They relaxed even more when a woman came down the path, her hand finding the man’s, fingers winding together with his. She was gorgeous. Not in the way you saw in the skin magazines, but beautiful all the same.
I'm full of equal parts excitement and dread for "vampire-like spirits of drugs, sex, and violence"
if I'm remembering the Bacchae right
Each of the boys, with the exception of one, were too inebriated to notice how contrived the situation seemed. When the other girls arrived, with three more boys and one more case of beer, the other boys were definitely too distracted to notice. The new arrivals had a look to them, as though both boy and girl were just naturally ill-suited to clothes. The clothes hung wrong, as if enticing, demanding that the situation be remedied, inviting the clothes to come off.
Ah yep, there's uh...that part. Great. I'm also starting to wonder if the man isn't Jeremy Meath, and if the one boy they keep calling attention to is? Because I think that journey'd have a little further to go than this guy's, and we'd get to see the slow indoctrination into the Other's service, the perpetuation of exactly what the fuck is happening here, etc.
The small boy shook his head, trying to get his senses in order. He was a little alarmed to see the man staring at him.
Yeah, I really like how the narration shifts focus from what seemed to be the man's perspective to this kid's perspective, it's really subtle and you kind of just gradually notice that we've been in his head the whole time
agree 1
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Fursuit Lightsaber 17-Sep-19 03:09 AM
spin
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JayManiac 17-Sep-19 03:09 AM
spIndeed (edited)
In the midst of that scene, the spell ending, he saw glimmers. One of the girls had sharp teeth. The boy with his hand on Neils’ chest had an animal gleam in his eyes, his hair too long, the muscle structure of his shoulders odd, too pronounced.
People noticing Others is never gonna get old; I love every single time we do this
“Ah. I think I understand,” the stranger said. “I dunno if you do.” “You didn’t want to be in charge, but you’re the one that watches out for them, after D’s misadventure.”
That's an odd first beat of characterization for who I'm guessing is lil Jeremeath here, considering what his motivations have been in the story thus far; when did he become someone who does want to be in charge?
“Definitely,” the man said. He took another puff. “I’ve been looking for an apprentice.”
Don't do it
like I know he's gonna
and I'd jump at the chance to be the apprentice of like a good 20% of the Others and Practitioners we've seen in the story so far
But still
“That’s one such gift. So long as I wear it, it keeps my drink flowing and herbs burning, so it doesn’t run out… you can probably count the cans, and you’ll see more than that case is supposed to hold.” “Why?” “Because it’s all about investment. That’s how gods operate. They gamble, molding life and giving that life a breath of the divine, to get it moving, and they hope that that little bit of life will earn them more than it cost them. You can see my god’s creations doing their earning right there.” The small boy looked at the scene, then looked away, uncomfortable.
I don't know whether to take this guy at face value when it comes to knowing how gods work, but if this is how they function then that's friggin awesome! And if it's just Dionysus who does things this way, then that's pretty awesome too. Makes me wonder just...so many things, though.
Like does Dionysus even have a physical form in any realm? Is he just a disembodied entity that creates and is fueled by the concepts he's associated with?
man, I love how it's kind of similar to an Incarnation, but with such a different method of sustenance.
“Yes, and other things. I watch over his girls and boys there,” the priest said, smiling, “And he’s gifted me with a new one, matching my exact taste and interests. A reward for proving my worth and reliability, and a way of keeping them current. I can call on his favor, but there are no guarantees. I have to gauge how happy he is with me, and if I want him to give me something specific, I have to ensure he’s very happy.”
Also love this method of modernizing, a slow sort of evolution of the idea. It's maybe a similar pace to how the very idea of the god evolves in general, conforming to our modern ways of thinking, the concepts that we're using, while still being that ancient deity
“Of course they are,” the priest said. “They’re divine, and every god worth the worship they get is at least a little scary. The weak ones get beaten, taken over. With him, for Dionysus, what you get is blood lust, desire, and naked fear. My question is, do you want him to be your scary god? Do you want that to be your desire, bloodthirst and fear to control?” The boy looked at the scene again. He could see the animal in it, the nature, smell the alcohol and the blood and the moist grass. For a moment, perhaps, he could see what it would mean to be in command of that raw energy. It was a heady feeling, dizzying. “Yeah.”
On the ever expanding topic of things that I love about this, is the kind of return to the primal that Dionysus has grown to symbolize via Nietzsche. It's a very cool side of practitionership to explore for so many reasons, not the least of which being that while every Other in pact feels quite visceral, these Others are practically built out of the stuff.
“This is a mistake,” Nathan said. Jeremy shook his head.
Ah, cool, so Nathan's suddenly become the blue oni of this duo. That bodes super well
“Everything comes at a price,” Nathan said. “The gods exact the greatest prices of all. You can’t treat this as some sort of system to be gamed.”
betcha can! Just involves sacrificing most of your humanity!
“You’re-“ The older man stopped mid-sentence. “I’m what? Crazy?” Jeremy asked. “Our god bears the epithets of Bromios, of Agrios. He protects those who do not belong to society. Who is he, if not a god of madmen?”
Well, he's gotcha there.
“Idiot,” Nathan said, his voice sounding farther away. “You’re going to war when you’ve never held the sword before.” “I claim this space, and only this space. I claim it by right and deed, and I name it mine, I name it my god’s, and I name it for my god’s creations. I name it as my staging ground, a place from which I can expand my god’s realm. I do this not as a warrior-“ He paused, looking at Nathan. “-But as a devout man. I go to war with faith in my heart, not a sword at my side. Let this be my challenge to all that would oppose me.”
Well, here's a helluva first hint at that ambition we see out of him later. And the part where he's not half bad at navigating a conversation in order to bring ruin to those who disagree with him
“Dionysus,” Jeremy said, “I have not asked you for anything yet. Now I ask you to give me the strength to see this through. Let this gaping emptiness be filled by the powers of savage and inborn truth.”
He's not hafl bad at the Prose bit either, sweet spirits. Savage and inborn truth...that's a killer line.
Sure enough, they arrived. Satyr, nymph, maenad, bacchae. They gathered behind him, leaving Nathan bereft. Most of them had been Nathan’s.
Hahahahahahahahahaha I don't know why I feel so good about this power grab, it's almost certainly a bad thing in the long run.
“The gods are gamblers,” Jeremy said. “So are we,” Nathan said. “The game is rigged against all of us, unless we play very carefully.” “If you believe that, you’re worshiping the wrong god.”
Jeremy is such a likable bastard
If twig proved anything, it's that so long as I think you're clever, there's a lot of shit I can forgive you as a protagonist
He was relying on another simple idea, too. That his god had as much to prove here as he did. He’d noticed the trend, reading about the gods. Priests had to work to get the kind of displays their god first gave them as initiates. If his god was going to do his utmost to impress him, he might as well make use of that, and tackle a suitably large problem. The demesne.
This is the kind of guy who knows exactly how drunk to get you to manipulate you into doing exactly what he wants you to do and that's equal parts terrifying and fascinating
I mean, it's not like we've heard of anyone using..I dunno...sex to manipulate people recently. Nope, no thematic thruline there...
we haven't actually seen Meath manipulate anyone with alchohol so maybe im being a bit unfair in the comparison, but it's on my mind
The first arrival, five minutes later, was Doug. The man was young, but his hairline had started receding at the first chance it got. His glasses weren’t thick, but they were tall and wide. His beard was shaved short, his narrow body suggested he wasn’t eating too regularly. The man was accompanied by Diana. She cowered a little. Reserved, years younger than Jeremy.
Awww!!! Lil Astrologer!!!! I mean, I know doug's gonna die and then Diana's going to be really overworked and depressed and then she's probably gonna lose all his equipment in a huge fire...but for now I'm trying to be happy about seeing this cool character dammit!
Doug made a face, an apologetic half-smile. “I’ve come to answer your challenge.
And, like Ty, I'm always, always down for a demonstration of some Mathstrology. We know so little about it but it seems super duper cool
And plus this can make me sadder about doug
and that's always a good thing, right!?
oh, wonder if Conquest is gonna get in on this?
Maybe, we'll see
“Yes. You can name a facet of the game, or take something off the table. We narrow down the choices to a compromise. If we can’t compromise, the spirits will decide the game, and they’ll be upset with the two of us for forcing them to make the effort.” Doug nodded.
OoooooooOOOoo, I love this. We didn't see any challenges in the one time we've seen something that could be challenged over claimed and this has so much potential for conflict. I hope we get to see more demesne claiming in the rest of the book.
Jeremy frowned. The game was a complicated variant of tic tac toe. Placing stones. Achieving three in a row meant one could permanently remove one of their opponent’s. Once all of a player’s pieces were set down, they could be moved, to the same ends, aiming to create three in a row. The game scaled up from threes to twelve, with complicated board arrangements.
I need to learn to play this game immediately it sounds like so much fun
frantically googles to figure out if it's a real game
Oh fuck yes
it is
Cool, cool, just gonna write that down
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JayManiac 17-Sep-19 03:46 AM
“How about you play Diana in my stead?”
Yesssss!!!! No Mathstrology, but plenty of Lil Diana and that's good enough for me!
As he took more shots, he felt his mind grow receptive to his god.
You sneaky bastard. That's an advantage for you...I mean I guess it's on them for not picking up on that
It wasn’t his usual nature, but Jeremy offered a hand for her to shake.
Yay sharkhi
I don't remember if we saw them getting along in either of the council meetings; that'd be a good thing to check
“You understand that I’m not particularly fond of your god?” the Sphinx asked.
What? What? No, you're telling me the keeper of order, the college campus professor isn't fond of the god of drugs, sex, and fuckin shit up!? Well I never
She smiled, but it wasn’t a pleasant smile. “You’ll have your challenge of combat. I can’t demand your god stay out of it, that would just invite you to demand I forego my power and strengths, but I can make this between you and me alone. Your new soldiers stay out of this, and you don’t bring any outside weapons into this.” “Deal,” he said. He could feel the buzz from the shots, giving him courage where it might have failed.
uh what
Fuckin really?
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Fursuit Lightsaber 17-Sep-19 03:52 AM
Which part Jay?
For the fuckin really
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JayManiac 17-Sep-19 03:53 AM
Okay, i mean I didn't get the idea that the sphinx was a pushover by any means...she like, pushed Blake over and it took him three gods damned days to recover; and he's a fuckin vestige so he does that shit faster....and I didn't get the impression that Jeremy Meath was the undisputed master of one on one combat or anything
so
uh
fuckin...really just gonna Do That, huh?
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Fursuit Lightsaber 17-Sep-19 03:54 AM
Interesting, I see where you're coming from
Not to sidetrack you
Buuuuuuuuut, what would be a challenge you would level against a Sphinx in Jeremy's situation
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JayManiac 17-Sep-19 03:56 AM
"bet I can get drunk enough to answer your riddles correctly!" seems like it would be more within his god's domain
His god gave him two gifts. A staff, bronze, topped with a pine cone, and a horn of drink. For a moment, he feared that his mentor had been very, very right.
I can just picture the look of aw fuck when he realizes he gets some drink and a friggin stick to kill the Lion Lady
I also didn't expect the gift from the god to be so...thing appears in hand-like
Since it's mostly been subtle effects so far
Blood, laced with alcohol strong and pure enough to burn the sinuses, not wine.
And I thought there were no vampires in pact!
lol 2
(that was a joke, and this is way cooler)
It felt like seconds passed. It felt, at the same time, like hours had passed. Mad visions of flashing claws and violence, real and hallucinated, they struck him one after another, not necessarily in succession. When he came to, he was panting. Blood dribbled from his nose and ear, claw marks etched his chest, his arms, and his legs. The Sphinx was injured too. She sat back, licked a wound at her shoulder. Her blood dripped, thick and heavy, from his pinecone scepter.
OH FUCK
Hahahahahahaha what the actual shit...he can get drunk enough to take on Isadora- seemingly to a standstill?
agree 1
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Seregraug 17-Sep-19 03:59 AM
His God is one of violence.
agree 2
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JayManiac 17-Sep-19 04:00 AM
Yeah but he's like...a dude
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Seregraug 17-Sep-19 04:00 AM
Empowered by a God.
agree 2
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JayManiac 17-Sep-19 04:00 AM
and then Isadora's like....a fuckin lion
“I won’t contest your demesne any further.”
Quite tactful there, Isa.
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Fursuit Lightsaber 17-Sep-19 04:01 AM
I mean, do remember that Jeremy is likely the top/only priest of Dionysus in Canada
So
And Dionysus is pulling out some of the stops here
Yeah, this is the first time we've seen something so overt from a god, directly manifesting tools at a prayer
It means something 😛
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JayManiac 17-Sep-19 04:02 AM
It means Jeremy played his cards so friggin right
agree 1
And I always saw gods as just...like, a description of a kind of Other, not an indication of its power. We don't know how powerful "he's a god" would suggest, considering that this is a god who's been out of style for the past millennium or two.
But I guess being a cleric pays
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Fursuit Lightsaber 17-Sep-19 04:04 AM
That's fair!
I think a good way to look at it
Is consider the God in the drains
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JayManiac 17-Sep-19 04:04 AM
Yeah, I was thinking about that
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Fursuit Lightsaber 17-Sep-19 04:04 AM
A minor God by all accounts, nameless to wider humanity
(Contrasted with Dionysus, where you say the name, and most/a lot of people would be like, oh yeah, that sounds like something I might remember)
With 0 followers
And yet it's fighting back a Demon of no small power
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JayManiac 17-Sep-19 04:06 AM
But we don't know if that was a powerful god who just had his connections artificially severed by Ur- meaning he didn't actually dwindle in power before being sent to the drains- or if he was forgotten in the traditional sense, maintaining godly power despite being legitimately forgotten.
But seeing as gods that end up in the drains are treated as shit you don't mess with I see where you're coming from completely
agree 1
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Fursuit Lightsaber 17-Sep-19 04:07 AM
I would err(hah) towards the second. I enjoyed the idea raised by DiP, but, I don't know if a God could manifest physically, to be eaten
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JayManiac 17-Sep-19 04:07 AM
Ur is abstract; I doubt a god would have to manifest physically to have its connections severed by her
agree 1
especially since she apparently could exist in so many realities
“In exchange for?” “A meeting. There are some young ladies you should meet.” ■
Also this is a good time to pause for now, maybe to be completed tomorrow, because: 1. Section break 2. These are definitely the Duchamps and that's a pretty different phase of the story 3. I gotta get to acapella rehearsal pretty soon sorry!!
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Wildbow 17-Sep-19 04:10 AM
Good fun to read, Jay. Thanks for sharing.
sharkhi 1
agree 2
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Fursuit Lightsaber 17-Sep-19 04:10 AM
Have fun! Thanks for the read! And sorry for the sidetracking hug
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Wildbow 17-Sep-19 04:11 AM
You sing the 'ella out of that acapella.
lolmadshoot 1
lolmad 2
lol 3
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JayManiac 17-Sep-19 04:12 AM
Thanks so much, guys! And don't be sorry for sidetracking; I do it by myself anyways, so it's nice to have company!
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JayManiac 17-Sep-19 11:04 PM
Alright, I'm back to watch these bars of void and darkness scroll across my screen, so imminently clickable...but I must resist! I cannot be drawn in by temptation!
But yeah let's keep watching this guy get drawn in by temptation hell yeah
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Coro 17-Sep-19 11:05 PM
Not actually story spoilers Jay, just some worldbuilding stuff by wildbow that doesn't come up on Pact
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JayManiac 17-Sep-19 11:06 PM
Does this mean I can click...?
I mean I assume it's spoilered for a reason so I probably won't
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Coro 17-Sep-19 11:06 PM
Yeah, no plot or character spoilers for Pact there
But some people don't like to look at extratextual stuff until they're done the text so your call
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David Hunt 17-Sep-19 11:08 PM
You might just want to develop the habit of choosing a rarely used word like "elephant" and just posting that after spoiler test you want to look at later to facilitate searches.
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jsoh 17-Sep-19 11:08 PM
wild bow wrote a thing about a setting detail that is never addressed or ever impacts the story, but reading it would let you know that it never impacts the story which is maybe a tiny spoiler
like saying theres no such thing as baseball fucks up your brain because now you know nobodys going to a baseball game, except thats an example i made up and not real
lol 3
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JayManiac 17-Sep-19 11:09 PM
Well I also don't have time to read it all because I have to read this but I'll check it out later and/or forget about it until I do my big Spoiler Read of this channel. I'm very interested in all that stuff, and I don't think I'd mind being spoiled on stuff that doesn't matter to the tension of the story in any point....so yeah. Also I have the advantage of like...having a channel that I can just search "|" in and explore.
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jsoh 17-Sep-19 11:10 PM
you could just bookmark wildbows link to the relevant google doc for this example
to read when you feel like it
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JayManiac 17-Sep-19 11:11 PM
Also, I said at the end of last...part of this chapter that Jeremeath was prolly gonna go meet the duchamps and I still think I'm right but like..for some reason I thought it described him as older than Sandra- or at least in terms that made him seem much older- in her chapter. But in this one, when he's claiming his demesne I think it says he's still a teenager?
He was quiet as he entered Sandra’s wing of the demesne.
Well, whatever the case, Enter: Sandra Duchamp
I guess Sandra Duchamp Meath maybe?
A nymph sat on the floor beneath the window, more catlike than human in how she seemed to mold herself against the wall and floor, eminently comfortable in any position.
Oh look it's me
She was hard to read too. Did she enjoy things more than she let on, or was she caught in a state of perpetual tolerance?
I love the callback that compares Sandra to her familiar; it's the kind of thing that I feel like we should be doing more often. And this game of emotional cat and mouse is so very relatable to a kid surrounded by a bunch of new people that I don't know how to read yet
side note: discord doesn't think relatable is a word and I'm mad at this squiggley red line
same 3
agree 2
He’d tried to pose things so Sandra would be inclined to say no in his place. Now she was here.
This whole thing was just a friggin mess, wasn't it?
On a level, he wasn’t really sure how to interact with her.
Oh you awkward motherfucker this is really endearing and I love it. I feel ya, bro. Now I'm sure you're going to do something that isn't drinking to solve all your social issues!
The Sphinx wanted her here to stay, apparently. The meeting had been arranged for a reason.
Very likely the same reason the torches of dionysus's chill are burnin just a little lower. I expect she's largely a mitigating force when it comes to matters of drunken visceral chaos
(edited)
could also be a standing deal with the Duchamps, which is an interesting pairing (and could be a reason that Fell's dad maybe could've been pointed their way, since we know the sphinx was active). I suppose that the Duchamps are among those more concerned with keeping order and maintaining their unobtrusive, methodical, indirect approach to power.
One look, and she’d managed to find a place in the mind his god had warped, a mind that had a very hard time dealing with people. She’d made him thirteen again, before he’d ever stepped foot into this world of gods and monsters, and she’d become one of the first girls he’d ever looked at. She was one of the teenage girls he’d admired from afar when he’d been undersized, underweight, and awkward. She, like they had, made him feel equal parts uneasy and heroic with just a moment’s eye contact and a smile. But the idea of something happening as a result still felt very far away.
I sometimes forget how absolutely powerful wildbow's ability to characterize someone and say "this is who the fuck he is" can be, which is I suppose why we had to have another one of these (and also idk he's probably involved in the whole Lord of Jacob's Bell situation- also also what if they became lords of jacob's bell and toronto that'd really be the worst wouldn't it? although right now I'm kind of rooting for them so...)
And it's adorable to watch him have all these thoughts and see the way they mirror what sandra's thinking while also kind of not
Hildr huffed. Sandra laughed. “And a shoulder of pork,” he said, loud enough for the troll to hear, already turning away, her laugh ringing in his ears.
aren't they so cute!? Let's watch em take over the world. And by that I mean have a marriage that's all the more tragic for the fact that it could've worked
Unrest in Toronto, unrest in Jacob’s Bell.
Ooo, looks like we're like a couple weeks PB (post blake)
Jeremy was relieved to the point of dizziness when the exit sign for Jacob’s Bell appeared.
Watching Jeremeath experince traffic for the first time was brutal; I don't even like reading about how painful traffic is. But also, watching him experience a bad kind of madness and physical nausea is strangely satisfying. Oh how the tables have turned, become trapped in mirrors, and died before...also becoming trapped in a mirror...huh. Funny how that works, both of the leaders of the contests being confined to (presumably different parts of) the mirror dimension. Never noticed that until I tried to write a joke about it. Clearly humor is the only vehicle to enlightenment. Just so long as you don't have all this fuckin traffic
Tires skidded as the car pulled to a stop. One wheel rode up on the sidewalk. “You’re getting better,” Jeremy commented. The satyr grinned wide.
Satyrs are always so much fun- these guys remind me of Newel and Doren from fablehaven just in how they're kind of overconfident idiots. Fablehaven's for like twelve year olds though so the book didn't exactly get into the more...dionysian elements. But that almost makes these guys even more funny. Geez, Riordan, step your satyr game up!
“We’d like a place to stay.” “You’re aware that by assisting Sandra, you’re opposing me?” “Yes.” “I’m at a loss. These two things don’t add up.”
That's cuz you're not nearly drunk enough to get how!
(edited)
this reminds me, I'm looking forwards to a potential Johannes Histories, because man, what a guy
It made all the more sense when one considered that the dog was a Gatekeeper. A creator of paths and languages, a traveler’s guide.
This is cool, and reaffirms that Jeremy is a little more of the Constantine side of drunk bastards- the side that actually understands a fair amount.
and also gimme johannes backstoryyyyy
I'm so curious
Genies. All of the problems a sphinx posed, with a great many of the same capabilities, but sphinxes were created, and genies were natural, born of elements and divine remnants. A keen eye for the balance and the cosmic makeup of reality, an ability to alter that balance and makeup, and, generally speaking, genies operated on the macro scale. Moving mountains, so to speak, or building castles in the span of a day. Hard to use without causing a great deal of alarm among non-practitioners. Guardians for the Sorcerer’s demesne?
This is the kind of worldbuilding tidbit that I'm hesitant to predict will actually ever be used in-story, but it's so friggin cool! I mean, for one there's the idea that genies are sometimes born of divine remnants, which brings questions of the drains and what the death or dissolution of a god actually looks like. And then it's reminding me that The Sphinx isn't really a Sphinx according to Padraic? Which maybe means that we don't actually understand our reference point for genies all that well? I dunno, but if they're all kind of created to be creatures that uphold Order and Right (which, again, can't confirm because Isa might be an outlier), then I'm interested in the compare and contrast between Sphinxes, Genies, and Angels, and what their respective roles are.
“A very big ghost.” Lots of possibilities there.
Is this the duck knight?
I wanna see the duck knight!
“Sweat and metal,” said one of the youngest Satyrs. One of Nathan’s. “Something almost human, but not quite. Violent.”
Struggling with who this could be, if we're supposed to recognize them. I don't know that we are, though. It's enticing, at least; I think the story's becoming particularly interested with the line between human and Other lately
“One… wraith-vestige?” the middle Ibix brother suggested. “It smells like rotted branches, and birds, and the abyss. It doesn’t smell very big, but it passed by here not long ago.”
Hm, wonder who that could be?
still, wraith-vestige
that has so many implications, considering what we know about wraiths
He stood at the end of the path to the Duchamp household. He didn’t approach, only watching. A few individuals cast him curious glances.
aww, I bet this makes him way more nervous than all those dangerous Others they just listed and that's kinda cute
She approached, oblivious of the people who turned to watch. Her hand brushed his hair, and his scruffy cheek. “You’ve gone a little gray,” she said. “You’ve barely changed at all,” he said. She embraced him. Still his wife. They’d never divorced.
Awwwwbulba
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JayManiac 17-Sep-19 11:58 PM
I'd imagine that these two in particular wouldn't jump headlong into an unbreakable commitment, and they'd probably understand the other's decision to do the same
“You… ah, we both made a mistake here, and it’s a twist of fate that it hasn’t bitten us already.” “Mistake?” “I asked you to stop someone from leaving Toronto, and you promised you would. They came back, shucking off much of their identity, which is why you don’t remember. That was your broken promise.”
Think we're nearing the end of the chapter, because we're beginning to set up some definite parallels with another chapter of this book...I wonder how much Sandra knows, and how exactly she knows it? Guess Mags could've told her, but Mags didn't know about that so...maybe Blake himself has paid her a visit? But she doesn't use gendered pronouns here, which could suggest that she doesn't actually know that much about his identity? Fuck, I have no idea.
“I’m not. I made a mistake too, telling you you’d know him when you saw him. That wasn’t true, apparently, not as he escaped. You can remedy it, and keep it from being a lie. While these people deal with the Behaims and Johannes, I need you to go after the Thorburns. I think you’re uniquely equipped to do it. They’re off balance, it’s the optimal time to do it.” He squeezed her tight, feeling a tightness in his own chest. He let her go, backing away. “Of course,” he said.
Ah, sunnuva bitch that's what you're gonna do to me isn't it? Make me like and empathize with this guy and his cute little band of horrible viscous sex creatures and then sic em on the other people I like and empathize with. Cool cool.
In all seriousness, I love that twist. I mean I knew they were gonna be in opposition, but I somehow didn't figure that it would be that explicitly "yeah this is next arc's antagonist here he is"
I mean, theoretically going after the thorburns might not be a plan blake is particularly opposed to, given what we know of Rose and his general feelings around that situatioooohh shit
I just remembered
we're gonna have to deal with Blake's friends not recognizing him, Blake being trapped in the mirror and not even as like a semi-trusted confidante, just...all the pain
gonna be...real fun
I missed Histories! I mean, I know we had a whole Mag(s/gie) arc and I friggin love that as a little novella but the last histories we had was arc 7 and even that was- while super duper awesome- split between a bunch of different perspectives. I like having just one person to zero in on and go really in depth with, and I've missed that!
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JayManiac 18-Sep-19 05:18 AM
Unintended but I'm sticking with it
...ugh that pun was also unintended
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JayManiac 21-Sep-19 09:52 PM
I'm really enjoying your read, Keira- gives me my dose of Pact on the days when I can't fit it into my schedule- which ends up being...most of them, unfortunately...Still! It's always super fun to read!
With that said....don't scroll down much further!
Because this, this is not one of those days!
CharmanderHi 1
Am I emotionally prepared for what happens next?
No, no way in the hell that Blake just crawled the fuck out of
But am I going to enjoy being emotionally steamrolled, as surely as I won't enjoy it? Almost certainly
Let's get into 10.1
“Evan,” Rose said. “Step away from the mirror.”
Noooooooooo, step into the mirror alice style cuz Blake really needs a weird awkward wing hug rn. I love that we're starting right exactly where we left off pre-meath; though now that I'm thinking about it I can't see the story going any other way. These moments are too important
“Because stranger danger,” Ty said.
The amount that this line hurts me, just...stabs me in the fuckin heart right here...
“But he’s got sparrows on him. Sparrows like me,” Evan said.
Ilovethis
I mean, it gives just this ray of hope, right? That even if they don't know him anymore, the stuff that once bound them together still exists, and- though you can't ever get back exactly what you had...I don't know. Each of these people (except Rose, probably) got along with him for a reason, before, right? So maybe he can dig those reasons up again? Dig up similar ones? Evan and Blake are still survivors, and they arguably have more in common now than when they first met. I have to believe that counts for something
because I'm gonna cry if it doesn't
“The bird tattoos… that looks like my work.”
YESSSSSSS YES YES YES
“You didn’t,” I said, staring down at the tattoos. “It sort of got away from me. Took on a life of its own. Technically, you didn’t even do these, I don’t think, but it is your work, all the same.”
That's such a complex thing to unpack- especially since we can't actually know what parts actually happened, what was constructed, what was real, who did which what where...does it even matter?
“Who are you?” Rose asked. “That’s a very good question,” I said. “It’s a question that I’m wanting an answer for,” she said, “I don’t want evasion.” “Oh?” I asked. “But you’re so very good at it.”
Hahahahahahahahahahaha, just when I was starting to think that this might not be a horrible disaster; thanks, Rose and Blake! Really gettin along with yourself there...
but in all seriousness, the idea that the only person preventing you from rebuilding your friendships, your bonds, and your support structure is you....that's just so perfect
But somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to take back the words, or to go on talking. With a kind of hunger, I studied her expression, to see if her betrayal ran so deep that I could somehow see a tell or clue in her eyes or the tilt of her frown. She’d lied to me from the start, risked my life. She’d stonewalled me and frustrated me at every other turn, and why? Because I wasn’t real, and she’d known. Now she was risking the lives of my friends.
This is the kind of unfair to Rose that I absolutely understand...and just wish he could set aside even though I know how hard that would be. I don't remember when I said that Pact is a story about learning to get along with yourself, but I think I stand by that, and...well, this book is pretty far from over. I think that this central question is the one that the story asked from the outset, the one that doesn't get a definitive yes or no until it's over.
“You have me at a disadvantage,” she said, turning her gaze away from my friends, back to me. “You seem to think you know me, but I don’t know you.” That I. I smiled a little, then walked off the edge of the patch of light and over to the nearest reflective surface. The television screen. I watched them collectively turn, a little too fast, even alarmed. “Once upon a time,” I said, “You got quite upset with me for that use of ‘I’. You’re part of a team, Rose, remember? Try rephrasing it to ‘You seem to know us, but we don’t know you.”
This is straight up villainous, though, right? Straight up motherfuckin Other of him to do. He's keeping them off balance, giving a borderline Syndrome Monologue over here, picking apart words and phrases and latching onto whatever he can to antagonize Rose. I'm not saying she's blameless, I'm not saying she's the hero, I'm just saying that this new Blake is...kinda freaking me out. He's still himself, but his tendencies have shifted to be a little bit darker, a little bit more antagonistic. I bet he's freaking out his friends, too, and I worry that his preoccupation with Rose could get in the way of building new connections with them.
I sighed. “I’m Blake Thorburn. I was second in line to get custody of the Thorburn household.” Rose arched her eyebrows. “There’s a few big holes in that idea.” “I know,” I said. “I’m missing a bit of chromosome. People that stand up to pee aren’t supposed to inherit the house.” “Yeah,” Rose said, “that’s one.”
This is the conversational equivalent of this meme
Rose, second heir to the Thorburn household: "you being the second heir doesn't make sense" Blake: "I know, i have a dick"
“I was your metaphorical stunt double, Rose,” I said. “Metaphysical? Both?”
It's pact, it's always both
I paced back to the other patch of light. Transition from one patch of light to the other was near-instantaneous. There was no space between but what my mind needed to piece together to make sense of the relation of this space to the real world.
spacially concerned blake was a blake I needed right about now, just to make sure this was still blake
also the dynamics of the mirror world are really cool, and now that blake gets to experience them I bet he uses that experience and any frustration he has with it as a tool to empathize with what rose must have been feeling while he was 'out', and that'll be a real bonding experience that leads to mutual forgiveness. Right?
I continued, “I was the second custodian, but that doesn’t mean I was the second heir. You were. Grandmother apparently wanted someone with an unhealthy amount of paranoia and tenacity to weather the initial attention. You got stuck in the mirror, and you got the time you needed to read up and figure stuff out while I fought the faerie and the chronomancers, and the Hyena and all the others. Then I get taken out of the picture, and you get to hit the ground running.” “That sort of fills in the gaps,” Ty said. “Yeah,” Alexis and Tiff agreed. Rose was silent, frowning a little.
Man, why do I feel like this is a microcosm for every conversation this cabal is gonna have?
A Thorburn: explains thing Ty: cool Alexis: that makes sense Tiff: yeah, we should do that The other Thorburn: acTuALlY
“You stopped the Hyena?” Evan asked, a small note of awe in his voice.
I mean, you helped, lil buddy! You were pretty clutch there! You were a team!
Ilovethis 1
“…We were allies, Evan,” I said. “You were my familiar. A soul with a bit of freedom spirits and wind spirits and spirits of escape and whatever else. Then Ur ate that connection, that bond, and maybe a little bit of you is falling to pieces and a little bit of me is falling to pieces, because that connection is now some gaping wound.” “Were we friends?”
Gods, I'm gonna fuckin cry it's starting already
😭 1
“Yeah. We got along quite well,” I said. “I think… I dunno, a familiar and his practitioner are supposed to have a connection, and we had that. Mutual admiration, maybe, if that’s not making too much of an assumption.” “You admired me?” “Damn straight I admired you,” I said. “You survived, you endured, you escaped.”
"if that's not making too much of an assumption" is the line that breaks my heart this time. Of fucking course Evan admired you, of course he looked up to you and thought you were the coolest monster-fighting motorcycle-riding man in any god damn plane of existence you friggin dork. And then what this might mean to Evan....hhhh, these kids
Profess? I was glad I didn’t have a proper beating heart. With blood pounding in my veins, I might have flipped out on her. Instead, anger stewed inside of me without hormones or adrenaline or whatever other chemicals my body should have been using to manifest it. Raw, cold fury. “…What do you profess to be?” “An Other,” I said, my words terse.
The way the description of inhuman anger leads into blake's announcement of his Other-ness is just fantastic here, it's the perfect lineup of those concepts, showing and telling in one fell swoop that doesn't feel redundant in the slightest.
’m an Other, and trying to stick another label on myself just gives me more room to be wrong.” “Try,” she said.
Well now she's starting to piss me off
I get that Rose is just trying to get any kind of grasp on the situation, an Other of unknown power, counter, or motivation just showing the fuck up would be scary, and even having a baseline would reassure her, make everything make a bit more sense; I really do get why she asks him to do this.
It's just that I also get why this is such a dick move, in Blake's estimation; why he doesn't want to label himself and why that question of identity isn't something he wants to reduce down to a simple term like "vestige" or "wraith"
And as someone who leans more "there are no rules, understand not via labels but via qualia", rose's approach is not getting me on her side, reasonable though it may be. (edited)
“I’m your reflection,” I said. “I remember growing up as the child that your mom and dad might have had if they’d had a boy, instead.
And I love that that's the direction Blake goes, trying to describe what he is, what it is to be him, rather than reaching for a label. It's so him. But also, Rose isn't going to like this because it just gives her more unknowns and more vagueness, not an instructions manual on how to deal with the friggin issue.
“I fell through the cracks,” I said. “And I clawed my way back up. Not entirely in one piece. So I’m a-” “Bogeyman?” Rose asked. “Yeah,” I said.
See, I don't like that they slip so easily into all the assumptions that come about with this label, because while it might describe Blake, a little bit, I don't think it really captures what he is in the slightest. I don't think his anger is the only- or even the main reason he's up here, for one. It's a factor, maybe a big factor, but it shouldn't define him like this.
“I guess I don’t need to ask who you’re angry at?” I slowly shook my head.
I'm just screaming at both of them to stop making assumptions and reading the worst into everything and just get the fuck along
same 1
“But,” I said, “I’m not your enemy.” “And we’re back to me not believing you again,” Rose said.
sweet scion this is frustrating
B: "hey i'm angry at you, yeah, but I don't want to hurt you or anything and I could help and stuff despite that, this doesn't have to be a total shitshow" R: proceeds to say the thing that'll piss him off more (edited)
“That’s a no, but you’re suggesting there’s no way for me to gain your trust?” “That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.
HHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Fuck, fuck, fuck
this is so frustrating; I didn't think this was going to be the emotion the chapter was gonna wallop me with
“Says the would-be ally,” Ty said. The look I gave him must have been something, because he flinched, almost in sympathy.
No, yeah, nevermind. We can do frustrating and heartbreaking at the same time
“Enchantresses have connection manipulation, strong ties to Faerie, glamour. They could dig up details, figure out what fit, and prepare an assassin with a prepared story. The chronomancers could rig up a trap and keep trying until their tailor-made assassin figured out a way past our defenses. Johannes could leverage… whatever he’s got. I don’t know. The only guarantee against any of it is absolutes. If the chronomancers want to try the brute-force approach and hammer us in simulated timelines until we say yes, then the only answer is to make it so the answer is always no. If the enchantresses are going to try to trick us, then we need to counter subtlety with bluntness, because that’s the textbook way to counteract an enchantress or a Faerie glamour.” “Absolutes are pretty fucking damning,” I said. “Then I’ll be damned,” Rose told me. “Because the alternative is worse. There’s a war going on, and there’s no room for mistakes.”
I didn't know what to pull so I just pulled the whole thing because there's so much here. Rose is the reductionist, the absolutist, and there are really good reasons why, but we also know how dangerous that can be. We've spent so many stories coming face to face with the gray, so going back to black and white pisses us- pisses me right the fuck off. Wasn't this the problem with the Behaims? That they built a narrative of absolutes when it came to diabolism, and so they could never ever deal with the Thorburns or give them slack? And we see Rose following so steadfast in these footsteps, we see the cycle just spinning, round and round and round.
And this time there's nothing Blake can do about it, because the things that go against the grain...are drained. He's in between worlds, in between definitions, and so he's left out of any equation.
“If I’m not real, then you’re the first real friend I made, not some connection that got thrown together. You’re… not that different from me, in some ways. You’re the me I remember being a year and a bit ago, when Alexis helped me, and a part of me felt like helping her help you was a step on my personal road to fixing myself up. I trusted you like I’m asking Rose to trust me right now. I made that leap of faith.”
We've been waiting to clarify Tiff's position in the story, and I'm really glad we get it here. It could be easy to forget the foundation of their relationship, since there haven't been very many establishing beats of it since she became a practitioner.
Rose didn’t say a thing, only watching. I hated her in that moment.
hiurfdteriyuruhejgerufihrueiwaao[eiraew[ptetwapo
that was me smashing my keyboard with my forehead a few times
....
yeah
that didn't help
“I believe you,” he said. “Everything you say makes sense, and maybe it doesn’t count for a lot, but I feel like you’re genuine, even if I’m not exactly an astute reader of people. I’ve been burned in the past… “I remember,” I said. He’d had very good art stolen or plagiarized in the past. He’d been cheated out of money he was rightly due, his art sold for pennies rather than dollars. “I don’t have a reason to doubt you,” Ty told me.
i love ty so much
It’s not that simple. She’s a threat. Conquest tainted her. The Behaims or Duchamps drew the connection between Conquest’s card and her left hand. She’s ten times the danger to you that I am. But I couldn’t say it, or I’d be actively fighting her. It would sound like I was making stuff up. I would only be putting my friends at risk, because they wouldn’t leave, no matter what I said, they couldn’t, but the doubt and hesitation would only distract them. “No,” I said, “No, I don’t know that I can trust that her plan’s a good one. Not with what I glimpsed, while I was away.”
we sure do love putting Blake in those unwinnable situations, don't we?
I hate that any of Blake's concerns about Rose could be valid- it'd be so much easier if there were someone to blame- which is I suppose what Blake is doing right now with Rose. But at the same time, I'm not gonna be the one to say Rose isn't dangerous, that she won't cause the Jacob's Bell apocalypse, that her stubbornly reductionist attitude isn't indicative of several of the things that are wrong with Practitionership at large.
“I’m not that stupid,” Evan said. “He’s not stupid at all,” I said. “All the same, if you’re going to try to turn him,” Rose said, her voice quiet but sure, “We’re going to have a problem.”
I want to extend the olive branch to rose, but every time she opens her mouth she says something that makes me want to smack her with it!
“First off, Ur. The demon. I know how to beat him, and it isn’t fire. It’s creation. Art. The graffiti might hide words, but it’s an art of its own, and that has value. If something happens to me, do me a favor and wipe out that motherfucker. Let this tip and the circle I started be my contributions. I sort of promised Evan I’d do what I could to stop the real monsters.” “Okay,” Rose said. “Thank you, but that could be a trap. You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t jump at the idea.”
What was wrong, for example, with just ending it after "thank you"?
“Second thing? I want you to look at me. I’m fragile. With every injury, I lose a bit of my human appearance. A lot of this was from the Drains, but not all of it, understand?” “They’ve been spreading a little bit while we’ve been talking,” Ty said, his voice quiet.
AHhhhhhHHHh I don't like it
“Literally killing me,” I said. “There’s only so much me, and I guess emotional damage wears that away just as sure as any wound.
I have to wonder, and hope to all the dead and broken gods that there's some way to reverse this, some way for Blake to retain and regain humanity.
“That’s all I needed to say,” I told her. “I’ve got to walk away from this, because I can’t take it any more. I’ve got reading to do.”
I hate it when I can see exactly what's going to happen to kick blake down again, right before it does. I really hate it, because there's nothing either of us can do.
“As heir and custodian of the Thorburn estate, granddaughter of Rose D. Thorburn-” “Rose, stop,” I said. “-I hereby expel you from Hillsglade House, until further notice.”
fine
She can do that? I thought, I could have done that? Fuck.
Blake, no
He just went through this experience, he said it hurt, and what does he think? "Man, I should've done that to Rose!"
Clearly, the mirror dimension empathy is working already
sweet fuckin scion
The end result was a piecemeal city, artificial and empty. Buildings stood, but not every face of the building existed. Stretches between these cardboard cut out sections of street were cast in opaque darkness. I was reminded of the towns in old westerns, where buildings were only building fronts, held up by stilts. Rose had been limited to my presence and places I’d been. Was this all ground that Rose had covered, or were the rules different? I was the true vestige, after all.
I love this imagery, wild wests and piecemeal cities, cardboard cutouts; he's in the world of concepts, of images and glass now. He's fragile.
Rose was tainted. I had no doubt about it now. The Rose I’d talked to in there had been off. Not quite right. Closed off, controlling, a course in mind and no willingness to be swayed.
And even now, literally being forced to be in the world that Rose did, seeing only places she paved, walking only the ways she walked, he can't bring himself to empathize
he compares her only to Conquest, to the worst enemy they fought together.
When I’d been real and Rose the person in the mirror, she’d taken that role, questioning me, keeping me level. Now that the roles were reversed, she’d cast me out.
Yes, absolutely, and she's nowhere near innocent
but I can't help but wonder if you're just jealous you didn't think of it first, Blake
Maggie could be the peer I needed.
First off: yes, and maybe this is a payoff of having an entire Mags arc so we understand our new ally for this one. Secondly: it's kind of strange that he refers to her as Maggie still; hope he doesn't find Padraic instead, and I hope he can recognize Mags if and when he finds her.
I covered ground fast. My body was light, my bones felt more like sticks than stone.
I'm not saying that it's a good thing that he's become so Other, certainly
all I'm saying, is that if he is losing his humanity, at least I'm happy that there are benefits
Goal number one. Find Maggie. Once I had at least one ally, I had some ability to affect the real world, to get something done.
Then again, I don't think Blake's goals and Mags' totally align...
she can't pick sides in the conflict, so she can't help him help his friends, even if she can maybe help him directly.
Number two, I needed a real body. I’d promised it to Rose, but, well, this wasn’t how I’d wanted to give it to her. Getting a body was a high priority, but only because it would make other things doable. Not necessarily the second step, but something I’d have to keep my eye open for.
Hey, I know this girl named Midge, I'm sure she'd be strong enough for whatever you're thinking...
(edited)
“Hello hello,” I heard a female voice, melodic and sing-song. “Did I spy…?”
remember when I said that my interests usually line up with those of the Faerie? Well, we're gonna test that!
“Shall we be your breath of wind?” the man asked. “We can treat you to the faintest of breaths on your skin, until your skin has prickled from head to toe, and phantom sensations caress you.” “Not interested,” I said. “Go away.”
I love every conversation the fae are in, especially when someone's stonewalling them
I'm not pulling everything, but I love how they're using glamour, how they're winding their way around his words-man I missed some good old fashioned Fae confrontations
I drew the Hyena from the holster I’d once made for June.
But as counters to them go, I don't think you get much better than distilled dead goblin
Magicians used sleight of hand. Move one hand, while the other took your watch. Then while you looked at the watch, they’d palm a card. One thing after another, and while you were watching their hands, somewhere along the line, they changed their clothes. Faerie, as I understood it, could do something very similar, but in this case, they were moving people, not individual hands. These two were a working pair, they’d spent centuries together, learning tricks that had nothing at all to do with glamour, and they’d tested those tricks against Faerie who’d been watching out for those same tricks for just as long.
one thing that's always great about the pact universe, is the idea that the Others that have been around a long time are fucking formidable. They're more clever than a thousand practitioner or vestige upstarts, because they've seen the rise and fall of anyone who was less so. And the magician metaphor is perfect too, serving to exaggerate further
“There’s something beautiful about a man on his knees, face turned skyward, suspended like a puppet by the strings that are meant to be inside that face.”
Yknow, sometimes Bow just has those sentences that just invoke the primal feeling of fine
I thought of Hillsglade House. The wounds that had been delivered to me hadn’t been physical, not entirely.
Let's just time out here, because I'm sure this is gonna be friggin brilliant and I'm gonna love it, but also what does it say that Blake is so very quick to use the experience of being hurt as "oh cool, I can hurt people more now that I know how that works!"?
“That’s the fucking stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of,” I said. I saw Ev’s expression go cold.
hahahahahahahahahaahahahahaha
“Nerves don’t work that way. They work by ion channels or something like that. And music of moans and groans? The only way you’d make that work in the slightest is if you caked it full of glamour. That’s not beautiful, that sounds like a five year old getting into her mom’s makeup kit for the first time.”
prepare for the return of the Thorburn 🔥 🔥
“Don’t fuck with me,” I said.
This is pretty fuckin badass
Things were bad and getting worse fast, and I had nowhere to go for sanctuary. I headed for Maggie, walking faster than before.
I only wish I had time for another chapter
alas
This was such an emotional chapter I'm drained. I feel like my tattoos that I don't have are already creeping up the face that they aren't on. I cried several times. I love this book.
💜 3
Avatar
JayManiac 26-Sep-19 11:18 PM
Now, let us play the eternal game, you and I
a valiant contest of "can jay read 10.2 before skedaddling for dinner at 6!?"
Probably not, I get sidetracked quite easily on semi-relevant tangents okay let's go!
when we last left off, Blake was screwed, but he was also going to see the one person who remembers him and clearly this means we're in for a heartwarming chapter that's a bit of a reprieve from the emotional clobbering of the last one, the spirits are being merciful, and nothing bad will happen!
The school, as it happened, was protected ground. Disguised as childish scribbles, chalk drawings or graffiti, there were symbols arranged in a circle on the streets around the school. To my eye, a loose ring cutting through the utterly black nothingness that stretched between mirror places, masking everything within.
Well, that's a good sign. Man, remember when symbols to ward away potentially violent Others was a good thing!? I mean, it probably still is a good thing, especially with like...johannes running around. Or Rose. Or really anyone trying to be Lord of Jacob's Bell at this point.
I also gotta remember to be on the lookout for anything...dionysian
I mean, I don't know if Jeremeath is particularly subtle in his approach, but we'll keep an eye out.
I waited, and in the waiting, I realized that there were stationed guards as well. A regal old lady with her grandson in her lap. Seen in a different light, seen with a note of doubt, wondering just how she could stay there for twenty minutes to an hour, not actually doing anything, I was able to peer past the veil.
First off, this is awesome; I'm guessing these are protections by the Duchamps and Behaims just in case...well, just in case a lot of things, actually. Secondly: It's interesting where and when Blake seems to have the Sight, now that he's an Other. He can't see connections, but the mere fact that he knows about the Otherworld means he can use fun tricks to see through it.
It seemed like every other time I looked through the windows and mirrors to the real world, I saw something. A bit of diagram, a man that was overly tall, with a neanderthal brow and a thick beard. A ghost. A pair of Duchamps who appeared to be out shopping with their infant daughter. I stayed out of their sight and out of their way.
This is like...a lot more than Jacob's Bell used to have, I feel like. We're really seeing all the stops pulled out; I'm guessing Johannes is mobilizing everyone who owes him favors which is probably like half the conceptual weight of god damn Ontario. Rose doesn't have many allies to summon because no one likes her, Behaims might have some people elsewhere like Duncan, stationed in particularly interesting places, and Duchamps just brought a harem cult to help out, so things are getting pretty intense. I can see why the Thorns (thanks E&R) are kinda freaking the fuck out.
Unlike a game of chess, though, the pieces here were very much alive, or as alive as Others got. They moved constantly, forcing everyone that was native to Jacob’s Bell to constantly adapt.
Life must get pretty fuckin weird for the normal people. I mean, concepts themselves are just kind of walking around, moving spirits, nudging things this way and that. I bet schedules are being disrupted, people are late to shit, there's a general attitude of nihilism and anger, some people are probably going crazy, riots in the street could start at the drop of a hat...
all this to say, it's an election year alright!
I watched the faceless woman walk down the street, phone in one hand, a cigarette in the other, never actually making its way to her nonexistent mouth. Her eyes and mouth were smudges, like they’d been drawn with thick black pencil and wiped away with a cheap pencil eraser. The angle of her head and the hair that fell down around either side hid the true nature of her face from random passerbys.
This is the third beat of this faceless woman, I think (one outside Hillsglade House, once during the council meeting, and now here. She's been a mystery I've been hoping to get a glimpse at since pretty much the beginning of the story...I can't think of anything specific she could be, except maybe another former resident of the Drains (how cool would that be!?) but even then, she seems more of the crafted sort of Other (like Corvidae) rather than the used-to-be-human type.
Story: yeah literally anything could set this off Me: cool, cool, I like that we're setting this up for later in the story and building the tensio- Story:
Wait. The faceless woman was making a beeline for another Other.
I contemplated breaking a window, but I wasn’t sure if it would make things worse.
Well now I'm sure that Blake is gonna be the thing that sets everything off
A man stepped out onto the street. Vaguely familiar looking, he practically tackled the faceless woman. Arm thrown around her shoulder, he intercepted her and used forward momentum to steer her way.
Oh thank sweet scion, I have no idea who the fuck this is but if I know Rose I think he just saved the northern hemisphere
“She would have. I hate to break it to you, darling, but circumstances have changed. You might have held third or fourth place as one of the scarier free locals before, but I would be very surprised if you were one of the top twenty-five right now.”
To think that everything we were scared of in arc 1 was scared of her, and now this guy's saying that she should be scared of the new arrivals is a great use of Synthetic Power of Badassery there
I also like that we might actually find out what her deal is
I almost said what kind of Other she is but I'm a lot less interested in that actually. I wanna know what kind of ideas she's from, what she can do, what the ethos behind her was
“We have the disadvantage and the advantage of being new. That thing? That’s an old thing. Don’t let appearances deceive. If I had to guess, going by what little I’ve been able to pick up, I’d think that woman was a harbinger of Bast or a Lamia or something in that vein. Maybe demonspawn. What do you think?”
HHHHHH and knowing that she's a new Other is even more curiosity-inducing. I'm thinking maybe something to do with faliure to speak? Her mouth is a smudge, her phone is cracked...not sure how the cigarette fits in though...something to do with smoke? I'm gonna stop guessing because the story's probably gonna tell me if I actually read it instead of continuing to type
There was a pause before the man spoke again. “Powerful, smart, willing to play by the rules. Pick two, or be prepared to have a very short existence, understand?”
First off, I think we might be missing half of the conversation, and he can perceive some kind of communication blake isn't. Secondly, that's a cool sentiment to have codified here. And Blake having...uh...none of those, kind of proves him right!
The interplay between the two was fascinating, on a level. He did the talking, while she emoted. It wasn’t the same sort of coordination that happened with Faerie, honed over centuries of keeping one another’s company. It was very natural, very easy, and almost enviable.
We are keeping careful track of communication, and specifically male/female duos who seem to have a method of steady back-and-forth interplay down to a science (or a magic, as the case may be). But I'm sure that's not thematically relevant at all, so let's move on!
Side note: so excited to see Mags/Blake compared to Rose/Blake when it comes to communication. Will they communicate better? Worse? or just a different kind of bad?
“What a shame,” the mumbling man said, “I’d hoped to have a conversation partner, but it looks like I’m the lone speaker in this group of mutes.” I startled at that. “You were talking to me,” I said, as it dawned on me.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahaha
That's amazing
He's not even obviously able to communicate
that's been a pretty big theme across the story in general, since it's the primary method of being connected and sharing understanding
I mean, we have the Shepherd who I hated for a while just because I thought he thought not speaking was the path to more power.
Now, Blake can speak, but he's being mistaken for something that can't, and that's just juicy
“Was I overstepping?” he asked. “You never know, with you types. There’s so often a theme with your kind, but sometimes that theme is something you embrace, and sometimes it’s a sore point. Sometimes both.”
I love the idea of having to tiptoe around the elephant in the room when it comes to bogeymen.
“No,” I said. “Birds aren’t a sore point. A theme? Maybe, but it was more accidental than anything.”
suspicious
Sure Blake
yeah, your tattoo that was designed and made a part of your character along with everything else, was accidental. Makes so much sense.
Obsession with freedom? Accident
Familiar taking a bird shape because of the shared theme of escape? Coincidence!
See you can do this too, Blake! Join me in sarcasm!
“I delivered the pizza,” he said
casual conversation was not how I imagined a reunion with this guy to go
also, he recognizes blake!?
I mean, it's not a miracle or anything, Isadora, The Shepherd, Mags, and Ms Lewis all have their own way of retaining Blake, but what's this guy's deal!?
“I don’t know so much, not really. I died, and I kicked and screamed so much that they wouldn’t take me,” he said. The wan smile and relaxed attitude he offered me did not look like the expression of someone who’d clawed their way back from the afterlife.
Picturing this guy as John Constantine from here on out.
“Eh,” he said. A pause. “Are you safe to look at?”
A part of me was like "why didn't you look at him if you were talking to him!?" but this is a pretty valid concern in this day and age.
This guy seems like...really savvy with the Otherworld
I guess he gets more of an inside perspective
“Forest?” the quiet man asked. “No,” I said. “Same general place, then,” he said, and the words were barely comprehensible. “I suppose,” I said.
!!!!!!
1. I was right again, cool! Except I said "the drains" specifically
2. Limbo has more places than just the Drains, which is a thing I think we kind of knew but it's good to have confirmed. The forest is another one of those places which could be viewed by some as the edge of civilization, where things go to die.
Avatar
JayManiac 27-Sep-19 12:09 AM
Right! almost forgot about that....minus the almost. It was clearly in there somewhere, though
“Laird. Self defense, in large part.” “Ah. That was you.” “That was me,” I said.
I kinda want Blake to just ask some practitioners how Laird died...
I’d left the Drains, but I’d brought the drains with me.
That's a far more depressing and less victorious thought
We kind of knew that it was true in a sense, that the drains would never leave him...turns out he just got promoted to breaker-down-er, he's their liason
but hey, if you gotta break something down, you could start with all your enemies at least!
it's an exhaustible resource, but just barely
He smiled, “You’re so transparent. How ironic, for a man that dwells in mirrors.”
This might be the most perceptive person we've met recently....shame he's uh...got a business of murdering people
“Not what you meant? You don’t want to kill them? None of them?” “I don’t. But-” I thought of Rose. “If I had to, I would like to think I wouldn’t hesitate.”
Hahahahahahahahahahhaahhaha fine
He didn’t have a mission. There was a bug in the system that had brought him back
I love this characterization of the system as a kind of computer...especially since im in the midst of rereading homestuck
“You can make power by leaving an impact. By giving us attention, giving us time and effort, giving us a moment’s thought, they’re still giving us something. There’s power to be had in that. Take that power. Thrive. Get even the ones who know about us, when they think they’re safe. Innocents have some protections, the universe will contrive to shield them, but if you can leave a lasting mark, that’s worth a fair bit.”
Well, yeah, that's a pretty good system of- Hey! Wait a minute! I think this might be one of the motherfuckers who traumatized me when I was six! Oh man, I wonder if he remembers that; good times, good times. Then I sent the ghost with the sword after him and he went away, but he had me goin for a second there.
Look Blake, it's simple
You ever watch Monster's Inc? Well congrats, you're on the scare floor now! This is a company. Neoliberalism at work, you become us. Work for us. Make them scream
By creating fear, they left a lasting impression. Pain, of course, but also fostering doubts. A glimpse of a faceless woman, not enough to make them certain, but to leave them thinking about that one night for years or decades to come. Maybe committing the occasional murder, to remind the universe that they were present, and they had no intention to go elsewhere. Fewer things made an impact so much as removing one individual from the ranks of the living. There was more, too. I’d left the Drains, but I’d brought some of the Drains with me when I’d left. I was a manifestation of the Drains, and these same actions -scaring people, making an impression, hurting and killing- they were all actions the Drains wanted me to undertake.
Or, yeah...the story could just say what I said, but in a way that's less fun and more depressing.
“You talk about it so casually, killing people,” I said. “There’s enough of them,” he said, a little coldly, though none of that cold seeped into his placid expression or tone of voice.
I like this guy so much
and I never ever ever wanna meet him
He spoke, “Sandra wants to preserve tradition. Johannes wants a new world, where Others exist in ghettos, eating phantom sustenance. The Behaims seem to think that they can make everything better if they’re in charge. I don’t know what the Thorburns want.” “I wish I knew, myself.” “If you do find out, let me know.”
They used to want to be different. To break the wheel, to usurp the corrupt systems...but first and formost, they just kind of wanted to survive. I hadn't really thought about the fact that we don't know Rose's long term motivation beyond "become Lord"
“Under someone’s bed,” he said. “Wandering dark alleys, sitting in the backseats of cars. I’m not easy to find. You might go looking for her, but she only picks out a target once in a blue moon. Hm, hm, hm, how to arrange it?” The faceless woman touched her scarf. “Ah, of course. The Ambassador.” “Ambassador?”
I love how the woman touches her scarf; that's still such an important part of her identity that she's known by it as much as her name.
I spoke up, “The person who makes the first move loses.” She didn’t let up, still crowding the revenant’s personal space, but she tilted her head, one smear of an eye peering at me. “You reach out to hurt one of them, and they’ll protect themselves. Then someone else will hurt you while you’re occupied with your focus elsewhere. It’s why this balance exists. There are creatures that are stronger, prouder, and more dangerous than any of us, and they’re holding back for now because they recognize this.”
Not the worst at perception then, for someone in a mirror.
She looked like she’d grown up a year overnight. It had only been a month. Not even.
Yeah, but finding your identity is such a big part of maturing that it probably puts her ahead
I looked past her at the street beyond. There were reams of kids on the streets now. Stores and coffee shops littered the area around here, sometimes with a few houses separating them, or a dentists office or vet’s office that had been set up in what had once been an old fashioned home. A little strange to see a dinky little house with a big metal sign bolted to the front, or a lit up sign on the lawn outside.
As the Others move into the story's "home", we see commercialization, capitalism, competition and exchange, selling out your life, all of these values I've been talking about the whole book- take place. This government isn't a democracy, it's a political marketplace. We're buying and selling and making bargains with ideas. Maybe I'm crazy, but there's this description here and I can't think of any other reason to have it right after the description of how strange it is that there are all these Others around. I think we're drawing a direct thematic connection.
“I tried to downplay my status as a wild card. Made myself a part of things. I just don’t want to be the cause of all this going sour… I have reason to believe that if I was, it would somehow be worse.”
Pretty convinced that just being here is gonna make things worse, but also tying herself to Jacob's Bell might distribute the force a little, so to speak.
“When all of this is over, I’ll get back what I lost,” she said. “I’m going to blood and fire and darkness that Faerie bastard.” She smiled, and in that smile, for a moment, she was Maggie again.
Ilovethis
“I can’t,” she said. “Please,” I said, with more emphasis. “I’m a neutral party,” she said. “I can’t negotiate deals, not like that. I definitely can’t give a helping hand to the most volatile of the four local players.”
well when you put it that way...
“Mags,” I said, “Rose is- she’s going off the deep end.” “The bound Incarnation,” Mags said.
Oh fuck, so all of Blake's concern about Rose is like...rational and well founded!?
“I wasn’t. But I know. I haven’t been sitting on my hands these past few weeks. She used her own hair to bind it, and the binding isn’t perfect. Where the essence of the bound Incarnation leaks out, it seeps into the hair, and through the hair, it touches on the connection to taint the-”
Well shit, that's...like the worst thing ever. I mean, no the fuck it isn't, but Conquest is a bad enough dude that I don't want Rose to become Conquest 2: Demonic Boogaloo
that's arguably what the entire battle of toronto was to avoid
“No,” she said. “But I’d like to get moving, and I don’t want to prematurely end this conversation. I’m actually glad to have you back, even if…” “I’m a monster? I’m a wild card that threatens to upset the balance?” “No,” she said. “Not that. Well, yes that. But you being a friend balances that out.” Friend. A genuine friend, not one that had been made for me, or however it worked. “Thank you,” I said. “I’m glad to have you as a friend too.”
Awww bulba
I hoped we'd get this moment and it's the cutest fuckin thing
Oh I really really needed that
in terms of this point in the story and just life in general, I think
I'm just gonna bask in this for a moment or two before everything inevitably gets way worse
Okay
that's enough basking let's go
“I have another favor I kind of want to ask,” I said. “Favors are tricky,” she said. “When I was, uh, gone, I met someone. I was hoping I could maybe get her from there to here. She doesn’t exactly have a name, but-”
greeneyes
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll think about it. You’re a jerk, asking now.” “Now?”
Oh? OH we're going to Molly aren't we
and people know about it? Or revenants do? enough to know she'd be busy?
My heart did its herky-jerky flutter in my chest. She’d been feeling guilty, and here I was, asking a favor she probably shouldn’t give me.
Yep, okay, there's the rebound of that good feeling from earlier, just punchin me in the chest.
“I don’t know if I count, so maybe I’ll just say, one and a half of us down, five more to go,” I said. “Hi Molly.” “Hi,” Molly said. Maggie’s expression suggested she was as surprised as I was.
UHHHHHHH
WHAT THE FUCK!?
That- uh- OKAY!?
Alright! Welp! Molly's back in the story! And able to hold a conversation? And now apparently willing to hold a conversation!?
okay I really gotta go, that was a great chapter in terms of worldbuilding, emotions, and whatthefuckian moments, I hope I'm not away from this book for as long as I was last time but I probably will be byeeeee
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JayManiac 28-Sep-19 05:21 PM
Speaking of, I've got some time this morning so let's goooooooo
10.3!
“Crap,” Mags said. “Crap, crap, crap.”
That's a fair response, I think
“I can’t connect you with this ghost, if she’s maybe going to give you some advantage. Shit. Look, we gotta go.”
Oh
Yeah, I kinda didn't think about it in that way
But also: Molly's talking and you're just gonna leave!?
1: rude
2: She was blake's cousin except not actually because vestiginannigans but still! Shouldn't he get the chance to talk to her!?
“The Maggie you met in Toronto wasn’t me. It was Padraic. He took my name and screwed me over. This ambassador thing isn’t just a job. It’s a necessity. If I lose it, I’m a goner,” she said.
Let's talk about this for a lil bit, because I really didn't take the time to last chapter. So the end of arc 8 was a pretty triumphant moment for Mags: she got to claim an identity, reconstitute herself, go unchallenged by the Powers that Be(ll) because of all the connection building she'd done with them throughout the arc.
But here we see that she's kind of given into the system in order to survive, made its equilibrium her own, tied herself down so thoroughly
This is how the system gets you: any power you have is built upon the system, or it gets snatched away, and thus you cannot be the agent of its undoing, lest you undo yourself. Mags and Blake were the two wild cards with the drive to tear down the old ways, but they lost their respective identities and had to become the agents- the employees of the respective systems they relied upon to return.
I’m shoring myself up with the label of ‘neutral party‘ just as much as you’re shoring yourself up with whatever the fuck that is,” she said.
I was so proud of making that connection for a second before the story handed it to me
Maybe I should read more and talk less
disagree 1
It was Molly. She’d followed us, but her back was now to us, facing the site of the little memorial. “Fuck me, fuck, fuck, fuck,” Mags said.
She's really taking advantage of that swear-card she has back, isn't she?
“I’m so alone,” she said, a whisper. “Everyone’s against me.” There was a flicker, suggesting that she wasn’t quite so autonomous as Evan had been.
Oh this is just gonna rip my heart out, eat part of it, and leave the rest of my half-mauled body parts out in the snow covered forest, isn't it?
we haven't been reminded of just how much shit Molly went through in a while...sweet scion
“I can’t even go to my family, because if I do, then someone might target them, I had to drive them away.” “You should have called me,” I said. “…Except you couldn’t. I didn’t exist, before you died. Shit.”
That's something I'm still not sure of: did 1.1...like, happen? Like, first section of the first chapter of this story? Was it real? Did Blake exist for months before inheriting the house, or minutes? It would seem weird if the story told a part of itself that didn't actually happen, but I wouldn't put it past it.
“Can you not be so crazy calm about this?” Mags said. “One Thorburn has them all talking in concerned voices. Two will have them taking decisive action. Three fucking functioning or semifunctional Thorburns, each with serious fucking issues? The rest of those guys are going to be doing one of two things. Some are going to be flying around in a mad panic, propelled here and there by the sheer violence with which they’re shitting their pants, and the rest are going to be getting organized to murder you and pointing the finger at me!”
Is Mags with the ability to swear simply too powerful for us mortals to handle? Because I feel as if I'm witnessing a god. Mags would fit right in with the Striders.
“She’s making me a little panicky just by being here and being outside that circle, and I was already feeling pretty crummy about the whole shebang here, and now it’s like, all of it’s coming together, past, present, and prophecy.” “Prophecy?”
I like that this is the conversation where these two get more or less on the same page about all that stuff they were keeping from each other, even if she can't actually help him out all that much for very understandable reasons.
“She’s… I’m pretty sure she’s following you, because she didn’t follow me before. Can you stay put? I’ve gotta go get something to bind Molly with, so she stays where she’s at.”
Yessssss
conversation with Molly!!!!
Heartbreaking echos of suffering!!!
fine
(im actually excited for this but also it might be emotionally draining)
“Good. Listen to him,” she ordered them. “You can occupy yourselves but don’t cause problems for anyone or anything. No lasting damage to any human, plant, animal, or human-made object, nothing that would cause suspicion.” The one she’d called Cumnugget groaned for the Nth time. The other one only bobbed its head in a nod.
Man, I almost, almost missed Buttsack. Almost. I know he's been told to shut up here and that's probably why, but I'd like to think he might be doing his condescending overpoliteness thing too.
Cumnugget stuck the handle of the hand mirror into the snowbank, then plopped down in the snow. The other goblin did the same a short distance away. A snowball went flying, hitting Cumnugget hard in the head.
Yeah this was pretty much guaranteed to happen and I love these guys
I could have ordered them to stop, but it was kind of amusing, in a slapstick Saturday morning cartoon sort of way. “Stop that,” I heard a woman say.
NO!!! Let them snowball each other to bits! It'd be hilarious! Also is this the practitioner kind of stop that or the "kids these days, always assaulting each other with deadly snow and gravel projectiles" kind of stop that?
Aunt Irene, joined by Callan, my second-oldest cousin. Molly’s older brother.
Oh no
I thought they weren't supposed to randomly run into each other anymore now that nobody's messing with Blake's connections on account of forgetting he existed!
Unless they're here to visit Molly, which is a thought that just occured
Cumnugget seem to interpret that as permission to go after her fellow snowsuit goblin, who ran. When they got far enough away that they couldn’t move much further without technically staying in sight, the fleeing goblin wasn’t able to flee anymore. Cumnugget tackled him.
The kids playing in the snow//goblins occupying themselves with torment dinamic is just the friggin best
“Almost covered by the snow,” Callan said. Aunt Irene made a face. “You okay? It’s not the first time we’ve had to dust off the snow.”
Fuck, couldn't make it easy
My eyes fell on Molly’s ghost. She was right there, and they weren’t aware. Not consciously. The pointed grief my aunt was describing could easily have something to do with the ghost’s presence.
It's always both
“I don’t think anyone would blame you, mom.” “I’d blame myself. We have things to do. Mrs. Duchamp said-
Uh oh
Mrs. Duchamp, much as the last two non-blake viewpoints we were in had cause to love and appreciate her, is also one of the more serious threats to blake on account of knowing-he's-alive-sorta
to be clear, the knowing isn't sorta, the alive is
although I suppose the knowing could be too, considering the circumstances
The timing had been too specific. Was this the Duchamps at work, manipulating connections to put Aunt Irene and Callan in my way again? Probably not. I wasn’t sure that many people even knew I was around, or were in a position to recognize me if they did. Mags had talked about a prophecy. Was this her personal version of bad karma, reality going off-rails in the most inconvenient way?
pact is among the only stories that could have a super contrived situation happen, not give any concrete explanation for why, and leave the situation with a sense of intrigue and delight rather than "uh...mister writerboy, that's a plot hole". I love it I love it I love it so much.
It took two full minutes for Mags to arrive. She was halfway up the hill when she realized something was wrong. “Go,” I said. “Hillsglade House, I’m pretty sure. Something about Sandra.”
I'm not sure what exactly I expected for this chapter, but whatever it was, it wasn't this. Man, the tension's so high for this arc; it's really created the feeling that any little thing could set off all this god damn dynamite
A trio of fat men were reflected in the lights generated by car windows and windshields, half a street up. A little too similar, a little too childish in their dress. Golfer’s clothes, almost, with matching hats with flaps over red hair, red noses, matching sweaters under plaid coats, and pants belted a touch too high at the waist. They noticed me as I ran, heads turning.
You can tell it's done a good job because my first though is "wonder if these guys are in the top twenty four?
"
I prepared to jump across the darkness, but something made me hesitate. In the midst of the darkness, a kind of light blossomed, like a glowing smoke. Three figures emerged into the nothingness between patches of mirror-space. They were utterly bald, naked, looked more like metal statues than people, and had the same proportions as the three men I’d seen. The same faces, minus the hair peeking around the edges of the cap. Each had a pecker that looked like it belonged on a baby, not a grown man. They half-floated, half-waddled, and only glimmers of the landscape they walked on were visible in this space. Red stone that fit together without the use of mortar, highlighted by gold, and I thought I saw a glimpse of a carving of a dragon or a dog.
I always love getting to see new Other descriptions and trying to guess what the fuck they might be; these have maybe some genie vibes with all the floating and stuff, but also maybe some Budai kind of thing? I'm not sure why either of those would come in a matching set of three, though.
I stared up at a face. The head was broad and fat, the face almost cherubic, but the two together, they made for a face that was too small in proportion with the head. I felt a momentary panic at the body contact. In the instant I remembered that those memories were false, that I didn’t need to be paralyzed by them, he reminded me that body contact could still be a very bad thing, hurling me.
I though you were gonna try to hold on to some of the things that made you human!? Also, that's just kind of a hilarious way to phrase that sequence of events
I hit ground, tumbling, and managed to put my hand and arm out to stop myself from rolling over into the next patch of darkness and accidentally skipping over to the next patch of mirrorverse. I could feel the spirits patching up the damage to my body as I stood. The drawbacks of having hollow bird bones or a skeleton of dry twigs. I broke easily.
This fight uses the dynamics of the mirrorworld so well, and we're kind of back to blake being way the fuck out of his element and also with like no tools or powers to use against these guys. I didn't pull the part where he lets anger seep in and does his awesome badass bluff thing to no effect, but it really sold how friggin screwed he is.
I might as well have been a swimmer in shark infested waters. This was their element. Except the sharks were bald fat men with the smallest dicks I’d ever seen.
This line made me laugh out loud
I read it in the voice of Abe from Wilford Motherloving Warfstache and that made it even better
it sounds like that kind of humor
metaphors and dick jokes: the markiplier staple
They paced in a circle around me. I held the Hyena ready to retaliate if they tried to grab me again.
Oh yeah, I kind of forgot he had that
“I clawed my way back up from the Drains,” I said. “I’ve faced off against demons. I’ve killed a goblin, I’ve killed a man. Do you really want to do this?” They did.
Nice try there, Blake. I love how, despite the fact that he can lie, he doesn't. He could say "I've fought Zeus him-fuckin-self, I killed a dragon with my pinky finger and two billiard balls, I beat Conquest in an arm wrestle so hard that he gave me the keys to Toronto!" but he doesn't; he sticks to the truth.
which is still pretty badass
I could see the others advancing. Their faces were contorted into matching expressions of utter rage. I’d have called their faces demonic, if I hadn’t met actual demons before.
Let me just point out real quick that one of the demons you've actually met had a face like a baby, kinda like these guys
Just as I’d opened him up along the side of the belly, exposing guts that looked as real as any human’s, I brought the sword across the back of his knees. The Drains had ground away everything I didn’t need, and had left me equipped with only what I needed to bring about entropy.
Holy shit, blake just actually took those guys kind of
I really didn't expect him to be able to straightup carry out his brutal threats, but I guess the power of the drains is with him
which is a lot less warm and fuzzy than the power of friendship
Now I kinda see why a bogeyman was once the third or fourth most powerful free Other in Jacob's Bell
The Other dropped to his knees. His buddies were making their moves, one moving away, no doubt aiming to get to the black void they could swim though as quickly as they did. I brought the broken sword to the Other’s throat.
the way he dispassionately dispatches these fuckers is just...cold. He's reminding me a lot of Mr. Pizza Guy right now, which isn't a good thing. The way he describes fighting them, not even angry, just kind of unfeeling...it's an unsettling contrast with the Blake we had before.
“What the fuck?” I heard her say. “They got in my way.” “What are they?” “Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum, and Bleeding Profusely?” I suggested.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Blake might sell me on his serial killer persona if he keeps at it with lines like that
Man, I bet Pizza guy would be so proud right now
I keep rereading the line and triggering more laughing fits
“Shit. Okay, don’t do anything if you don’t have to,” she said. “This is getting out of control fast. Johannes! I need you or a representative, asap!”
Oh yeah, wait, this could absolutely be the Thing that pushes all this shit over the edge and that makes it significantly less cool
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The High Paigestess 28-Sep-19 06:37 PM
nah fuck that, it's still cool
suspicious 1
agree 1
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JayManiac 28-Sep-19 06:37 PM
“Killing one of his guests does too,” she said. “Unless you plan on killing all the damn witnesses?” I looked at the other two. I wasn’t sure I had it in me.
Oh, well that's good at least. So long as having it in you doesn't become the goal or anything
gonna have to hit you with a tentative agree there hedge
“Faysal. We’ve got a situation. I need a decision on this that doesn’t lead to outright war.” “We’ll see. This would be…”
"We'll see" in reference to outright war is just a hillariously bad thing to be said.
“I have somewhere I should be,” she said, looking between me and the dog. “Then please go,” Faysal Anwar told her. “Be where you should be.” Mags ran.
How'd Blake figure out Faysal's last name? Has he heard it before, or am I just trippin? Also is Blake being put on trial by an angel? because that shit's not gonna go very well, I think.
The dog looked at me, sitting. “Good afternoon. Will you tell me who you are?” “No, sir,” I said.
Huh
that's a good start
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The High Paigestess 28-Sep-19 06:41 PM
kinda wild to call a dog "sir"
or even an angel "sir"
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JayManiac 28-Sep-19 06:42 PM
He's a very dignified angel and also such a good boy
well
such a Right boy at least
but that doesn't have the same ring to it, y'know?
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The High Paigestess 28-Sep-19 06:42 PM
the boy part is kinda disputable, dunno if whatever his Angelic form is has a gender
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JayManiac 28-Sep-19 06:42 PM
boi, then
gender neutral
ish
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The High Paigestess 28-Sep-19 06:43 PM
that works
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JayManiac 28-Sep-19 06:43 PM
“Good afternoon to you too, by the way. I don’t mean to be rude,” I said.
Nice save, Blake
im sure everything's fine now
“I forgive you, abyss-borne. I’m sorry to say so, but you smell of goblins and worse things. Demons, even. The threads that are supposed to tie you to the world are either cut, never to heal, or they were torn during a recent fall, and are only now mending. If I had to guess, I would say you’re walking a very short, violent road.”
Whaaaaat!? Demons!? No way. Never even seen one of them, you can't prove shit!
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The High Paigestess 28-Sep-19 06:45 PM
what a rude double standard you can get away with being a colossal asshole to the local Fae, but the second some jumped-up mastiff comes along Blake's already bowing and scraping
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JayManiac 28-Sep-19 06:45 PM
I know, right? Just because a literal scion of the universe shows up, Blake's gotta wait on him hand and paw!
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The High Paigestess 28-Sep-19 06:45 PM
or whatever breed of doggo Faysal is, think mastiff was Tromo's form
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jsoh 28-Sep-19 06:47 PM
faysal is an afghan hound
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The High Paigestess 28-Sep-19 06:47 PM
some overglorified afghan hound, then
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jsoh 28-Sep-19 06:47 PM
very dignified angel
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JayManiac 28-Sep-19 06:49 PM
But also let's look at Faysal's official diagnosis, because I think it suggests that while connections were cut between Blake and everyone outside the factory, they're just torn/mending with everyone who was here. So soon, people might start remembering Blake: Sandra, Briar Girl, Johannes, maybe even Padraic, Shepherd, Diana, those who were in the city but not right the fuck there. Of course, the people who we want the connections to repair for are out of the picture, so this could be more bad news than good. Although it might mean that Blake could soon have some more connections binding him to the material world, and that could lessen the hold that the drains has on him.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” I answered. “I’d like it if the short, violent road involved helping people along the way, turning that violence against ugly things.” “Even when that description might include you?” “Uglier things, then,” I said. “If you grow ever uglier, then what will you do when there is nothing uglier than you that you’re able to fight?” “I’ll have reached the end of my short, violent road, I suppose,” I said.
@taylor
“Once upon a time, after I had finished working, I would perch on the tallest mountaintops with two or more of my cousins,” the dog told me. “I would watch. Centuries would pass before I had cause to move again. When I worked, I forged paths. Natural concourses for rivers to flow, for beasts to find water and for feet to tread freely. I helped open up the world like a flower might unfold. I opened doors, and earned the title of gatekeeper.” “Uh huh,” I said.
Blake, you're killin me
and by "me" I mean "any hope for peace"
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The High Paigestess 28-Sep-19 06:53 PM
blake is unimpressed by this doggo, that's how it be sometimes
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JayManiac 28-Sep-19 06:54 PM
I really love the description Faysal gives, though. It fits so well with what we know Angels to be derived from, and it's a wonderful pactification. He's the emodyment of natural laws, specifically those which dictate gates and doors. He's the way that lightning travels in its arc, and I think that's friggin cool. Man, have a bit of appreciation, Blake.
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The High Paigestess 28-Sep-19 06:55 PM
he pried open the flower of the world, blake seems to be more impressed by forces which slam it shut
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JayManiac 28-Sep-19 06:57 PM
“I’ll make my offer,” he told me. “I am a gatekeeper. You, as it appears, are enclosed. Join Johannes in his cause, and I’ll conduct you from your current enclosure.”
Welcome to the second beat of: Johannes will solve all your problems so long as you assist him in his corporate enterprise which aims to pacify all eccentricities of society and keep them under his command!
I could have my damn motorcycle back. I could ride it. But… I’d be on Johannes’ side. I couldn’t help my friends, probably.
I hate that Blake has to choose here, but I like that he makes what I see as the right choice, at least.
I mean, now that he's refused a deal with the metaphorical devil, he can make some deals with the literal ones! Yay! Don't you just love the Thorburns!?
Damn it. Trust a damned angel to use hope to hit me where it hurt.
:(
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The High Paigestess 28-Sep-19 07:00 PM
snide doggo
nasty ol' floofboi
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JayManiac 28-Sep-19 07:02 PM
“Neither. Curious. It should have healed by now, but it hasn’t, which suggests a quality unique to you or that blade.”
I personally like the idea that it could've been the fact that both of them went through the drains and brought its entropy back to bear, although I admit that it could also be the fact that the Hyena was tainted before Blake bound him.
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The High Paigestess 28-Sep-19 07:04 PM
both of them went through the drains and brought its entropy back to bear
that would suggest that most boogeymen are a lot spookier than they are perceived
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JayManiac 28-Sep-19 07:04 PM
again, it's probably both
the hyena was tainted, and put through the drains
Blake wielding it is almost the power of two bogeymen right there
in terms of Drainage
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The High Paigestess 28-Sep-19 07:05 PM
the hyena's corpse was just fuccin dragged through the charnel house
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spinagon 28-Sep-19 07:07 PM
You could say hyena's corpse was mutilated after death and still forced to serve
Ilovethis 1
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JayManiac 28-Sep-19 07:09 PM
“I told you I would move this along. I offer free, unmolested passage through Johannes’ realm, in and out, within the next day. We will have a discussion, I will nourish you, and we’ll agree on one favor. I promise no tricks or manipulations, no attacks or subterfuge. You and I will agree on a favor for me or my practitioner to perform for you, in exchange for your release of the wounded Iaiah. You will leave Johannes’ realm in a frame of time reasonable to you, and you will do so happier, healthier and better than you were when you entered, in a way that the you of the present would deem agreeable.”
I love how the story constantly keeps you in the frame of mind of: blake has no tools and needs to be grasping at every available straw. I imagine it's why Pact is described as such a harrowing experience, and it's something I'm not sure every book accomplishes, surely not to this extent. Stormlight, for instance, favorite fantasy series that's maybe gonna have a conclusion. In the beginning Kaladin really embodies this and we're just on the edge of our seats for his struggle, but as he gets more powerful we move onto other characters, other kinds of struggle. Which is fine, and I still absolutely love it, but there's something about that visceral rooting for the protagonist that really just pulls me through a story. And this seems like a win, even if it's one that could've set off god damn Armageddon.
“Fare well,” Faysal Anwar told me. “I must remove the wounded to where he may be helped. Excuse me.” “You fare well too,” I said.
That's maybe the awkwardest thing Blake has ever said, and that's saying something I think. "you fare well too"
I would be kicking myself for days after that one
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The High Paigestess 28-Sep-19 07:11 PM
"Fare thee well, Nameless Abyss-Borne" "you too"
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JayManiac 28-Sep-19 07:13 PM
“You do not get to order me around, Aunt Irene,” Rose said. “If you keep trying, I am going to slam this door in your face.” “You have no right to sell this property.” “I agree! I don’t know where you got it in your head-”
I think I know where she got it in her head
just a guess
“But you’ve got people with you right now, looking at the property.” “Looking only in the vaguest sense of the word, they aren’t looking to buy. They’re… acquaintances from Toronto. That’s it.” “Could you word that in a less convincing way?” “Probably! But I’m being honest.
Rose, rose, rose
I can see how they're the same person now; they're equally bad at conversation
but also: who does Rose have from Toronto? Is she talking about the Thorns? Because if she doesn't even call them her friends that's kind of cold and also just really friggin sad.
I feel so bad for her, she's all alone and it's not even entirely her fault and I just want these two to be like...okay and stuff. Is that too much to ask?
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The High Paigestess 28-Sep-19 07:16 PM
maybe the Knights paid a visit?
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JayManiac 28-Sep-19 07:16 PM
Could be
Blake would've called them friends, too
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The High Paigestess 28-Sep-19 07:16 PM
although that would be wild
"yo burned-out hicks, wanna crash at my library to help me prepare for a major occult war?"
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JayManiac 28-Sep-19 07:17 PM
I think that was uncalled for
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The High Paigestess 28-Sep-19 07:17 PM
except about 0.25% more polite
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JayManiac 28-Sep-19 07:17 PM
Unless you're quoting rose, in which case prolly yeah
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The High Paigestess 28-Sep-19 07:18 PM
and yee, channeling her energy
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JayManiac 28-Sep-19 07:19 PM
“-and most of the family is in town. You’re alone in this.” “Alone,” Molly’s ghost echoed her mother.
Gods, this is such a perfect moment. It's just so very tragic and forboding and infuriating all at the same time
“They might dislike us but they hate you,” Aunt Irene said. “The enemy of my enemy-” “Is still a damned enemy!” Rose said. “The sooner you realize there is no such thing as a true ally, the better off we’ll be.”
FUCK
She's just destroying herself. It's...hhhh. It's a lot
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The High Paigestess 28-Sep-19 07:20 PM
i mean, she's not wrong in saying that
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JayManiac 28-Sep-19 07:20 PM
But she really really is tho
there's no such thing as a true ally for people who believe that, but there was for Blake.
“There’s a monster in the attic,” Molly thought aloud. “Well put,” I said.
HHhhhhhhh
“We’re challenging you for custodianship,” Aunt Irene said. “You’ll be hearing from us shortly.”
Trust me, that's not a battle you want to win. Or lose. Or fight at all, probably. Sweet Scion, what if Rose just decided to kill them?
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The High Paigestess 28-Sep-19 07:24 PM
that might be why Rose surrounds herself with very shaky and strong allies Corvidae, Conquest when everybody wishes to undercut, betray, or wipe you from the board, no sense in choosing a weak one over a strong one that you believe you can limit (edited)
agree 2
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JayManiac 28-Sep-19 07:25 PM
I'd argue that's one of their fundamental differences
If and when Rose gets a familiar, expect it to be a lot closer to Melmoth the skull fucker than Evan the friendly ghost
Rose stepped out onto the porch, arms folded. Her face was a little flushed, short hair damp. “What are you doing here?” “Keeping the ghost calm,” I said. “Trying to stay calm,” Molly said, echoing me.
I know it's just a ghost's way of saying things to roll back through their script, but every gods damned line is just a punch in the face, a reminder of what it must've been like to go through custodianship alone, without Rose, trecherous as she may or may not have been.
“Why do people ever deal with demons when they could deal with angels?” I asked. “I’d think there’s probably a very good answer to that question,” Rose said. “Don’t worry,” I said, “I didn’t join Johannes.”
HHh, so much to pull here. I mean the obvious thing is structure/tyranny. People who deal with demons are the ones that are fed up with the structure.
So maybe it's what Rose wants after all, the breaking of the wheel
“Let me try, then,” I said. “I’ll see what I can do about those guys, and Molly here.” “You’re implying I trust you.” “I’m implying you have no other choice,” I told her. “Fine,” Rose said. “You’re probably right. Go to town. Just don’t expect it to change anything if you succeed, and you will lose what little tolerance you’re getting from me if you screw this up.”
Rose and Blake talking fills me with the urge to repetedly slam my head into my keyboard every single time.
Even progress hurts
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The High Paigestess 28-Sep-19 07:30 PM
Rose is just fuckin nasty now
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JayManiac 28-Sep-19 07:30 PM
“There are bad omens everywhere,” Molly said. “I want to see the family. I have to warn them.” There was a clarity to her voice that made me very concerned. A degree of focus. She was developing a little too quickly for my liking. “Change of plans,” I said. “I’ll help you with the binding, first priority.”
Well that's a super foreboding way to end the chapter; What exactly does it take to make a wraith again?
Probably giving it a bunch of power
wonder how Johannes' really big ghost is similar/different
anyways, that was the chapter! It was a lot of fun, if a lot of concerning fun, and I'll see you guys next time!!
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JayManiac 02-Oct-19 11:18 PM
10.4! Or at least as much of it as can be read in the next hour and a half, which probably won't be all of it. Abandon all hope of not-being-spoiled, all ye who scroll down from here!
“They’re trying to get me out of the house. They succeeded.” “They’re trying with Rose now,” I told Molly.
Each of these echos is just a punch in the gut reminding us what she went through, and that's just like...how she talks. What's nice about fantasy is that you can have the literal ghost of your past mistakes and the pain they caused hovering over your shoulder.
“But you can do it,” I said. “I couldn’t, even without the question of what it’d mean to be unable to help my friends.” “Is that supposed to be a dig at me?” she asked, raising one eyebrow. “No. I- I didn’t even realize it could be taken as one. Sorry.”
As I was coming up with something to say about this, I just kept thinking about every building conflict in the book. They're on edge, Blake's understanding of human emotion is deteriorating, Blake's friends are screwed, Mags is bound as Practitioner Helpline #1, which reminds me: jacob's bell has gone to shit. I don't know if it's an intentional microcosm of everything the arc is dealing with, but it's a really cool way to just get us back into the world.
“I don’t want to be trapped,” Molly said. “I left the house to get away…” “I’m sorry,” Mags said, contradicting herself by replying to the ghost, encouraging it. “Salt in the wound, isn’t it? I wish I was in a position to treat you better, honest.”
So lemme get this straight: Mags has to bind the ghost of her past mistakes so it doesn't fuck up what she's doing in the present, basically pushing it into a corner where it can't hurt anyone while she deals with everything else. That sounds real healthy. I mean, granted, Molly's probably a step and a half away from wraith status so best deal with it now...I just wish there could be a better way. Also, I can't help but notice that Blake's being increacingly methodical/measured in a creepy way, jumping to "oh, that's a contradiction", instead of...well, I dunno: "wow that's really fuckin sad" or something. Could be my projectance getting in the way.
“I have to warn the others, but I can’t, because that puts them in more danger. Rose is next in line, and…” I winced at that statement. Confirmation, of a sort. Molly-ghost’s memories were of Rose being her cousin, not me.
Okay, but Rose steps into your connections when she enters the real world after your death. I bet if you were the "alive" one, the ghost would remember that you were next in line. Now that Rose is alive, it shifts that connection to her. Maybe. I don't know, actually.
“I don’t recognize you,” Molly said, “But you’re family. Family’s the most important thing right now. Has to be.” “With that kind of attitude, I can see why grandmother would pick you for first heir and custodian,” I said. “She didn’t,” Molly said.
First off, that was almost touching until I realized "oh yeah, the family's a total shitshow". Second off, the fuck do you mean she didn't!? Ex friggin cuse me!?
“Can’t make an omelete without breaking a few eggs, right?” she asked, but there was no mirth in her expression. I could see dark circles under her eyes. She glared at me. “Enjoy your fucking omelete.” Then, in the next moment, she flickered and disappeared.
Welp
I'm guessing that wasn't in the script
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Elliot (Boy) 02-Oct-19 11:38 PM
sharkhi
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JayManiac 02-Oct-19 11:39 PM
Oh hi Elliot, you scared me for a second there!
I'm just noticing that everyone's names have taken a spooky season turn
But enough about ghosts and stuff
let's keep talking about...
“Ummmmmm,” Mags said. I tried to remember what I’d read about ghosts.
ghosts and stuff
spoop 3
because: are we sure Molly's still like...a ghost? That sounded pretty dang sentient and angry and maybe even wraithlike?
Molly stood near them. Her hair blew in the wind, and she hugged her arms to her body.
Well, she sure seems to be there...just like a normal-ass ghost would be, pretty typical stuff...
Also, I never realized how much I was waiting for the story to come back and deal with Molly until we started doing it
It's a seed that was planted a real long time ago
But Molly hadn’t lost a child. She’d lost someone she’d invested eighteen years into. The person who had a hand in every bit of joy she’d experienced in life. The one who was supposed to create her legacy. Herself. She was face to face with her own death, her own mortality, too late to do anything about it. “It’s not fair,” she said.
And if she has achieved some higher level of blakelike sentience, then she's currently confronting her own death, and maybe that's why she's at her grave, not because she has to be. We seem to be exploring that theme a whole bunch: what it means to come back from the dead. We have Pizza guy, faceless woman, Blake obviously, and then Molly. Three out of four of those people came back for revenge, in a way, or came back out of anger, and I daresay I see a bit of a trend.
“This is on me,” she said. “I’m the one who gave her too much of my personal power. How was I supposed to know she’d hoard it or whatever it was?”
So you invested too much of your identity in the mistakes of your past and now they're running rampant and being a danger to everyone? Huh.
She looked down at the ghost and the two family members of the girl she’d helped kill. “Balls,” Mags said.
sweet scion of all the things I shouldn't be laughing at
“I come down here regularly,” Mags said. “Yeah, I know,” Aunt Irene told her. “I’ve seen you. I wondered, you know, why you’d have any interest. I feel pretty damn sure you’re not one of Molly’s friends.” “I wish I had been.”
Gods, you're just gonna keep stabbing me in the heart then, okay. The laugh was only to help the damn dagger go in smoother
I wish she had been, too
“You’re an opportunist. Get close to the heir of the house, win them over, and then when the house is sold, you’re the person who’s helped them out all along, so naturally they offer you something.” “No- that’s not what I was doing.”
Every interaction with a living Thorburn in this arc is just the stuff of keyboard slamming. The very essence, if you will.
“That’s not a no,” he said. His voice had a note of triumph in it, but there was absolutely zero joy in it. “I think it’s exactly like my mom theorized.” “It isn’t, honest,” Mags said. She’d said she’d had nightmares about something like this. She’d had a role in murdering Molly, and on a level, she’d gotten away without a hitch. Only now it was coming back to bite her, almost in the worst way possible. “Then convince me. Explain,” Callan said, and his voice was loud and sharp enough that it was only a half-step away from him yelling at Mags.
I'm face-wall-ing so hard at this that some stoners are gonna think im the god damn avatar. They're being assholes, but you can't even blame them because they're under the influence of the ghost and just run-of-the-mill grief (like there's a difference between the two), and they're clearly not going to listen...and Mags is just here with no way to possibly tell them why she's here, who she is, what she needs to do...hhhhhhhhh
I heard Molly speak, as Mags put her foot on the slope. “You ordered the goblins to kill me.” Callan moved, as if a thought had just happened to come to him.
Oh fuck
My train of thought was pretty much: "well at least for sure they're not gonna put together the real reason Mags is he- oh god dammit"
also doesn't bode well if Molly happens to get any more powerful
especially since Blake already killed the second-most-obvious target of her vengeance
“It was clutching at opportunity, not greed,” Mags said, her voice so quiet that Callan didn’t have a chance at making out the words.
Ah, I didn't put that together. Why she didn't deny his previous statement. I wasn't thinking...
“They killed me and they took me to pieces!” Molly raised her voice. “They used corkscrews. They used needles!”
remembering all the goblin threats in this story isn't nearly as much fun now. It's just...disturbing and sad.
“Fuck you!” Callan shouted. “You come here? You make us more miserable, bringing shit up like this? Why? Why the fuck can’t you just give us some damn peace? So you can relieve the guilt a little? Fuck you!” “Mags, get a grip. Callan feels guilty too, it’s part of why he’s seizing on this so forcefully,” I said. “Repeat after me. ‘Don’t you wish you could have done something more?'” Mags spoke, as if she was very far away. “Don’t you wish you had done something different, too?” “Fuck you,” Callan said. But there wasn’t even half the heat in the words that there had been earlier.
fuck
hHHHhhhH someday I'm gonna get through a whole ass arc without crying
nah
probably not.
Blake picking up on this is a point in the "human" column at least. Fuck. I'm feeling horrible for Mags, and for Callan too, now that I get it a little more. I'm sure I'd feel horrible, I'm sure I'd blame myself if anything ever happened to one of my siblings. Hell, I feel horrible now, and they're just fine.
“Fuck you too,” Mags said. She turned around, and she faced the pair. Molly’s ghost hovered a little higher off the ground. Mags’s voice was just a little choked. “Fuck all of us. This… this situation sucked. It was fucked up, and a lot of people weren’t able to see just why. I hate that.”
Me too, Mags. Me too.
It's one thing to say that the system is destroying people, to be concerned with it from an abstract perspective. It's quite another to zero in on a specific incident, the pain that it caused, the person that was ground up in its gears. Human life, human identity being bargained and bought and withheld from people for the sake of the system, for the sake of efficiency or what is essentially economic power. Economic power which can never replace or be worth what you give up to get it....
“-And that right there is my frigging kryptonite,” Mags said. She injected false cheer into her voice, “But hey, bright side! When things go that shitty, the nightmares have gotta pale in comparison, right?” “I think this is your prophecy at work,” I said. “It feels just a bit too contrived, pieces falling down in a very specific way. A leading to B leading to C…”
Ah yes, what a calm and methodical analysis of the situation. You did miss one little thing, which is that your friend is crying and saying that what she just experienced was worse than a nightmare, she's dealing with it horribly, and she probably needs whatever emotional support you can grant and not a reminder about how she's doomed to bring about even more pain...but other than that, Blake, spot on!
Also, between which contrivances are prophesy, which ones are Rosalyn's, and which are Sandra's, this is turning into one of those causality shitshows one only encounters in books like this. And homestuck. Always homestuck.
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JayManiac 03-Oct-19 12:26 AM
“That’s where you stood when you watched,” Molly said. Mags was frozen. Her eyes were fixed on Molly’s, and Molly’s stare was hard, still hollow with loss. “Respond,” I urged Mags. Whatever my feelings were toward Molly, as one of my few good family members, the priority was keeping this situation from graduating from ‘shitstorm’ to ‘prophecy of fire and whatever else coming true’.
This framing of "she's grieving herself" has done so much for helping me understand what Molly is going through and relate to her, because it gives me way more than "oh no she's a ghost with unfinished business who wants revenge!1!1!" it hits me on a much deeper level, and to me has the same kind of emotional weight as (Ward)"he took me from me!".
And empathizing with Molly in this case is just making the whole mess hurt more, and that's not even considering the all hells of bloody-fiery-darkening stakes if this goes wrong.
“I wouldn’t accept them anyway,” Molly said, with venom in her voice. She’d apparently heard. That venom… “Yeah,” Mags said. “I didn’t think so. What would it take?” “You took my life, didn’t you?”
Nopenopenopenopenope
Also I wonder if Blake almost kind of related to that venom, or if it was just something he wasn't expecting to hear from Molly? We're still dealing with people coming back from the dead, after all...
“She’s a wraith,” I said, my voice low. “She’s… fuck. She absorbed the negativity from me, and the Thorburns, because they’re connected to her. And-”
dammit dammit dammit
At the same time, it's so, so perfect to have a manifestation of the pure spite that runs through the thorburn family, flying around and screwing everything up. It just literalizes what's been happening the entire book..
in that sense, wraiths are almost a different kind of Incarnation, being built out of the concept of spite, taken from everyone involved.
Man, this magic system is so cool
and by "cool" I mean "efficient at contriving situations to emotionally devastate me"
“I don’t think it was selfish at all,” I said. “It was a sacrifice, the blood you gave her, to keep that memory alive.” “Sacrifices can be selfish,” Mags said.
Holy shit
This right here
hhhh
I never thought of it that way before, but it's absolutely true.
I know that's not a good enough note to end on, and I sure as all of the various hells don't want to stop reading right now, but...responsibilities and stuff. Hopefully I'll be able to finish this tonight, but if not then I hope everyone enjoyed and I'm sorry I couldn't stick around a bit longer! (edited)
💯 3
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JayManiac 04-Oct-19 08:56 PM
So I introduced my friend to Pact and invited her to share maybe the occasional thought if she wanted...
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Wildbow 04-Oct-19 09:01 PM
Haha
Reply to them!
Don't leave 'em hanging
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JayManiac 04-Oct-19 09:06 PM
Oh I am, it's just that's not what I expect when I open discord for the first time in a day! The entire night, evidently, was spent reading this book. Which is a sentiment I relate to!
✅ 2
💜 2
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spinagon 04-Oct-19 09:09 PM
Just check where they're up to, might have passed you at this rate
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JayManiac 04-Oct-19 09:12 PM
She's only on arc 2, but that's faster than me by a good margin.
speaking of: let's dig into the rest of 10.4, sorry to leave it hanging so long!
When we last left off, it was this really heartbreaking scene where no one is wrong exactly and it's just a super shitty situation and no one's responding to it as well as they could be, but they can't pull their punches because some Super Touchy Shit is keeping everyone from killing each other.
Man, imagine if that was my bookmark; that describes so many scenes in so many of these stories I'd never be able to find my place
Her hand took hold of the same branch that one of the goblins had been plucking twigs off of. She lifted it. “Fuck me,” I said. “How much power did you give her?”
apparently that was a good place to stop, because I read five more sentences and shit goes from like a 5 out of 10 to like a 9 in terms of "how bad could this go?"
Has any ghost even...done that?
Could it be because Molly's death had a more physical, bludgeoning aspect than say...Jane's or Evan's? But no, even Legs just attacked with the sensation...she's a straightup wraith at this point.
Then I saw her moving the stick. The broken end dragged on the ground- Drawing.
Hey, drawing on the ground has been a pretty productive and cool moment recently in the story, so maybe...
she's obviously just trying to draw out her feelings and the cool memories she has of her cousins!
in a healthy,
controlled,
Too late. Whatever Molly had been drawing, it was already finished. A rune.
Shitshow
A gaping hole in the middle, one finger broken. A dribble of ghost-blood fell on the rune. “No way,” I heard Mags, as if she were barely in earshot.
Holy fuck, that's...uh...I mean, I guess it makes as much sense as anything
she was awakened, after all
does that extend to ghosthood?
Wind stirred, and blew at my hair. I felt feathers at my side shift.
Wait, the wind rune affects Blake?
I thought there weren't spirits on his side?
There wasn’t supposed to be wind in my mirror domain.
haha yep
they're so screwed
gods, wraiths who know what they're doing are scary
I wonder if Blake could ever awaken again? Drop some bogeyman blood onto runes, seal himself with some Solomon, get back on track?
The rune managed to gather all the power it needed, and then it simply turned out the lights. My mirror window into the real world started to go dark, taking my footing with it.
I'm a little confused as to what the fuck just happened, but Blake doesn't seem to be just falling straight down into the drains
is it drawing power from him now, too?
from the mirror world?
“You gave me your blood as penance? You gave me your power. This is me using it the way I think it should be used. Go against that, and you’re invalidating every act of contrition you made there.”
And here's Molly, using everything in the system that got her killed, to perpetuate violence
To reaffirm once again that in this system, those who pay penance, those who aren't ruthless, are punished for it.
That in paying that penance they just feed the system of violence, give it the power to hurt more people
Before the light could go out and maybe take me with it, I skipped to the next real bit of solid footing, about a five minute walk from the slope, Mags and Molly. Once there, I collapsed, back to the wall.
Fuck, okay, that makes more sense and I do not like it. I love how the mirror world is being used as a limitation with very clear stakes...
has there been any talk of a drains emoji? I feel like that would be useful...
I still had the Hyena, but that didn’t feel like an answer in dealing with Molly.
Is this a family loyalty, cooked into his being? Or some kind of genuine humanity Blake is holding onto? Both?
probably both
“Bad day,” I said. “Putting it lightly,” she said. “She disappeared again. She didn’t go to the memorial either. I’m assuming it’s the house.”
Well, that went well. What was the next part of the plan again?
also I love that we've tied Blake to dealing with Aunt Irene, we've tied Molly to their faction, we've tied Meath to dealing with Blake, and this is just shaping up to go even more wrong
especially because Meath is Sandra's, and so are the auxiliary Thorburns who Molly is most likely to align herself with
they aren't dealing with the woman at the top, so to speak
which is even more complicated when I consider that of all the people trying to be Lord of Jacob's Bell, she might be the one I'm rooting for most.
And she's the one trying to preserve god damn tradition
one of my least favorite words
It's just that the other options are the Behaims, Rose "Conquest" Thorburn, and...Johannes
I'm not rooting for behaims, not rooting for Rose
I like Johannes a lot as a character, and I even think I'd get along with him
I just also think he represents a facet of our world that I don't like the direction of, something just as dangerous as tradition.
Don't know why I've waited until now to break down the contestants, but here we are.
Johannes represents something akin to the Neoliberal corporate structures which put one 'economic monarch' in charge as he accumulates capital through the exploitation of ideas and the dehumanization of the populous (since I do think that you lose something essential to your identity and humanity whenever a vestige of you is created, and Johannes is handing those out like cheap cigars, much like our current economic system degrades the species-being through alienation of the self). Sandra, meanwhile, is focused on keeping our current equilibrium and values, which isn't actively bad, but still allows horrible practices (and Practices) to perpetuate. The first one that comes to mind is the awful treatment of women under the Duchamp Coven, essentially sustaining itself through a kind of prostitution system of worming their way under the thumbs and into the beds of powerful men.
As for the Behaims, I don't know exactly what they want without Laird at their head, but generally they've been shown to be closed-minded and pretty easily manipulated, impressionable while still dealing in absolutes. As Lords, they'd probably be kind of like Conquest in that regard, kind of a figurehead everyone else can walk all over so long as they're appeased. There's also the possibility that they don't have a fucking clue what they're doing and are entering the contest without a plan for after they win.
Man, if the Chronomancers were the ones lacking in forethought, how'd that be for irony?
And then there's Rose, who probably didn't have her head on completely straight before she started being influenced by Actual Conquest.
and with the power she could command, and has shown a willingness to command in the past (pre-Blakening), she'd likely represent the worst of what Conquest could've been with actual diabolic power.
Anyhow, back tho the friggin chapter, dear Lords I get sidetracked easily
“I don’t know if a ghost can have multiple haunts,” I said. “I sort of skimmed, when I read up on ghosts.”
Are they still treating Molly like a ghost? That's sort of dangerous, I think, playing into the Label Folly a bit
“I don’t know,” I said. “She’s a wraith, she’s shoring herself up and storing strength by feeding on negativity. It’s going to twist her into something else.”
Okay, they're recognizing her for a wraith, then
but at the same time, I wonder how accurate that label is?
I think a lot about labels, and generally come to the conclusion that it's about whatever's useful, not the technical term. Like Wb has said about the PRT designations: it's about what has to be done to deal with them, what strategies to employ, not about what's "actually" going on. If you're fighting a Breaker who is for all intents and purposes a Blaster/Master, then what's the most useful thing to tell your team?
in terms of Molly, she's a Wraith yes, but it's also useful to know, for instance, that she's at least somewhat capable of Practicing
That's not a factor you normally deal with, and could have serious repercussions if one were to tangle with her.
“Mostly, I think, wraiths stop themselves. They burn through whatever power made them. Maybe if a practitioner is skilled, they can infuse it with more spirits, and shape it, like the Shepherd in Toronto did.”
That said, what they say here seems to be pretty useful information too
with the caveat that she could be the practitioner that infuses herself with more spirits, shapes herself. Wraiths don't usually have the know-how to do so, but I wouldn't underestimate her knowledge or sentience at the moment.
“Balls,” Mags said. She leaned against the window, bringing her head back hard enough to make the glass rattle. “She’s a practitioner, but any power she draws on is going to be mine, because I established a connection.”
This essentially gives her access to a well of power that's not unlimited, but it's limited in a very different way from how wraiths are normally limited
and cutting that connection is something Mags might not be in a great place to do either
Mags pulled a notebook out of the bag. She opened it to the first blank page. Wraith of Molly Walker in the middle, circled.
This trick was actually a pretty valuable one she picked up from Sandra, almost as a side effect. It really comes in handy as a basic bit of Enchantment. I wonder if she's still got a kind of deal in place where she can learn stuff like that from the junior council?
it's also just an awesome part of the story
Each line came out with a different strength. The strongest, oddly enough, was ‘extended family’. “More negativity to feed on,” I said. “More connections to her soul and her Self.”
Man, yeah the Thorburns are a pretty good well of strife as power's concerned
It's so fascinating actually...
Like, Victoria's trigger event was at the basketball game, but it was never really about the fact that she was fouled. In a similar way- since echos are created essentially through a process comperable to parahumans, and ghosts are more powerful echos that resulted in death- Molly's "trigger event" was ostencibly the part where the goblins killed her, but the underlying source of that trauma, of that suffering, was the strife of the Thorburn family.
Sweet Scion, wasn't Rosalyn just such a dick?
agree 2
“I’m not as useful here,” I said. “We can’t chase her. We’ve got to head her off, like we said before. We should split up. I’m… I’ll figure something out, and you give chase and distract her as well as you can, alright?” “Damn it,” she said. “You going to be okay without the bogeyman around for moral support?” I asked. “I’m going to have to be,” she said. “Ugh.”
Nooo, don't split the party
because you need each other's camaraderie more than any other reason
My feet came down on solid road. Here, the wind blew. The sun shone, a sky overhead. Faysal Anwar was sitting in the middle of the road, gleaming white.
Oh yeah, Blake got free tickets to OtherLand™!
I'm getting a sense of the timeline now, actually
Meath isn't here yet, he might be stuck in traffic rn
“Will you walk with me?” he asked. “I rather like walks, and I would like to stretch my legs.” I raised my eyebrows. “Because of my role as a Gatekeeper and a being that supervises travelers and forges paths, not because of my canine body.”
You ain't foolin nobody
besides, you're probably a dog because you're the kind of being who'd fuckin love to go for a walk
it's always both
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JayManiac 04-Oct-19 10:15 PM
I agree, and that's something I really like about your writing style actually; the jokes are just the kinds of funny things that happen in real life, so it never strikes me as ridiculous.
“Ah. Then let me please see to my end of the bargain here first. I promised nourishment.” “I don’t know that I really eat anymore,” I said. “You do,” he told me. “You devour. There is a yawning emptiness inside of you that craves sustenance, but you do not yet know how to feed it.”
I mean, you could take the revenant's advice, but he's probably got a slightly different situation going on there. I don't suppose that receiving nourishment causes his tattoos to shrink back, though. That might be too easy...well, depending on what it takes to be nourished.
“As you are now, you’re a starving giant, Blake Thorburn.” I raised my head a little at that, eyes widening.
1. Faysal knows his name holy shit. Guess that connection was more torn than cut. 2. Starving giant!? I mean, we knew Bogeymen could become powerful, maybe even major players in towns like Jacob's Bell, but this is...well, it suggests that being a little lighter and faster on his feet might not be the only advantage this new existence could grant?
“Something in that vein. Once I knew what to look for, and once I had the details I needed, I was able to ask my practitioner for permission to follow the loose threads in his consciousness. Connections were broken, and some are already mending. His weren’t, not really. It was a tenuous relationship to begin with, and it’s easy for the mind to lose its grip on those who they have only met once or twice.” I nodded slowly. “The memories are still there. They weren’t erased, only lost. This is your image, as Johannes had it. I found two Others who caught glimpses of you, and strengthened that image. Without ready access to those memories, they won’t suffer unduly. Take it. The difference is meager, but it will make a difference.”
This is all really really fascinating. First off, Johannes has a method and sticks to it; his whole enterprise is based on being the Vestige Guy, and this is a cool twist on what that means. This is the kind of nourishment I could see as causing the tattoos to retreat a bit, since it's something of him from before his Othering. That almost makes me more optimistic for how Blake might feed in the future
Just a little more hope for the story to eventually crush.
I breathed in, almost as if I were testing the skin that wrapped around me. It felt different. More human, almost.
sharkhi
Turns out: threatening weird genie-beings with death to get favors is totally a great idea
“We have had our discussion, in a way, though I am open to more. That leaves only the favor.”
I'm also open to more; Blake's condition is endlessly curious to me
“I have two favors to ask,” I said. “I’m hoping that since Mag- the ambassador is working for all of our interests, you’ll help with this without making too big a fuss of it.” “I agreed to grant one favor.” “You didn’t agree to grant only one,” I said. “Trust me, this is helpful to all of us.”
Interesting. I can't help but think that Faysal, even in all his generosity, is going to get something out of this second favor that bites them in the ass eventually. Like, "I will bind this wraith, so long as it is bound so Johannes is in command of it" or something.
“Would you deem it satisfactory, per the terms I offered? I would want the past you and the present you to be happy with this favor.”
this is the element that made me trust the favor in the first place; Johannes can't brainwash blake to be happy because that'd be breaking the oath.
“I have an acquaintance, from the Drains. She helped me, I thought I should get her out if I can, and I know she’s not a warrior.”
greeneyes
greeneyes 2
Plz
The wind was cold, which was strange to me, and the landscape alien, twisted, a little too inclined to move as Faysal needed.
I friggin love this kind of thing. Just...so much.
It's because it's Faysal's domain, but also because he's the Door Guy
he opens his own path wherever he goes
“I don’t have anything significant to barter,” I said. “But… the reason I ended up in the drains was that I was fighting a demon. Given a chance, I’ll fight it a fourth time and I think I have the tools to win, this time around. The knowledge. It’s a demon of the first choir, and I can bind it with art. I know how to trap it, I know how to kill it, and I fully intend to do both.”
I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that Blake so easily economizes this act that was intended once purely because of its goodness
but if it means we get Green Eyes back I'm pretty much as willing to overlook that as blake is, until we're at the end of the book and I'm screaming at the inhuman mess that's our protagonist
“In the colloquial sense. Yes. That does count for something, and it does answer questions. In an even match, my kind will inevitably lose to one of their kind. Entropy will have its way in the end, but I can hope that end is in the far-flung future. A demon of the first choir… entropy distilled. Brave or ignorant, to challenge it.” I didn’t speak. “You’ll have your two favors,” he said. “The second in payment for what you have lost in the fighting of demons. Is that agreeable? You should be leaving my domain happier, healthier, and better.”
See this is how you get me to like an angel: make him the first being to recognize and compensate Blake for all the shit he went through. Because man, he really really deserves it. He died fighting like the Worst Thing Ever. Shit would've killed a God Tier Sburbian.
I kind of trust Faysal and think he's mostly genuine
I think that Johannes, even, has good and generous intentions, and isn't just being generous in order to twist the knife in betrayal. He'll pave the way to hell with em, with his Ego leading the fuckin way, but his intentions aren't nearly the worst we've seen.
I believe this partially because it's a more interesting story if it's true, and i think this story is interesting. It'd be one thing to have Johannes secretly keeping the dark secret that makes him the most Evil of Evildudes- and that could happen, we still don't know how he got the power to claim his demesne without using his pipes- but it's quite another if he really is genuine in all that he says, but lets his ego lead him down an unjust road, grinning and gift-giving all the way.
“Then for the release of the Iaiah that you gave me, I grant your terms. I have some traveling to do before I can find your abyss-dwelling companion, and it seems… a very unexpected group has just passed into this realm.” “Unexpected?” “Don’t concern yourself for now.
🍇
The cafe in the ‘downtown’ of Jacob’s Bell. My family. Mom, dad, Ivy, Uncle, Uncle’s current and ex-wives, Jessica and Steph, respectively, and my cousins Kathryn, Ellie, Paige’s twin Peter, Irene’s youngest Christoff, James, and Roxanne, in descending order.
Ah, all together again. Who's dying this time? Probably everyone, actually.
Short of grandmother dying a second time, getting the inheritance out of the hands of the current custodian and heir was apparently the only thing that would bring this group together.
Hahahahahaha that's just...man do I hate the Thorburns. I like them individually, but as a unit they're a fuckin mess that just kind of spreads its spite and horror across all reality.
“She knows about bindings,” I said, “Yeah.” “She shouldn’t be this clever,” Mags said.
I mean, you've pretty much got sandra, prophesy, probably karma, and a super powerful wraith stacked against you
I don't think it's that implausible
oh yeah
and maybe even some Classic Rosalyn Pawnannigans going on
“Fuck being careful,” Mags said. “We’re doing this my way.” “Your-” “Who’s the biggest shit disturber in there, among all your cousins that’ve lived here?”
Hahahahahahahahaha I'm so ready
we're at the end of the chapter and I hope that it ends with Mags just clocking someone across the face
“Naturally?” I asked. “How’re- But Mags was already moving, opening the door. I had to remind myself that the Maggie I’d gotten to know in Toronto wasn’t this person. It was a fake. And the real person was apparently the type that had to move and act. When push came to shove, and she wasn’t facing down a regret bigger than maybe losing her name, she didn’t give herself a chance to hesitate.
Padraic's a good actor, but not that good. He'd have Maggie's particular affectation, but he'd also just love to stand around and talk about the plan. We're dealing with the Real Deal
She didn’t hold anything back, either. “Hey, bitch!” Mags practically bellowed.
I love her
“Wasn’t it you that stole my bike, years back? You bitch.”
Phrased like a practitioner
It wasn’t the kind of strong that screamed magic. It was the kind of strong where Ellie teetered backward and crashed hard into the wall, just beneath Molly’s ghost. “And lost?” Mags taunted Ellie. Molly seemed almost delighted. She hadn’t been fond of Ellie, and the negativity latent in the whole scene… yeah, that wasn’t helping the wraith problem.
Why do my emotions so often align with the Others that serve as our antagonists, I wonder?
“‘Your way’ involves more violence and destruction than I would’ve thought,” I commented. “You don’t know the half of it. I’ve used frigging plastic explosive. It’s a casualty of spending too much time around goblins, you get to think like they do.” “That’s a little scary.” “Which part?” “All of it.”
I mean it's concerning
but I love it anyways
She should have access to all the plastic explosive!
“That’s the strongest line,” she said, with confidence. “The house.” Maybe this was what it was like to be Rose-in-the-Mirror, dealing with Blake. Trusting someone’s gut instincts. “Cool,” was all I said.
Oh sure, you can show empathy now that it's Mags you're not giving a hard time
I do like that he recognizes that kind of partnership, though
and I like how he responds to it
“I’m filled with so much awfulness, and there’s more every minute. I know it’s not me. Every instinct I have is telling me that the awfulness is for you. That I should make you feel it. Make you hurt and angry and frustrated and hopeless.” “That’s an option,” Mags said. “I might even deserve it.”
She has a kind of sentience that seems not to be all the awfulness, that seems to be holding out
Maybe more evidence that her soul's in there somehwere?
“Molly Walker, I can’t ever give you what I took from you, I can’t make proper restitution. But even if I can’t give you your life back, and I can’t give you my life in exchange, because of other debts I owe… I can give you a life.” She cast a sidelong glance at me, “Sorry, Blake.”
Oh
Oh man
“I’m asking you to be my familiar,” Mags said. “And I’ll make things up to you where and when I can. Damn the consequences.”
Holy shit
I didn't see that coming, but it makes a lot of sense
I hadn't even considered that Mags in her Unfamilliared state, could've taken on Blake. I guess I'm just still used to the idea that Blake and Evan are familiars, so I didn't think....oh but that would've been so cool, too.
This, though
I can't even wrap my head around if I think it's a good idea or not
it just
is
what a friggin chapter
that one took me three and a half hours, total
I eagerly await my next session, because where the actual fuck is this gonna go?
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JayManiac 06-Oct-19 02:45 AM
Fun update on my friend's liveread; she's picking up on it
Ilovethis 2
CharmanderHi 2
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JayManiac 07-Oct-19 09:48 PM
AAAAAAAAaaaaa I just got to the DiP shoutout of this liveread and I'll never get over how incredibly grateful I am; thanks so much, guys!
And now, to answer your question from like a week ago:
Do you think Mags and Blake or Mags and Molly would make a better Familiar pair?
I think I'm gonna go with Mags and Molly. Don't get me wrong, I love Mags and Blake as a pair, and I love the way their dynamic mirrors (hardy har har) Blake and Rose from the beginning of the book. They're real actual friends who care about each other, and that's wonderful. But as each other's focus, or as no-holds-barred partners in each other's endeavors, it wouldn't work nearly as well. Blake remarks that Mags' job as ambassador would drive him crazy, and we know that he would be severely and permanently limited in what he could do for the Thorns were he bound to uphold her identity as ambassador. From Mags' perspective, there's not a lot that Blake could do for her as a familiar in terms of helping her through her various struggles with guilt, prophesies, and her endless struggle with the fair and the ugly. One of the main reasons such a partnership is a good idea, is that Blake is in danger of being sucked back into the drains in the same way Rose was in danger of deteriorating as a vestige. And entering into familiarhood just to save him isn't a really solid foundation for a bond as healthy as the one they have now, especially with all they bring to the table. The weight on that table just isn't evenly distributed on either side; it's just gonna collapse under the pressure. The table is also quite flamable, just like blake, and will not likely hold up under consistant fire, not to mention what the blood and darkness would do to the paint job on that thing...it's just not a good idea.
Meanwhile, we've heard time and time again- in fact, with (correct me if I'm wrong) every seemingly healthy practitioner/familiar pair that isn't Blake and Evan- that starting out as enemies can be the beginning of a long and prosperous relationship. Tromos and Faysal both demonstrate that it's more about the strength of the connection, not the polarity, as it were. A very strong negative connection can be easily appropriated to a positive co prosperous relationship, and whatever you say about Mags and Molly, their connection is undeniably strong. Not to mention that dealing with her guilt has been a central part of Mags' struggle as a character, and I like the idea of being forced into a healing position in that regard, having to come to terms with it. Also Mags said that she wished she and Molly were friends and that just stomped all the fuck over my heart so I want it to be true.
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JayManiac 10-Oct-19 05:03 PM
I thought for a little bit about this, and came to the conclusion of Honey Badger for some reason. I dunno, they're irritable, ferocious, and generally solitary. It certainly doesn't capture everything about the relationship, but it's aggressive and asocial enough to represent either and both of them.
I was hoping to come up with a better answer before I had time to read the next chapter, but here we are!
10.5, comin right up
CharmanderHi 2
My tattered shoes found little traction on the ice, but the ice was reflective all the same, and it thrummed as I walked on it. I ventured out further, and each footstep seemed to echo.
So after the huge ass bomb we dropped at the end of last chapter, we're kind of for the first time this arc not starting immediately afterwards, which is both infuriating and intriguing. I also just love the language that begins the chapter, it's (maybe literally) haunting and empty.
I stood in the center, hands in my pockets, and enjoyed the quiet.
This is such a peaceful, calm reprieve. I'm just being drawn into the imagery.
Mags needed to hash things out with Molly, and my presence wasn’t helping. I was tainting the ghost, even if it was by small amounts, and the discussion was a private one, with very real, raw feelings on both sides.
I both love and hate that the story steps back from this. I'd've loved to see it, but this is definitely between them, and any observer might've felt out of place.
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A bird 🐦 10-Oct-19 05:14 PM
You just know that Wildbow has the conversation written out somewhere unpublished, too
agree 1
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JayManiac 10-Oct-19 05:15 PM
Don't worry, we'll get it when we get Molly's Histories interlude; it's right around the corner I'm sure of it
Johannes’ domain was open, and the dog had been pretty decent to me, all things considered… but couldn’t that be a trap? It would be a good trick, luring me in, making promises, and then when I trusted him and waltzed blindly into the Sorcerer’s demesne, they’d pounce on me and destroy me. I didn’t want to worry, even in my downtime.
It's passages like this that make me more worried, and less sure that this is Elliot's Byronchocolate. I stand by what I said, that Johannes will turn out to be exactly what he says he is, because I think that's more interesting, but at this point who knows? After all, the story basically yelled "Blake's gonna die!" at me for arcs and I was like "yeah right then we wouldn't have an interesting story"
so I'm sure if Johannes is secretly more evil than I'm giving him credit for, Wildbow will find a way to make that just as interesting
“Ahem.” I turned. Faysal Anwar sat by the lake, on my side. His tail swished behind him.
Oh hey, speak of the devil
or, well, the devil's familiar....
speak of the angel?
does that work?
“You’re an angel, colloquially speaking. Are the motives here angelic? Supporting Johannes?” “Considering my earlier offer?” “No. Just curious.” “My motives aren’t angelic. I do believe our actions are necessary.”
How does an angel like....have motives that aren't angelic? I mean, I guess they're not incarnations, so they can do things that aren't in line with their main Thing, but this suggests a level of humanity in this talking dog angel. I wonder if angels are one of the kinds of Others that are derived most from humans, like Revenants, Bogeymen, or (theoretically) Faeries?
“I’ve heard it described as a ghetto for Others.” “I don’t agree with the choice of word, ‘ghetto’, but yes, a place for Others. Humans are winning, Others are being forced to the fringes, and something is liable to happen, given time.”
See, here's the thing: what do you mean "winning"?
I'm gonna be drawing a lot from Weber and Marx here so bear with me as I rant about Johannes and his ideology for the next lots of minutes actually I'm gonna go get a glass of water real quick because I feel like I have a lot to say and my throat's kind of dry
Okay, so there's this sentiment that humans are "winning", specifically as a result of Science and Technology, right? We're moving forwards; we're curing diseases, getting vaccinations, comparing notes, dispelling superstition, filling the dark parts of the world with nightlights and cameras and microphones. In the terms of Pact, the Others (which used to be responsible for plagues, for supernatural-seeming killers, for the blurry imprint of a person on an old camera) are losing. Their influence over humanity is dwindling as science replaces them, we march forwards, leaving them behind.
But what the hell are we marching towards?
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JayManiac 10-Oct-19 05:45 PM
Science has no meaning. It might tell us what is, or a close approximation of it, but it can never tell us what should, because never does a should come from an is. It offers no purpose. Science is our method of domination over nature, bending it to our will. It is not our will, and if we pretend that it is, this merely allows our will to be determined by forces we aren't thinking about. For example, let's think about gene editing for a moment. Someday in the future, it may be possible to lower the chances that your child suffers from genetic diseases. That seems kind of awesome, and science is pretty great because it allows us to save all those lives and avoid all that suffering. Oh, but also, you might be able to lower the chances that your child is autistic, that they have adhd or the cruel disease of homosexuality. Do you see how some of this could be a problem now? The argument I've heard in defense of this is that it's far easier to raise a child who isn't on the spectrum, than it is to raise a child who is, and thus it's a justifiable choice. First of all, that's highly circumstantial, but more importantly, what's "easiest" in many cases is determined by our social norms- by our often flawed social norms. I could easily decide that it'd be best to raise a child who's straight, who looks white, who won't have any kind of mental "deficiency" that I'd have to deal with, simply because those kinds of people generally tend to do better in society.
By funneling everything through this way of thinking, we're in danger of killing the diversity of thought and individuals, which John Stuart Mill cites as the very purpose of humanity in his book: "on liberty". If we've invented an elevator when the true purpose of humanity is to walk up the stairs, then we're all royally fucked. But at the same time, people with certain disabilities will have a real hard time walking up those stairs, and elevators have done a lot of good for them.
Bringing it back to Johannes, what he's doing is similar to what science is doing to the world: he's setting up a system wherein people are alienated from Others- from diverse ideas, intense emotion, and horrible death. Eventually, humanity will win and we won't have to deal with any of that shit anymore, right?
but what if Others are what makes us human in the first place!?
He's losing the magic of it, and replacing that with his corporate utilitarian scientific schemes. Such that if the day ever comes where humanity beats the Others once and for all, with Johannes at their head, he won't even realize that he's been ruling over hell all this time.
And that's what I love about Pact- well, one of the many, many things I love about Pact.
It's one thing to say "we're losing all the magic in the world oh nooo"
But this story acknowledges that that magic comes at a cost
that Others, while they might provide for us more of a meaning than science ever could, are also fucking awful. They're responsible for horrible, horrible fates, and in a sense I can understand the motivation to get rid of all those fuckers.
But doing so could just as easily push us down a path haphazardly rationalized through western reason- one which leaves everyone empty and alien and meaningless.
Wasn't I trying to read something a second ago?
ah yeah, right
I nodded, “Humans are winning. That’s nice to know, and a little difficult to grasp.” “A long story. Why is it so hard to believe?” “You said it yourself. Demons beat angels-”
I was wondering about this seeming disparity myself, and I think I'll have a bit more to say about it, but for now it does seem a little contradictory.
“You were saying, before I interrupted? Demons beat angels, and this makes it hard to believe man would succeed?” “Yeah,” I said. I pulled my hands from my pockets and spread my arms. Look at me. Entropy wins. I’ve been to the Drains, but I haven’t come across anything suggesting that there’s a force of creation that’s working just as hard.”
Since clearly I'm of the belief that humans "winning" could be a bad thing in the greater context of meaning I could believe that it isn't actually a contradiction, that the angels all die and humanity goes on without purpose...which is pretty pessimistic, but hey.
“There are two possible answers,” Faysal Anwar told me. “The first is that such a place exists, but creation spews forth, it does not take in.” “Maybe,” I said. “Gods come from somewhere, don’t they?”
There's no wellspring of creation, Blake. If humanity wants its gods and angels and cute little bird ghosts they've gotta make em themselves. If humanity wants a purpose, wants a good, wants an order...well, it's up to them to keep up or replace what's Drained away.
He swished his tail. The long fur and the movement of snow behind him made it look more dramatic. “That the drains are not annihilating anything, only changing. Change provokes change, much as you continue to spread the effect of the ‘Drains’, as you call the abyss. That change might be uncomfortable, even unpleasant or ugly when that change affects the things you find comfortable, but not intrinsically bad.”
Such is the Last Question. I like this, actually, and it's the answer that I gravitate towards. The drains, much like Otherdom at large, are really awful to experience, but look at what they produce: diversity. They might tear down systems of order, destroy entire lives, but such is the nature of this humanifold I've been striving for. That "no opinion can be silenced" can mean you have to hear some awful, heinous shit. It's the price we pay for not becoming zombies alienated from not only the products of labor, but the products of the collective consciousness. There's no utopia, all we can hope for is that the demos, the polis, humanity creates enough alternatives that we get to explore the possibilities.
“Maybe,” I said. “But that brings me back to my initial question. If humans are succeeding here, and the forces of annihilation and Wrong are supposed to win over the forces of creation and Right, are humans simply beating the Others back because we’re somehow prevailing over Wrong? The demonic choirs include a choir of human depravities… can that mean that we’re a divine creation, that we’re naturally opposed to demons, and somehow we’re one of the only choirs that’s winning, against all odds?”
Oh Blake
one would think you'd seen enough not to count humans among the angel's number
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A bird 🐦 10-Oct-19 06:06 PM
He's certainly got a lot of hope in him for such an utterly doomed character from the get go
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JayManiac 10-Oct-19 06:06 PM
Right!?
“I can imagine you don’t. I can’t tell you that humankind is innately Good, Blake Thorburn, but take solace in the fact that I can’t tell you that humans are innately Wrong either. I don’t know.” “Damn it,” I said.
Hahahahahahahahahaha, Blake has to get a literal being of Right to tell him that life's a little more complicated than that...wonderful.
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A bird 🐦 10-Oct-19 06:08 PM
On the one hand, a literal angel telling Blake that humans are not angelic. On the other, Evan exists
⚖
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JayManiac 10-Oct-19 06:09 PM
“If it helps,” he replied, “You’re making good strides forward. Most wouldn’t go to the efforts you have.” “I’m not human,” I said. “No,” he said. He stood and stretched. “But for something only one or two steps removed from humanity, you’re doing well enough to count, as I see it.”
Which is another reason This is so important!
HHhhhhh
it's really touching to hear that, even and especially after the long tirade I just went on.
if Faysal ends up being more of a dick I'm gonna be real sad
When the light faded, I saw what he’d left behind. Three rusty pipes, each connected to the others.
The other favor? Is it a gateway back to the drains? A safer one, maybe?
I laid it down, and it continued to boil and steam, sinking into and beyond the reflective surface. The ice that had been sectioned off melted. Not so different from a hole for ice fishing. The reflections it cast were those of a still pool of water. The ring of pipes floated, but it didn’t float in water.
This is so cool; I love how the hockey rink plays into this. We think it's just because it's a giant mirror, but it was also setting up one of these awesome portal thingies.
I love Weird portals, like pools of water, dreams, the mouth of a hippo....Beyonders is a good series
suspicious 2
In the darkness, I saw a figure appear, large round eyes glowing the faintest of greens, hands reaching for the pipe, holding the loop much as I had.
sharkhi greeneyes
🎊 4
greeneyes 4
CharmanderHi 3
Also yeah that's a thing that happens in beyonders- the isekai portal is the mouth of a hippo at the zoo it's great
“Hi, Green Eyes,” I said. “Blake here.”
Ilovethis 3
“You gave me guidance when I needed it. I offered you a way out, if I got the chance. If you want company, and a bit of a break-” She lunged.
Uh.....I mean I think this is just the narrative equivilent of a jumpscare but if it turns out that green eyes became more of a violent bogeyman in the time since we last saw her I'm gonna be really sad
She didn’t emerge on my side.
Oh yeah, there really kind of isn't any reason that other bogeymen would be on your side of the mirror
that's kind of a You Thing
which begs the question of how the fuck is he gonna deal with her now...Mags?
She took a second to enjoy her full range of movement, contorting herself as she turned two quick figure-eights in the water, chasing her tail for a moment, then doing another couple of looser figure-eights at the lake’s bottom, where the ice overhead didn’t hamper her movements. She gave me a thumbs up.
This is wonderful and wholesome and now I'm scared that's how wonderful it is
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A bird 🐦 10-Oct-19 06:19 PM
Sometimes Wildbow just gives us nice things!
suspicious 2
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JayManiac 10-Oct-19 06:20 PM
Andrew Hussie once said that he measures everything in terms of meat and candy
meat being the plot and the themes, candy being what the audience wants
Wildbow does a similar thing, but with meat and poison
and he's no stranger to poisoned meat, either
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spinagon 10-Oct-19 06:21 PM
Lead acetate candy
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JayManiac 10-Oct-19 06:22 PM
“Right,” I said. “I, uh, hope this is better than your prior circumstances were.” She nodded. She blew me a kiss.
Okay I'm giving into the Wholesome, I don't care if it lasts I just want to be here crying of happiness because this is beautiful
same 3
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A bird 🐦 10-Oct-19 06:22 PM
Sounds like a pretty sweet way to die
agree 1
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JayManiac 10-Oct-19 06:23 PM
Hands in my pockets, I walked away.
Alrighty, there we are. Back to pain.
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A bird 🐦 10-Oct-19 06:24 PM
Hello darkness my old friend
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JayManiac 10-Oct-19 06:24 PM
On a level, I was one of those players. She was toying with my friends, and she was tainted by Conquest. I didn’t want her head so much as I wanted to clear it. To remove Conquest’s crown, so to speak, and give her the ability to think straight.
And hey, if her head comes with, no biggie, right?
Windows were two-way, as reflections went. When I’d jumped through the factory window, I’d passed through the factory window. The only glass that had broken had been the glass I’d carried.
very clever; I didn't even think about that
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spinagon 10-Oct-19 06:26 PM
Wonder how he sees double-pane window
It has 2 reflections (technically 4)
(even more technically infinite partial reflections)
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JayManiac 10-Oct-19 06:28 PM
probably just feels a little weird as you wobble through it
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jsoh 10-Oct-19 06:28 PM
I think you just move to whatever you intend to move
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A bird 🐦 10-Oct-19 06:29 PM
Based on what we've seen of the spirits, it probably just kinda works normally until someone puts power into convincing them otherwise
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JayManiac 10-Oct-19 06:29 PM
agree
although it'd be cool if he just kind of bounced off
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A bird 🐦 10-Oct-19 06:29 PM
Instant binding diagram
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JayManiac 10-Oct-19 06:29 PM
I suppose it could be convinced that it's an anti-blake measure
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A bird 🐦 10-Oct-19 06:29 PM
or isekai portal?
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JayManiac 10-Oct-19 06:30 PM
It's always an isekai portal
ever read Through the Looking Glass?
classic Isekai
😄 1
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spinagon 10-Oct-19 06:31 PM
Adventures in Wonderland too
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A bird 🐦 10-Oct-19 06:32 PM
Yeah, but Through The Looking Glass specifically has a mirror as the portal
It's a natural fit
Have the Thorburn Bogeyman give the Red Queen a visit
Dammit I was trying so hard not to sidetrack the liveread
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JayManiac 10-Oct-19 06:36 PM
No, you should always livetrack the sideread
wait shit
in any case- mostly because of my giant rant in the middle there, I'm gonna have to pause for the meantime, but I hope to be back kind of soon because this is Oktober Break and I was hoping to do some Pact catchup this weekend!
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JayManiac 10-Oct-19 07:18 PM
To be fair, I read that essay in high school, but we revisited it in sociology last week so it's pretty fresh on my mind
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JayManiac 13-Oct-19 10:23 PM
I was hoping to do some Pact catchup this weekend!So due to lack of sleep, a trip to the middle of nowhere, pennsylvania, and an art project that turned out real cool but took so much time to do so, that didn't happen. Let's read a chapter and a half with whatever time remains.
Also, I met the other person on my campus who's a wildbow megafan and I'm so happy!
I was just sitting there, casually recommending worm to people, as y'do, and one of the sophomores I was with said "oh, that one about the girl and bug powers? yeah my friend's been trying to get me to read that for like a year". So they gave me his number and we had lunch and it turns out he's read pact and twig too, and listens to DiP! I told him about the live-read, so maybe he'll end up joining the server! In any case, I'm glad I've finally found people to talk to irl about pact; it's a different experience. Speaking of, my friend's made it through arc 2 and she says "i wanna go read pact" with nearly the same frequency that I do so I'm counting this as a success.
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Wildbow 13-Oct-19 10:32 PM
Fun!
Also trippy!
That there's enough people out there that fans can run into one another
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JayManiac 13-Oct-19 10:36 PM
I figured there had to be at least one on campus- maybe just one of those ones who's only read worm- but it was a surprise over here, too! And he's one of the fans who loves engaging in extensive conversations about the material, which is my favorite kind of fan of things! He's also a psych major so he has a pretty unique perspective to engage with.
Speaking of conversations about the material, where was I?
when we last left off, Blake was probably screwed, but at least he'd brought back a friend!
And now: the Behaims. What are they up to? What's their command structure? Do they have any redeeming qualities? Will we ever know?
By the time I’d circled back to the front, someone was stepping outside. Two Behaims, older than Laird had been, but still possessed of the Behaim’s characteristic stockiness and ruddy complexions, heavy eyebrows, dark hair and dark eyes.
Like this: they're older than Laird, but they aren't the leaders? Do they back Duncan with the same fervor? How do they think Laird died?
They got in their car. I double-checked which car it was, then got in the back seat of the same car, behind the driver. I had to lean to one side to see the driver’s door move, and quickly pulled my door shut at the same time.
I love this; immediately resets the tension and sets the conflict, not to mention trapping Blake in a car with two probably-experienced practitioners.
Slightly off. It was three doors that closed, nearly in sync but not quite there.
Oh don't worry, I'm sure the chronomancers won't notice a little timing issue
“Nothing,” he said. “Duncan urged us to be paranoid.” “Don’t badger me,” he said, gruff. “It’s nothing.”
They seem to be listening to duncan; maybe that's not as ridiculous an idea as I thought it might be. But yes, being paranoid is the right course of action in this day and age, much as I'd love to shit on Rose for it.
In my memories of riding my bike, being aware of my surroundings had been key. Looking inside cars to see who the drivers were and what they were doing, so I could adjust accordingly. Cell phone? Cause to be wary. Wearing a hat while driving? Almost as bad. Why? I couldn’t say, but the rule held true.
Huh, I've never really noticed that for some reason, on a bike or in my own car- not that I've ever ridden a motorcycle.
There's also the way blake distances himself from his own memories so...impersonally. Not "I remembered when I'd ride my bike" or anything that could sound natural while being true, but a cognizant recognition of the difference. It's subtle, I almost missed it.
Come on, I thought. Give me something more than talk about family.
Buddy, I think you're in the wrong book for that
“Lets her kids play too much with those games. Five years ago, you could expect them to be playing, running around, popping up every half hour to show us what they were doing. Now they’re little zombies, eyes on tiny screens you could cover with your hand.”
Hahahahahahahahahaha
somehow, a chronomancer pulling the "back in my day" speech makes it all the funnier
even if I don't entirely disagree with the sentiment- though I think that's oversimplifying it.
then again
s'what behaims do best
“If things were different, I’d volunteer to step up in someone’s place, make someone younger stand down and sit this one out. But things aren’t that convenient, Gloria. All hands on deck. Duncan all but said it.” “Yours and mine included.” “The parents too. Every child old enough to be awakened.”
Can't help but feel that the behaims are fighting a losing battle, against behemoths like the Sorcerer and the Meath-backed Duchamps. This seems like they've found a cohesive leader in duncan, but they can't be that organized so soon after losing Laird, and they don't even really have a good ideological reason why.
So the fact that they're throwing child soldiers, everyone in the family at this problem is...troubling for the behaims at large
“He wants to go after the Diabolist. There’s some things that shouldn’t be included in that united front. It’s playing with fire, and he’s so intense about it,” she’d lowered her voice an octave, as if afraid she’d be overheard.
And maybe their chain of command isn't exactly that cohesive
“He went head to head with the younger Rose in Toronto, he knows the personality we’re up against.” “He says he did, but he can’t give details.”
I wonder why? 👀
I mean I know why
⬛ 2
but also if his interlude had revealed that he used Time Magics to skip over the moment where Blake was killed and thus maintained his connection that would make a lot of sense to me; it's kind of what I thought had happened for a bit.
I suppose it's still not impossible, that he's just keeping that close to the chest- I have to reread that part and figure out if I had any evidence for that interpretation at all.
I think there was a series of ticks, and one of them was missing and so I thought something had happened there
“Duncan seems to favor the younger one.” “Alister.”
Hey so when I met that guy who'd read pact his questions were "have you met duncan?" and "have you met alister?" with regards to the behaims. I said I hadn't and that's where that thread ended, but...now I know that something of significance could be happening? Also it seems like Duncan's not the actual leader, just a regent (not to be confused with a Regent 👑) until the new leader is selected. Does that mean Alister's the actual scion (not to be confu- you get the picture) that they're sending as contender for Lord?
lol 1
Or at least a candidate?
“He’s only eighteen.” “So’s the Thorburn girl.” “Twenty. Molly Walker was eighteen.” “Close enough. He’s…”
So this is just a minor lie that this dude just said there right? I wouldn't think a practitioner would be so..."close enough" about those things...
I checked the rear-view mirror, and I saw the older man looking straight at me.
well shit
“We got a problem here,” he muttered. I wasn’t sure if it was a question for me or a statement for Gloria. “Do we?” I asked.
Hahahahahahhahahahahah no, blake, they're just gonna let you hitch a ride, no prob, keep talking about the behaim family secrets, etc. Might badger you for gas money.
it's so casual when he gets caught (edited)
almost like an "i meant to do that. so?"
“Don’t recognize you,” Ben said. “Might be for the best,” I said.
For the murderer of his family member? probably.
“Can’t imagine you’re an elemental.” “No,” I said. “I’m complicated.”
He's a wraithtigebirdburn
very rare species
and severely endangered
“Who’re you siding with?” “Nobody,” I said. “Everybody.”
That whole "I can lie" think comes in handy sometimes- although I wonder if this would clock as a lie even if he were bound by seal of Solomon stuff
“To what ends?” I thought for a second. “Bringing change.”
What kind of change is Blake talking about here, I wonder? He hasn't exhibited many motivations beyond "i want my friends to not die", so what's he on about? Is he still concerned with breaking the wheel, after all this time? I really really hope so.
“I’m a practitioner, Gloria too. You don’t think we don’t have tricks up our sleeves? Be concerned.”
That's how I threaten everyone from now on: be concerned
I know it's a response to what blake just said, but it's still kind of lame, dude.
He seems sort of desperate, not really sure what the fuck to do
“I know how the practice works,” I said. “You need a good idea about what I am to really come after me. Without a nice label to put on this eerie stranger in your backseat, you’re forced to try a scattershot approach. To guess, or cover as many bases as possible.”
I never thought about how much of a disadvantage practitioners are when it comes to Others in exactly those terms, but it is kinda fun to be on the other side of it.
Pact is still far from an overdog story, but it's doing a bunch of cool things with Blake's new position in the magic system.
I could see the faintest shift in his brow. The gleam of sweat beneath that cap of his. If I kept this up, I’d give the man a heart attack.
I wonder what emotional connotation that's said with. Neutral? Observational? Excited? Concerned?
“Fishing for information?” “A little bit,” I said. “But I’m more interested in giving it. There’s a reason Duncan isn’t confident in his own abilities, and it has nothing to do with the wounds on his wrists.”
This is a new tactic; I'm surprised how well Blake slid into this supervillain position after being caught, like it really was what he meant to do the whole time. he's so cold here, and I know we're talking about Duncan, but still.
“I want to give you information about the people you’ve put in charge. Laird was reckless. Duncan doubly so. Duncan lost a great deal of his personal power because he lied. Think twice about putting stock in his opinion.” “I’m already thinking twice. You learn to, or you do very poorly as a practitioner.”
This is an oddly polite and amiable conversation, he almost seems willing to listen to blake, give him some kind of benefit of the doubt. And even as someone who's been advised to paranoia. I supprose if you come about it on your own, you're a lot less willing...
“Were you the one to kill Laird?”
Ruh Roh
That's an awfully specific question there
“But it’s as good as a confirmation. Was the killing just?”
....imma say yes
I could say yes and feel reasonably confident I was telling the truth. I might even sway the man. “I’m not sure,” I admitted. “It was desperate.”
that's a good answer, and maybe even a Good one. Have I mentioned that I like blake, and that I think he's still a good person, even when he's being a supervillain and also technically not a person?
“I can’t tell if you don’t seem like the desperate sort at all, sitting in a stranger’s car with no sign of hesitation, or if you’re made of little but.”
Me neither, my friend. Me neither.
“Are you affiliated with the Thorburns?” Ben asked. I looked at him, but I was fairly confident in my poker face.
Nah, who? Thor-burns? I'm not familiar
“I’m my own man,” I said. “But there are three people and one bird in the Thorburn faction I’d very much like to save. I haven’t decided what needs to be done in the heir’s case.” “I see.”
HHHHHhhhhhhHHhhHH
As the one who still thinks that the story's resolution will come when Rose and Blake either get along or fail to irrevocably: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
“If it helps,” I ventured, “I would very much like for your grandchildren to walk away safe as well. Same for the Duchamp’s grandchildren.”
that said, probably wins him points with this guy
“Is that what you want then?” Ben asked. “Those four for the grandchildren? An implicit threat that if one of those four is harmed, the children might be too?” “No,” I said. “I want you guys to get the point. I want all of us to stop smashing our heads against the wall, failing to learn as we repeat cycles over and over. I want change, I want us to do this one thing Right. That includes leaving those four and the grandchildren out of it. It means paying more attention to who you’re putting in charge, because Laird was arrogant, Duncan was stupid, and you can’t afford to make a bad call on the third go-around.”
When he said that, I literally also wanted to smash my head against the wall. I think that as practitioners go, he might be too far gone. Too far up the great ideological ass of exchangism, of implicit threats and eyes for eyes. Too blind. But I love Blake's speech here, because I worried that he'd narrowed his moral focus to just his friends, that he'd be too eager to fall into the ways of the Others. I'm still worried he'll do that, but at least now we know he's not there yet.
“I’ll turn around, tell the others back at the house, as diplomatically as I can,” Ben said. “You try this spiel on Sandra yet?” “No,” I said. “You’ll find it a harder sell. The Duchamps are a little more wrapped up in keeping things the same.”
So we're seeing Blake make a little more of a name for himself here, be a little more of a factor in people's heads. Can't say if that'll be advantageous, but at least he might have some more sway.
I liked knowing that the Behaims weren’t arrogant scumbags across the board, even if the one legit Behaim I’d talked to thus far was a dopey older guy who wore a hat while driving.
Hahahahahahhahahahahahaha
But yes
it's hopeful
if frustrating at times, because he's still got a little bit of their ideology in him
Talking on a cell phone while driving? I fantasized about reaching in through an open window, snatching it, and dashing it to pieces on the road before accelerating off.
pretty sure there's a youtube video of that, I remember it being hillarious
I moved. I was more comfortable in my skin now, riding the high of three minor victories. Molly caught, Green Eyes released, and now a successful contact with a Behaim.
Yay! Victories! Now for everything to go bad come chapter end!
In the end, it came down to sheer luck. Good or bad, I wasn’t sure. I found Sandra.
Sandra's also frustrating, in much the opposite way from the behaims. She's far more reasonable and empathetic than the behaims, but wants to preserve tradition and literally has made her goal to perpetuate all this awful shit
“Exactly,” he said. He smiled. “Don’t fret.” “I’m not fretting.” “I know your tells. Your thumbs. Your hands are in your pockets, but you have restless thumbs.”
These two are so cute together...shame they've been tasked with killing blake or otherwise removing him from the equation
I waited in a car, eyes still forward. I could make out the Satyrs, well behind, peering at the car I’d just left. I’d made a small noise or something.
Oh right, almost forgot these guys can totally smell Blake there
I mean maybe that's just in Johannes' demesne, as he's a lot more material there, but I wouldn't rule it out
magic noses and such.
“Good,” Sandra replied. “Keep an eye out for the mirror dweller. We still don’t know enough, and he is a priority.” I felt my heart pound in my chest, more a head against a wall pounding than a throb. Alarming on several levels. It was a connection between me and her, threatening my cover, she knew, and it made Jeremy’s objective here pretty damn clear.
I love the contrast between how he reacted when his cover was blown w/ the behaim dude vs here, where his cover isn't even blown yet. This just sends him into such a panic, where he was so supervillain-y before
She reached out, putting one hand over Jeremy’s heart. “We both do what we do best. No apologies.” “No apologies,” he said. She gave him a light push, and he turned away in the same motion, raising one hand, snapping. “Hey, you hooligans. Get a move on!” His enthusiasm and call for action seemed somehow false.
I love that this story can still take stabs at my heart through the antagonists' romance that I really want to work out. Isn't that just beautiful? Like...ouch. It hurts.
“We’re crashing a party,” Jeremy said. “Barriers or no, when you ask a god to open a door, that door gets opened.”
So dionysian vampires don't even have to be invited. Great.
What was Sandra doing? Only one idea stood out. Molly. Mags. Acting against the Thorburn wraith while the Drunk kept Rose occupied.
Oh?
And I was left having to choose.
Hmmmm
I didn't see that coming, and I'm not sure if I just skimmed over the bit where it was more concretely set up- it's a good setup in terms of them splitting up and Blake being forced to choose, but I don't know where Blake's getting the idea that Mags is her next target.
In any case, that's a decision that I'm not eager for anyone to make!
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JayManiac 19-Oct-19 10:30 PM
Hey guys, sorry I haven't had the chance to read this week, midterms have been a bit of a Time over here. I don't know what the deadline is on the DiP discussion question, but @Elliot (Boy) was kind enough to give me this current one so I could answer despite my probably-won't-ever-be-caught-up status! Sorry if it's a bit too late to submit an answer, I know I probably should've gotten to it sooner, but here it is:
Ilovethis 1
The Black Volga: This eastern euorpean urban legend— about a black car from the late fifties that’s used by whatever minority is ruining everything for everyone (jews, homosexuals, the mafia, vampires, or mexica- wait no that wouldn’t be relevant) to steal children away in the dead of night—is one that I feel has a somewhat more abyssal origin A man with few connections is driving home at night in his Car Of No Particular Color. He has no wife, no children, no living family and few records of his existence; all he has now is the car, his car. But maybe, just maybe, when he gets to where he’s going—all of his belongings in tow—he’ll start a new life, with new friends. His car is old, but it’s a new beginning. Soon he’ll have a new car, he’ll meet a beautiful woman who won’t leave him for the newest young, handsome alternative, and then- movement, shadows on the roadside: a group of teenagers— hardly older than children— laughing and waiting and kissing each other. The man accelerates. His own childhood was never like that, meeting girls and sneaking around at night without a care in the world. His own childhood was the horror of the second world war, the battlefield, the boredom, being forced into company with the most repulsive of comrades. If only he’d had the chance to be like them, maybe he wouldn’t be quite so destitute, bitter, purposeless...but the end of the road awaits. He still has that chance, he is not so old yet, and soon he too will reclaim the joys of his lost youth. He’s sure of it. (edited)
Sure of it, because he cannot let himself believe anything else. And sure of it because he does not know that the teenagers have signaled their friends further along the road, that a target has appeared. They ready their eggs and, laughing, loose them in a shower upon the stranger’s vehicle, staining the glossy new paint, splattering the windshield, startling the driver. He careens off of the road— and along such desolate pathways are where the cracks are widest; one yawns large enough to swallow the man, car, and all.
After the crash, the man wakes, pulls himself off of the ground. The egg-stained windshield is shattered, and above is darkness. He stumbles back to his car, as the broken glass sticks to him, adhered by a mixture of blood and yolk.
It starts. (edited)
One headlight comes on.
He drives on roads of rough, neglected gravel. Paths which were once roads, or trails, but that are ever crumbling and crawling with overgrowth. Every so often the headlights illuminate some impossible creature— a humanoid with antlers and half a face, a too-obease woman with fungus crawling up her skin. A nightmare. He drives for hours or years, never seeming to tire. He’s no longer hungry, but still he eats of the unfortunate creatures who stumble in the way of his car, tearing at the roadkill with hands and teeth as it makes its feeble squirms. Some of the monstrous creatures hail him, beg him to take them away from this place. He nods, beckons each hitchhiker into his backseat, and feeds on them as well.
Ilovethis 1
Sometimes he sees glimpses of a Black Volga— the car he would’ve had. He chases it, but it’s too fast, and always out of reach. But the more he eats the faster he goes, the more the car is him and he is the car, the longer he can keep his Shadow in sight. After so long, he knows only that he must have it. He hunts the fastest prey, entices them with promises of safety, and consumes them. Some of them are quick with the adolescence and wild abandon that cursed him to this wretched hellscape, and he revels in consuming them the most, as if he could taste their youth and feel it become a part of him. Between meals he ages, his skin wrinkles, his scales shed, his hair and fur turns to gray—but for a time after each victim he is handsome, strong, desirable again. It happens faster and faster until he is always seeking new flesh to devour, to eat and eat until finally the shadow can outrun him no longer. The Black Volga folds around him and becomes the car he drives. He cannot tell that he has escaped The Backroads, for he sees no difference between children and monsters.
Ilovethis 1
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Elliot (Boy) 19-Oct-19 10:32 PM
We’re recording in about 12 hours so you made it with time to spare!
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JayManiac 19-Oct-19 10:33 PM
Yay! sharkhi I hope everyone enjoys and I look forward to hearing what everyone else came up with....in like three months
I recently took a mini road trip that had me driving along no-name streets in the middle of ohio alone for three hours, and I could absolutely imagine a version of Limbo that's just...that. Gravel and darkness and broken-down buildings and shadows that your headlights just can't penetrate; it might even run alongside the forest for a little bit. As I was driving, I could imagine slipping into The Backroads without even noticing, and I really wanted to play with the idea.
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JayManiac 23-Oct-19 08:29 PM
Mags and Molly on the one hand, my friends on the other.
It's been far too long, but we jump straight back into the conflict, the tension. I think Blake "im gonna crawl out of hell to save my friends" thorburn is probably gonna choose his friends over Molly and Mags, but who knows? They are, importantly, also his friends. I kind of hope he chooses them, not only because Mags' situation is a bit more tenuous- his friends at least have the House as a kind of protection- but because I really want to see the conversation Blake would have with Sandra. I feel like I could absolutely sympathize with her position here, and I feel equally that I'd be obligated to tear it to shreds. That seems like an emotional/politicomantic conflict I'd be down with
My first instinct was to break a window, get their attention while they were together.
Speaking of philosophical conflicts: I love that Blake's first instinct is to choose a third option, because trolley problems don't exist
agree 1
well unless you have literally all the information ever
but nobody in this story has that
because information is a social construct in this story
we're getting off topic
The Blake that had fought Conquest would have broken the window. But that wasn’t a long-term solution. I’d have their attention. But what would I do after that? I couldn’t fight. I could maybe break glass, maybe reach through like Rose had. I had limited means of attack, and I was more vulnerable than they were, to boot.
Man, don't you just hate that awkward moment when a character seems to have overcome one of the fatal flaws they've had for the entire book but it's in a context which maybe implies that he hasn't grown past it so much as become a more inhuman, cold, calculating, unfeeling entity entirely antithetical to where you want their character to go in the future and thus you can't look at this perceived development as a good thing without some serious reservations? Isn't that just the worst!?
I saw people, a few gathered Others, ghosts, and then Johannes, in the company of Faysal Anwar. Sandra and Johannes, converging on the same spot.
this hypothetical political debate just got a helluvalot more interesting
The barrier against my interference apparently included stopping me from breaking in, literally speaking. Screw Rose. Damn her. If my friends got hurt because of this, I’d… I wasn’t sure what I’d do. I couldn’t think straight.
Neither can she. That's sort of the problem. That's sort of the much bigger fatal flaw that's a problem you haven't actually developed that much towards solving.
I estimated the distance. I had time for a quick conversation, and that had to be better than standing here being useless. Mags.
I love that the chapter doesn't just make a choice based on the factors presented at the end of last chapter, he bounces between them, considers other avenues, tries to maximize his effectiveness towards solving or mitigating both problems, etc.
There were a lot of crummy little shops and businesses here, punctuated by clusters of nicer looking businesses, where people had moved in and just gotten things off the ground. Amid convenience stores and dry cleaners that looked like they’d been around since the thirties, there was a fancy upscale place selling women’s yoga clothes or something, and a place selling mountaineering, kayaking and canoeing equipment that looked like it didn’t have anything that cost less than a hundred bucks. Odd places, for the economically depressed town. Were the business owners banking on the city’s expansion, or were these businesses some kind of abstract indication of Johannes’ influence creeping into the city proper?
I don't know if I could say much that wouldn't be repeating things and themes I've already pulled out concerning the new shops and Johannes' ideology, but I'm glad the book is explicitly pointing to that metaphor now because it maybe means I made a good connection there. Also blake what the fuck are you talking about it's always both you should know this by now.
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JayManiac 23-Oct-19 08:55 PM
I found Mags in Molly’s company, at the lakeside. Mags still had the mirror, tucked into the back of her jeans. They hadn’t killed each other, and didn’t look prepared to.
This is shaping up to be an awesome Moiralleigence and I'm so here for it
Mags looked like she’d been affected too, but in a different way. I couldn’t see her face from this angle, but her posture was bent, as if she had a weight on her shoulders. A pity. I might have hoped she’d recover a bit, facing down her demons. Had I? Facing down Carl?
I think she's gonna get there over time, but you can't really blame her for still having a hard time not an hour into the process. As for whether blake recovered a bit- I think he did, but that recovery was complicated by his subsequent realization.
“Sandra,” I said. “She knows about Molly.” “Balls.”
Balls indeed, my friend. I love Mags so much.
Mags didn’t respond. Her head was bent. “What?” I asked. “She was a… She wasn’t an enemy,” Mags said. “She is now,” I said.
And there goes any hope, hint or semblance of friendship/paternal interaction that these two had in arc 8. And with it, my heart
man, if everyone would just stop trying to kill each other
that'd be great
“You can’t do anything here either,” she said. “You’re doing less than nothing. You’re feeding Molly. She calmed down after you left.”
Interesting. I'm betting inter-Thorburn rage in particular feeds Molly more, especially since Blake is fresh off of cursing out Rose in his inner monologue. It's such a cool narrative device for so many reasons.
I stopped speaking a full second before we felt it, as though some sort of premonition had hit, or I was like the animals that freaked out before a natural disaster. It rippled through the city, and it set the windows and mirrors to shuddering. It rolled through me, a shockwave without any physical force at all. It didn’t push me or knock me off my feet, and it didn’t stir my hair, but I still felt as though I might have been collapsing or bleeding from every orifice if I’d happened to be flesh and blood. My body, head to toe, changed, recuperating from countless infinitesimally small injuries. A one-percent change in every single damn cell, or spirit, or whatever.
What the fuck was that?
“What the moose dick was that?” she asked.
ah, thanks Mags
The predominant odor was wine, late in its arrival, so sharp I might have wanted to sneeze if I’d been able to. I could taste it, as the smell reached and touched the back of my tongue on its way down to my lungs.
Ah dicks, he can do that!? And he did do that!?
Everyone: "hey so literally anything could set off a chain of events resulting in all out practitioner war; it's a delicate balance"
Meath: "cool, watch this"
What had Faysal said? I consumed whatever was at hand. Even this ambient power, apparently. I was going to get drunk on it.
This is gonna be so much fun
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A bird 🐦 23-Oct-19 09:09 PM
I'm shockingly disappointed in you
He obviously said hold my beer
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Ishamoridin 23-Oct-19 09:09 PM
Meath holds his own beer
I'll draw blood over this
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JayManiac 23-Oct-19 09:09 PM
You're so gods damned right. Both of you. Indisputably.
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A bird 🐦 23-Oct-19 09:10 PM
Can we settle on hold a beer?
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Ishamoridin 23-Oct-19 09:10 PM
I'll take that, plenty of beer for everyone
In other news, "What the moose dick was that" is a contender for best line ever written
agree 3
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JayManiac 23-Oct-19 09:12 PM
It's profane, Canadian, and echos every readers exact thoughts on the matter
checks out
There's this really cool thing the book has done here with The Drains, and I'm going to preface it by saying that I've often tried to create worlds/magic systems based on a single worm or ward character's power. Like, what if Jack Slash's powers were the tenants whole system the world revolved around? What would mages be like? What would society be like, and how could the theme of broadcasting run throughout the world and the stories you'd tell with it. Here, Pact kind of does that in reverse by introducing the world and rules of the drains, and then shifting the story so that they only apply to one person. If a superpower is an individualized magic system (and I think we can agree that it is, at least in the way wildbow uses it) then Blake has the rules of the drains at large as his magic system, his superpower. It's taken that entire world and its dynamic, and sent Blake as a scion of that world, back to one where there are dozens more magic systems at work. And it's so fuckin cool!
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A bird 🐦 23-Oct-19 09:15 PM
Pact's setting is fucking amazing
agree 2
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JayManiac 23-Oct-19 09:15 PM
Quintessential 👏 Urban 👏 Fantasy 👏
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Ishamoridin 23-Oct-19 09:16 PM
This is why I'm always so baffled when I hear about people thinking Pact is the weakest Wildbow work. Sure it suffered a bit due to real life concerns, but it's still so unutterably amazing even in the context of art like Worm and Twig
I'd kill to read the version of Pact that 'Bow thinks it should have been but what we got is way more than I could ever ask for
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A bird 🐦 23-Oct-19 09:17 PM
Honestly, it didn't even really suffer that much. The external narrative around its flaws have just kind of gotten a life of their own
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Ishamoridin 23-Oct-19 09:18 PM
Yeah the community took it too far, I'm just going by Bow's own comments on it
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A bird 🐦 23-Oct-19 09:18 PM
The community took it that far partially because Wildbow commented on it
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Seregraug 23-Oct-19 09:19 PM
WB’s comments on it did keep me from reading it for quite some time.
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Ishamoridin 23-Oct-19 09:19 PM
Guess that's just information acting as a social construct for you :V
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JayManiac 23-Oct-19 09:21 PM
I think Worm, Pact, and Twig line up really solidly with the best and most quintessential aspects of plot, world, and character for me. And the thing is, I don't think Pact and Twig have bad plots; they have better plots than 90% of stories I experience. Worm and Pact certainly don't have weak characters by any stretch of the imagination- in fact they have some of the best characters I'd ever read until...like, Twig. Wildbow is such a strong writer in almost every category that matters to me personally, and I hate that I ever thought Pact wouldn't be worth just...so much of my time and energy and love.
Ilovethis 3
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A bird 🐦 23-Oct-19 09:21 PM
I've said similar things before, but I prefer your phrasing
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JayManiac 23-Oct-19 09:22 PM
All that said, I think he's grown a lot as of Ward, and developed so much richness in parahumans' world and characters after having written Pact and Twig, and if Pact's world could ever get a similar treatment I would be all unknowable hells of here for it.
same 3
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Kaosubaloo 23-Oct-19 09:23 PM
I would be for a Mags series I think. But also I think it would be better suited to a shorter work than Wildbro's normal (edited)
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Coro 23-Oct-19 09:24 PM
I want to see what magic looks like elsewhere in the world
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JayManiac 23-Oct-19 09:25 PM
That'd be really cool- especially since we've nodded to her being the protagonist much in the way we kind of nodded to "guts and glory" in worm- but I'd be down for just about anything in this world, and I trust Wildbow to make it the best thing I've ever read
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Coro 23-Oct-19 09:25 PM
What's it like being a practitioner in Peru?
In Taiwan?
Not that I didn't love the perspective of Pact being set essentially on top of my hometown
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A bird 🐦 23-Oct-19 09:26 PM
I'd happily read a Pact 2 with literally any protagonist. I trust Bow to pick someone(s) that has merit, and the themes are easily translatable to an entirely different feeling setting within its spectacularly versatile system
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JayManiac 23-Oct-19 09:27 PM
agree
The interior of the house was no longer dark, but had a peculiar hue, like the light was shining off wine red and gold surfaces. The smell was thick, The barriers had been breached. The tail end of Jeremy Meath’s group was still making its way into the house. They moved as a group, fanning out through the rooms.
Remember when I said at least they had Hillsglade to protect them? I was wrong, and I admit that wholeheartedly.
I love the tone this builds; it's quite cinematic. Really everything with Jeremy's magic is
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Seregraug 23-Oct-19 09:30 PM
We are sort of getting a mini Pact 2 with Poke?
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JayManiac 23-Oct-19 09:30 PM
theatrical, you could say
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Seregraug 23-Oct-19 09:31 PM
At least, a bit of a return to the world.
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JayManiac 23-Oct-19 09:32 PM
Which is good news! I love that he's still thinking about it, and I love that I'm gonna get to read that when I'm done uh...if I'm ever done reading this!
In this light of red and gold tints, I could see their real features. Their facial and bone structure was different, though not unpleasant. Their movements were languid, as they easily crawled across the spaces, as if they were simultaneously very flexible and very strong.
This reminds me of (twig)The Twins, but also Helen now that I think about it in the best way
The lead Maenad wore a snake, coiled up and along the one arm, around the back of her neck, and down the other arm. It was the color of red wine, with a diamond pattern of white along its back.
This has a real dreamlike, lotus casino quality to it that I really love. I've never been drunk, so i'm just kind of combining the feeling of anesthesia with that of sleep deprivation and also any movie that's used a scene with weird angles and filters to convey intoxication. My mind's camera is distinctly off-kilter and swaying.
A little different from the other Satyrs, who blended the qualities of beast and man in a kinder, more artistic way. They stood straight, they didn’t slouch. They looked more boyish. Not quite modern-day male models, but all were guys I imagined could hit on women at bars with some success.
I know it says not quite modern day male models, but alternatively, consider:
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Ishamoridin 23-Oct-19 09:37 PM
But not male models (edited)
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JayManiac 23-Oct-19 09:38 PM
All of these satyrs are gonna be talking like Hansel from Zoolander from now on. Just a bunch of Owen Wilson running around
he'd play a pretty great satyr actually
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Ishamoridin 23-Oct-19 09:38 PM
But not male models
(I'll stop)
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JayManiac 23-Oct-19 09:39 PM
Quickly, quietly, I crossed picture frames and mirrors, until I was right next to her. I wasn’t sure how this worked, or how far I could go. This wasn’t the sort of thing I could practice. Still holding the Hyena, I hit the glass of the picture frame as hard as I could, stabbing through.
Yess!!! Blake being useful! And by useful, I mean probably suicidally reckless!
Remembering Rose’s actions in the police station, I reached through with my open hand, blind, remembering only the position of things. I aimed for her wrist.
Speaking of individualized magic systems, have I mentioned how cool this one is?
I could have slipped away, moving halfway across Jacob’s Bell, but my gut said I shouldn’t. Didn’t want to rely on my gut or my heart alone. I’d made that mistake before.
See, but then there are moments like this, moments where it feels like he has learned something about himself that counts as positive character development, moments that feel so triumphant
I dodged out of the way before the footing was completely gone, crossing the hall. She grabbed the now-empty frame off the wall, hurling it at me, then turned on her toes, following after.
This chase is so dynamic and fun to read, considering it involves a kind of limited teleportation. Now I kind of want to see what Conquest's pursuit of Rose looked like from her end. But of course, we would never try to see things from Rose's perspective, right Blake?
I crossed the hall again. She followed, reaching- And stopped. Her claws were an inch from Jeremy’s face.
And the way he turns it around is just so clever! it's such a cool reveal and I love it.
“Unfortunate,” he said, as if he were trying on the word, “You have little idea how right you are.” “That sounds ominous,” I said. “You’re crossing a god,” he said. “It should.”
Hahahahahahahahahaha.....okay but probably stay off the wine for a bit, Blake. At least until you're twenty one. Which is, of course, in twenty years.
lol 2
“You sicced Conquest on me,” I said. “Was that what I did? Hm. Set it all in motion.”
I don't know if that's exactly how it went down, which is slightly less relevant now that Blake can lie, but still...
Meath can't know what he did, he can only see the fallout. Now he thinks that potentially, all of it was his fault. I don't know what decisions that might lead to in the future, but Blake is a little bit responsible for that here, when he tells a quarter-truth. Like, will Jeremy like that he set into motion the chain of events that got rid of Conquest? Will he feel guilty, annoyed that he can't rely on powers and permissions he had under Conquest's rule? How will that change what he does in the future? What he does to blake, right the fuck now?
“Hey, Jeremy,” I said, conversationally, “Would you happen to know what protocols are for dealing with very abstract demons?”
The ol "have a conversation with your enemies" approach
I know it's my favorite
“I know of the most important one,” he said. “You don’t deal with demons of any type. Common sense.” “Which is why you left the Etobicoke imp alone? Pauz?” I asked. “And the demon in the oil factory?”
I mean, I can blame the Sisters for this because they're pretty high and mighty and entitled about it, but i don't think Jeremy ever pretended to be out for anyone but himself so at least he's consistent. Probably shouldn't be Lord or anything, but hey neither should the Sisters, they were pretty much equally useless there. I mean, I guess the Sisters could've been trying to deal with Ur and we'd never know...but I think that's less likely, considering Pauz was around as a much easier target.
Also looks like Blake might be working up to telling them about Barbatorem, which is an interesting choice
Rose might see it as a betrayal, Blake might be using it to scare them off but maybe he'd just actually prefer no one to become the demon's victim because that fuckin blows for pretty much everyone, so arming them with knowledge might be a genuine attempt to get them out of danger. And hey, it's probably both, just warning everyone to back the fuck off because of what forces are in play here
Very,” I said. “As far as I’m aware, there’s one in this house.” Give Jeremy a cookie. He didn’t look half as scared as even his murderous maenad did. She didn’t move her head, but her eyes widened. The others reacted, looking at one another.
Rose might still think of it as a betrayal though. I love the line "give jeremy a cookie"; it's so demening and kidlike, considering the topic of conversation. Then again, the man did just reference his childhood.
I shook my head. My vision wavered. I was feeling the influence of this heavy perfume, smoke, blood, and wine that all sat so thick in the air. “Not lying. If I am telling a deliberate falsehood, I give your god permission to strike me down.” I saw one or two Satyrs step back. “It doesn’t work quite that way, but close,” Jeremy said.
Then how does it work?
I really want a way for Blake to get himself back under some kind of seal of solomon because it was so much easier- well, you could play with so many more absolutes- when everyone knew he was telling the truth. Then again, because that's exactly what I want it's probably exactly what I'm not gonna get.
“Last I saw, it was in the house,” I said. I decided to bend the truth. “It can’t leave. I would like to keep you from leaving with it, accidentally or otherwise. That’s in my top five concerns right now.”
Jeremy: It almost works in the way that telling a deliberate lie will let my god just strike you the fuck down Blake: I decided to bend the truth
Huh, yeah, that's a great idea
if Blake is just cursed by Dionysus and gets hit by a drunk driver as soon as he has a corporeal form I'm not gonna be surprised
“It’s scarier than the demon in the factory,” I said. “As rankings for demons go, it’s few steps up. I don’t like Rose, but I trust her not to fuck that up. You… I’m much less inclined to trust your lot to keep from accidentally fucking up. When I killed the snake, I was protecting all of us.”
Rose certainly thinks this is true about Babs, but Blake has seen her full fucking form and still thinks this? I guess it's a technical truth, in that the residents of toronto labeled it a minor demon and thus its ranking is lower, but...I don't know whether Blake is knowingly bending that truth or not. If Babs really is that powerful....well then shit, we should all get the fuck out of here right now
Someone brought up the fact that Scion appears in arc 1 of Worm and turns out to be the final boss
can't help but wonder...
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spinagon 23-Oct-19 10:10 PM
Hey it's fine, he's bound in a circle
Inside a house that was just smote by an act of god
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JayManiac 23-Oct-19 10:10 PM
You know, you're right
hadn't thought of that
I'm sure everything's just fuckin peachy
“I have my own responsibilities,” he said. “When I wield power, it isn’t with lines on the floor and carefully worded contracts. I only ask. I can change the wording, pick the phrasing, decide the poetry of it, and read old texts, from my god’s days of glory. But when I want to practice, I only speak. A single word will suffice.” He wasn’t murdering me or getting us all killed while he talked, so there was that.
Blake, he literally just said that a single word would suffice if he wanted to murder you or get you all killed what do you mean with any of this "keep him talking" bullshit?
That said, the Cleric has always been a fascinating class for me, for some of those exact reasons
Making appeals, playing up the theatrics (apollonian or dionysian) of your request...I almost wonde- [at this point J has thought of a super cool story idea and has omitted it in hopes that someday far in the future he'll have the gods damned time to tell it]
He continued, “My challenge is to show I’m worthy. In the heat of the moment, I don’t need to do anything special. Outside of those moments, I have to curry favor. There aren’t any gauges, no measurements I can take. I have to watch for signs and trust him to show me his pleasure or displeasure. If I overstep, asking too much for how little favor I have, he may punish me. If I hold his favor but do not spend it, he might revoke it.”
This "class" of practitioner being a constant leap of faith is pretty much the best thing ever
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spinagon 23-Oct-19 10:15 PM
It's how gods work in a lot of roguelikes (edited)
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JayManiac 23-Oct-19 10:15 PM
now that i'm in dnd-land I'm wondering at the implications of that in a tabletop format, of rolling the die and then- oh hey, really?
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spinagon 23-Oct-19 10:16 PM
You never know exactly what you level of favor is
And what will you get for praying
If your favor is low you might piss off your god and get cursed
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JayManiac 23-Oct-19 10:16 PM
that's really cool! It certainly has that kind of feel to it, judging by what I was typing as you revealed that. I like this magic system a lot.
Pact is one of the only magic systems where you can give me paragraphs and paragraphs of exposition on every little thing and I'm just here like "yeah, uh huh? and then what!? TELL ME MORE"
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spinagon 23-Oct-19 10:17 PM
Every 20 turns (for a character with normal speed), Xom will turn its attention towards you, and depending on the situation (from 7% of the time if there are no monsters in view to 33% in the middle of a big fight) may decide to perform either a "good" action or a "bad" action. Xom's actions will often be in context (i.e. turning you berserk if there's no one around), although nothing is guaranteed. Good actions are more likely if your Piety is high (see below).
devastating 1
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JayManiac 23-Oct-19 10:18 PM
“Yes,” Jeremy Meath told me. “That snake was his. You killed it. You maimed his servant’s hand. For all intents and purposes, there is a gun pressed to your head as we speak. There has been since you hurt that snake.”
Huh
y'know, I didn't think of it like that
but now that I do
it's a lot easier to see why Jeremy's pretty calm here.
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Ishamoridin 23-Oct-19 10:20 PM
"For all intents and purposes" feels like one of those phrases you shouldn't be using as a practitioner
For the purpose of wearing hats, there most certainly isn't a gun against his head
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JayManiac 23-Oct-19 10:32 PM
Yeah, I wonder why Blake doesn't use his not-bound-by-no-gods-damned-seal status to call people out on this more often
Theoretically practitioners let the spirits decide for the little lies and then forswear each other in absolute cases, but there aren't really any reprecussions if Blake just goes "nuh uh"
and the spirits can still hear him
“Asking him for trivial things I could earn and achieve on my own is a fast way to lose favor. For the third time, where is the cabal?” Three times. The answer I gave here mattered.
Feels a little different to be on the other side of that one, doesn't it?
actually he was screwed either way, so maybe not
“She’s in an area that, as I understand it, involves warped space,” I said. “One step to the side, and, how did you put it? Above us?” Which was technically true. It was a two-floor affair.
Blake's still such a practitioner, though, which is in a certain sense admirable. He doesn't seem to have even intuited that he can lie now. Which actually might be a significant part of how he was built. Have we even seen him tell a lie in the story, even prior to being awakened?
I could see his jaw set, eyes narrowing. There was no softness in his face, however worn and rumpled he might otherwise look. How could a priest of drunken merriment and debauchery look so joyless and cold?
Maybe you just told him that a demon could kill him in the worst way possible
or something
who knows?
I mean, yes, Jeremy doesn't strike you as the fun-loving dionysiac, but it's funny that Blake points it out here of all places, where he probably has something to do with that lack of merriment.
“What do you think I did, mirror man?” he asked. “I needed to disarm the diabolist and her cabalists of their greatest weapon, which we just talked about, and I needed access. My god granted me both with one fell stroke.” “Jägerbomb,” a younger satyr said, snickering as if it were far funnier than it was.
I'm just gonna assume that that was exactly as funny as blake thinks it isn't
(edited)
agree 4
“You’re telling me you went after the one person in Jacob’s Bell who has the most dangerous knowledge around, the one person who can tap into world ending forces, who’s maybe a little hard to anticipate to begin with, and you got her drunk?”
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahhahahahhahhaaaaa
I'm just picturing Rose as stereotypically drunk and it's wonderful
she's always so...put together and assertive and sure of herself that it'd be hillarious
hell, it probably is hillarious, in an unnerving sort of way
if we were in like...Ty's perspective right now, for instnace
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A bird 🐦 23-Oct-19 10:41 PM
Maybe you just told him that a demon could kill him in the worst way possible
Hey now, the Barber explicitly doesn't kill the practitioners that are his quarry
He just ruins them
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JayManiac 23-Oct-19 10:42 PM
but eventually they die
having had generally a Pretty Bad Time
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A bird 🐦 23-Oct-19 10:43 PM
... fair
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JayManiac 23-Oct-19 10:45 PM
“It’s not that simple. When my god created this situation, he posed a challenge to me. If he simply gave me what I needed, what would that be worth? I have to work for it a little. His era of gods are especially fond of making the little mortals dance,” Jeremy said. “If I walk away from that challenge and fail to dance, I disappoint him.” “Seems to me,” I said, picking my words with care, not breaking eye contact with him, “Following a god like you do is very nearly as tragic an existence as being a diabolist.” His expression changed for the first time in a good while. A light smile.
Each the victim of expectations, in their own way. This is such a sad, shitty situation for everyone to be in.
“I think you might be right, mirror man. There’s a reason I’m here. When someone like Sandra, the departed Laird Behaim, or even Conquest do battle with a diabolist, they’re busy trying to win, while the diabolist knows they can win. It’s merely a question of how little that diabolist can get away with losing in the process.”
That's such a fascinating dynamic. It reminds me a lot of Ward, when everyone was talking about how the characters were "jobbing" in that they weren't using their powers to anywhere near their full potential because that wasn't their goal, because they wanted to be better than that. Because the central conflict of Avatar's final episodes recurrs again and again throughout these books Worm and Pact and Ward: how do you fix things without killing the firelord? how do you avoid conflict? How do you not have to kill everyone? Hell, even right now Victoria thinks about how much easier it would be if she could just fly up and drop an anvil acme style onto the Red Queen's head! In essence, this is the way you do superman right, this is the way you write overpowered-ness, because the conflict concerned with the choice to limit yourself is just as dynamic and fascinating and difficult as whether you can punch the bad guy hard enough, if not more.
That's a lot of spoiler text there, but basically just because your protagonist could've won at any point doesn't make any less of a conflict. Just the opposite.
He continued, “But the mindset is still there. If you two truly needed to, you could call in a favor, call a name, find a book, or remember an author’s name from one of your books and chase it down. With your diabolist, you can theoretically pick up the raw firepower you need to remove every single one of your enemies from the table. But you don’t. We have to hold back, because the price is often too high to pay.”
Because then it becomes this inner conflict instead of an outer one- actually you know what? No, it becomes an inner conflict that fuels the outer one and creates interesting situations that have direct reprecussions on a character's values.
Rarely is the conflict in ATLA, Pact, or Ward ever not being powerful enough
Far more often, it's "are we helping right? how do we make the decision that doesn't send everything to hell?"
And then it's still "can we punch the bad guy hard enough" but with the added caveat of: "without breaking our fuckin hand, or dooming this plane of existence?"
“Okay,” he said. He shifted his weight, and his injured maenad backed off a bit, giving him space. “Right now, we’re playing a game of chicken. Rather than an onrushing car or train, there’s a diabolist of impaired faculties in the building. It would not be surprising if she woke up and then acted with her faculties thus impaired.”
speaking of generating interesting conflicts with this out-of-left-field premise...
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Ishamoridin 23-Oct-19 10:58 PM
"I fukken choose you, Barbie!"
hic
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JayManiac 23-Oct-19 11:01 PM
“On the other hand, she’s in close proximity to your other allies, who are very likely to be collateral damage. I don’t know if you know this, but she’s been tainted by Conquest.” “I know,” I said. “Then you know we have every reason to expect that taint would have more sway over her when she’s not fully herself.”
Oh, right. So maybe that wouldn't be quite so fun. Okay, a drunk conquest who's actually just a college-age paranoid practitioner would still be pretty fun
and hey, I think it'd only give the taint more sway over her if you conceptualized it as "being drunk makes you less yourself", when at times I've heard the opposite. I wonder how many weird psychological practitionings Meath is able to drink himself out of at times?
Then again, this would probably be the former, now that I'm thinking about it, since it has a backdoor to her essence
“Our game of chicken,” I said. “A good game for an optimist to play. It’s not about who wins,” he said, “It’s about who loses the least.” “Or,” one of the Maenads said, “you could send us after him.”
This is the second time we've offered up a dualistic choice between two bad outcomes and the first thing any character does is go "hey we could do this other thing instead"
and even if there are reasons not to do the other thing, it's still a bit of a "fuck yeah!" moment for anti-trolley-problem-ists
It's just the book clearly going "there are other options" in this small way and I love it.
He turned his head to answer her. I ran, not even listening to the words that escaped
I too have pulled the ever complex and delicate "look over there!" before. Among the eldest strategies contained within the tome of human thought.
And, perhaps, a divine hand had nudged things to this particular result. The lock had jostled open. The bookcase was partially ajar.
Oh....good? Not good, probably
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A bird 🐦 23-Oct-19 11:13 PM
Oh....good? Not good, probably
Pact.txt
agree 3
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JayManiac 23-Oct-19 11:14 PM
I was shunted. By the time I found my feet, I could hear the noise of the bookshelf sliding open. It opened wide. Rose, Evan, Alexis, Tiff and Ty lay collapsed on the ground. Jeremy strode in, as I pressed my hands against the glass, unable to stop him.
Well that went well
Lots to talk about in this chapter! I always start these wondering if I'll have anything interesting to say at all and then surprise myself by the end. I hope I'll have a little more time to read now that midterms are mostly behind us, but no promises. As always, this was awesome and thank you all for your interjections, they really make the experience!
spoop 3
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Ishamoridin 23-Oct-19 11:17 PM
Thank you, Jay! Reliving my first read through your eyes is teaching me whole new ways to love it
same 2
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JayManiac 23-Oct-19 11:19 PM
bulba thanks so much, guys! It means the world to think that you guys are enjoying this too!
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JayManiac 29-Oct-19 07:49 PM
I think the comparison between diabolists and acolytes is apt, if only because the conflict has different stakes for them; it's not about how much power they have, it's more about risk. With the Behaims, they have a set amount of power and if they can't win with that they're pretty screwed. Diabolists and Acolytes don't have hard limits, but they can make a wrong move and be screwed for eternity. I don't see Acolyte as being all that more admirable than Diabolist- I mean certainly a little, but I didn't see gods as being on the side of the angels, exactly. I think Dionysis is probably closer to neutral in that regard, but I could see other gods falling all over that spectrum; gods like Ra and the Dead Light God Dude are probably a lot closer to being directly opposed to demons.
But more importantly, who would win!?
Find out in 10.7, coming to you right the fuck now!
CharmanderHi 1
My mind was a haze, my emotions caught in some horrible, undefinable place.
Because your friends are all in danger, or because you're drunk? Probably both
I liked humanity, I hated people, but certain individuals were immensely important to me.
that's a fascinating breakdown of those concepts; I've heard a lot of people say they hate humanity, but they like people, meaning individuals. Blake likes humanity as a whole- something pretty hard to do when you consider all of the things we've done in aggregate- hates people, because a lot of the individuals he's known have kind of been dicks, focusing on the interpersonal part of that problem- and then the last section here is a third, almost contradictory statement about the people he loves...but might still hate, for all we know (and for one of them in particular)
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A bird 🐦 29-Oct-19 08:00 PM
Blake likes humanity as a whole- something pretty hard to do when you consider all of the things we've done ~~in aggregate~~ to him, specifically
aww the strikethrough doesn't work
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JayManiac 29-Oct-19 08:00 PM
That....is also a good point
Four or five of those individuals were now at the mercy of our enemy.
It's always heartening when we see that Blake hasn't completely and totally given up on caring about Rose. To me that "or" reflects more of a quantum superposition of love and hate, than anything close to indifference
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A bird 🐦 29-Oct-19 08:01 PM
suspicious 🌹
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JayManiac 29-Oct-19 08:02 PM
The satyr ignored me. “She’s breathing.” “Be careful,” Jeremy said. “They were in Fell’s company for a time.”
If only they hadn't gotten him killed before he could teach them jack shit about illusion magic-- blake probably would've been good at that, too. Actually, maybe not. It might be a very different skill than glamour
maybe I'd be able to tell
if we'd been taught jack shit about illusion magic
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A bird 🐦 29-Oct-19 08:03 PM
Well look forward to poring over PactDice after your read!
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JayManiac 29-Oct-19 08:03 PM
oh believe me, I am
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A bird 🐦 29-Oct-19 08:04 PM
Remind me to ask you about your stance on extratextual information after this chapter read
👍 1
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JayManiac 29-Oct-19 08:05 PM
A satyr produced a pair of handcuffs from a back pocket. One of the maenads was wearing a chain for a belt, held in place with a combination lock, and began unwinding it. “Thank you,” the priest said. “We’ve got several captives here. Anyone else?” “Not here,” another satyr said. “I’ve got restraints on me,” a third chimed in, grinning, “but they’re for men only.”
I was gonna make a bdsm joke as soon as they started mentioning restraints, and then the book did it for me because of course it did. Mine wouldn't've been nearly that funny either. Or that disturbing.
He paused, glancing at me. “Keep your distance from reflective surfaces while you’re at it.”
Why was my first thought "because barbatorem" instead of, you know, because of the mirror monster that already killed one of their pets
“Are you picking a fight?” “No,” I said. “I want to negotiate. Talk this out.” And I want to distract you in the hopes that you make a mistake here.
Yeah, we haven't been doing it lately but I really forgot to start this chapter read with "when we last left off, blake was screwed" because it'd been ever so slightly less true of late, but this time that's pretty much the name of the game again. He doesn't very many tools that aren't "sit still and pray to someone who isn't dionysis" or"go toe to toe with the whole orgy"
“You’re just ignoring me?” I asked. “I don’t think I can catch you just yet, and I’d rather do this right.”
And now he doesn't even have "entertain Jeremy until Rose wakes up and starts some shit
wonder if she still knows the name Ornias?
Would that be kickin around in her memory?
Blake said it, but so did the Lawyer
Also she's fuckin wasted so it might come out more like "Orna-ha-sus" one or two of the seven times
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A bird 🐦 29-Oct-19 08:12 PM
Plus Rose had like, a few weeks to read up on The Books
So she might have any number of names on hand
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JayManiac 29-Oct-19 08:12 PM
But that was a Lawyer Freebie, one that we don't even know if Rosalyn had- oh I guess that's fair
hey
uh
where the fuck is Corvidae?
Is blake just gonna feel a tap on his shoulder and turn to see that motherfucker with a finger to his lips all "don't alert the orgy" style?
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A bird 🐦 29-Oct-19 08:13 PM
When was the last time you saw him?
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JayManiac 29-Oct-19 08:14 PM
Town meeting, I think
when he nodded at Mara
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A bird 🐦 29-Oct-19 08:14 PM
Oh right, the secret smile
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JayManiac 29-Oct-19 08:15 PM
Yeah, but I don't know if she has him summoned all the time like she did pre-Blakening or if she just calls him when she goes outside
“Cuff her ankle to the desk,” Jeremy said. “No, not the leg of the desk – she could free herself easily by lifting the desk up.”
That's a mistake I would 1000% make
“The bird?” a maenad asked. Evan. Evan was key here. “Evan!” I shouted. “Buh?” I heard his voice, faint.
Oh Evan's totally wasted too
I hope the Jegerbomb thing measured by proportion and didn't overdose him with like a human amount of drunk
probably
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A bird 🐦 29-Oct-19 08:17 PM
Yeah same. With his tiny body it could very well kill him... Oh wait
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JayManiac 29-Oct-19 08:17 PM
Yeah we wouldn't want Evan to be dead or anything
“No go, mirror dweller,” the maenad said. “Bird in the hand.” “Literally,” said the satyr that was busy unspooling a roll of twine. “Thank you for adding to the dialogue,” the maenad said, sarcastically.
Satyrs are so dumb I love them. I like how different kinds of Others are able to act different kinds of ridiculous and allow us to explore so many types of stupid humor, from Goblins to Faeries to Satyrs to Duck Knights, they're a riot. I've stopped picturing them as Zoolander-esque male models and started picturing them as Soren from The Dragon Prince. Or at least this one specifically.
If they were going to contain him, they had to let go. He had a window of opportunity. If I had any sort of bond with Evan…
But...do you? The ones who were closest had their connections eaten, not just snapped, and Evan was real close. Unless Ur wasn't above Blake? I don't know, we didn't get quite enough description of the moment to figure out if this is one of those bonds that can't ever be repaired. I really want it not to be, but that probably means that it is purely because the book would totally do that to me.
Suddenly in action, I turned to search my surroundings. I didn’t have anything to cut myself with that wasn’t the Hyena, and I didn’t want to use that.
The Hyena is still such a fascinating concept to me, as a blade with the same abyssal properties Blake has- I'm still interested in maybe synthesizing some understanding about both of them though each other.
“Bird goes in between the books?” she asked. “Yes. Arcas, when I anoint the circle, I want you to drop the book on top, carefully. It’s like a lid. A container within a container. I’ll say a prayer over it to seal it for a third layer of protection.”
They're taking a level of precaution we know is kind of ridiculous, which is equal parts fun and hopeless
Like, I don't think Evan will be very much of a threat to them regardless of how many layers of protection there are
then again, he's a spirit of escape
I couldn’t find anything sharp in my little patch of world. The drawers were in darkness, leaving me unable to retrieve the mirror equivalents of tools Aurope had carried away. Why did the furniture in this house have to be so solid? Rhetorical question. I suspected I knew why: the occupants had long been anticipating something like a siege or something within the house wanting to get out.
How old is the Thorburn family, sweet jesus? Also this is a really good beat of "people aren't stupid". Wildbow's pretty good at those, giving everyone a realistic amount of agency and forethought. Evan Duncan gets to strategize every once in a while. Plus it's a detail which also builds the stakes in the moment, and doesn't interrupt
On my way to the window, I twisted my entire body to swing it at the door frame. Wood splintered, the chair back largely detaching from the base, four prongs of sharp wood sticking out.
E&R have been talking about the mirror world's relationship to the spirit world, and if things affected here feel ripples there and such...all this to say that I hope Rose tries to sit in her normal-ass chair at some point and it remembers that its spirit self is supposed to be broken and just collapses
I slashed my palm with the wood. The tattooed flesh didn’t cut.
And if blood and bloodletting is a symbol of humanity and identity...well that's not ideal
But also what's bleeding gonna do in a realm with no spirits?
Dropping my sweatshirt and wiping my hand in the same motion, I slammed my blood-wet hand against the glass.
Then again, that could work. If he can put his hand through, then might as well
“My power for you!” I said. But Evan was already free, flying through the gap in between the box and the approaching lid. He plunged past the border of the circle, stray feathers scattering as if he were scraping against something that wasn’t even there. The ensuing flight was ungainly, devoid of coordination and straight lines, like a sloppy paper airplane that just happened to be flapping its wings. He made it through the doorway from the library to the hallway, though. Connection, I thought. Our connection had been cut, but that didn’t mean new and different ones couldn’t be formed.
YESSSSS
and also, that confirms that Evan's was one of the cut connections, but in a way that gives me hope
If I was, as Faysal said, instinctively devouring spirits to shore up the gaps, then Evan was probably doing the same. I knew he’d be receptive to taking anything I had to offer. I just had to give.
Huh, that's a really cool way of creating a new connection, and it works on the level of finding something to relate to in a person, and giving them a common magical conduit, specifically one with which Blake can demonstrate selflessness in the name of friendship. This is why I love Pact so much.
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A bird 🐦 29-Oct-19 08:36 PM
But isn't Blake infused with Drainstuff?
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JayManiac 29-Oct-19 08:38 PM
Yeah, but I don't think this makes blake wrong about what's shoring up Evan; I imagine it's a similar enough system that this gesture goes through. We don't know that much about how Evan's still flyin after all that, but I think it still works. Rose might've even set up a similar system
He turned, flapping wildly in some attempt to stop or stall his forward movement. He succeeded in only making a sharp right, sharp left, and then hit the mirror. He dropped out of my field of view. “Fuck,” I said.
Dealing with drunk friends is the worst
especially when those friends are birds
Jeremy was striding our way, flanked by maenad and satyrs. With one hand, he swept the frame off the wall.
Great Greek Googlimooglie, I never really realized how friggin badass Jeremy is until right now. We think of him as a bit of a dork sometimes, but he's so casually powerful and subtley theatrical, master of the "I don't really care" facade. It's just a cool image.
Evan was an escape artist, so to speak, he’d evaded the Hyena, and spirits of freedom and survival and whatever else had been attracted to him, shoring up his soul in a kind of anti-wraith way. If someone was going to help here, it would be him.
When you put it all like that, he suddenly becomes a very useful member of the team in this specific situation- a small cynical part of me wonders if that's the very reason Rose kept him around, because he'd be a good tool, a good get-out-of-jail-maybe card when the time came...
I like the anti-wraith wording, even if I don't agree with it (because freedom and anger aren't opposed, exactly, just different).
A satyr and maenad jumped down to the landing behind him, not wasting a second in continuing down the staircase, chasing him. “Oh crap!” “Over here!” I shouted.
This chase scene is giving me real good cartoon vibes, especially with how I was already thinking of the satyrs. Like Tom, Jerry, and the tree-boogeyman in the mirror!
He was darker around some of the edges, as though feathers were stained. He really had taken in a bit of me. A bit of the Drains.
Ah shit, you were right
That's kind of disturbing, but maybe a necessity of this new relationship?
At least right the fuck now
shoot, but I doubt DrainsStains ever really come off
On the other hand, maybe this makes Evan a little more self sufficient? Able to devour spirits himself, instead of having twiglike "appointments" with Rose?
“Here, birdy, birdy, birdy,” the satyr said, singsong. “Nuh uh.” Whatever else was going on, they were spooked by me. That counted for something.
Blake being scary is still something I'm unaccustomed to
I pressed my hand against the window. I closed my eyes. “Spirits, I know I’m not a practitioner, but I could use help. As you managed the giving, please take. Give me the poisons that course through Evan Matthieu’s-” Another thrown book. It hooked on the curtain, losing much of its momentum, and glanced harmlessly against the window. “-body. Let me be the one who is drunk on the priest’s illusions. I offer power, and I offer it knowing I might permanently change as a consequence.” Nothing. Fuck you, spirits, I thought.
You know, they could probably hear that last part
well, if they could hear any of it
“Did Rose set up anything? Countermeasures? Ready summons?” “Ahhhhh!”
This maybe isn't supposed to all be really really funny but Evan's flying around drunk, Blake's looking indimidating without any clue what the fuck he's doing, and the Satyrs are throwing books, it's fantastic
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A bird 🐦 29-Oct-19 08:54 PM
This maybe isn't supposed to all be really really funny but Evan's flying around drunk, Blake's looking indimidating without any clue what the fuck he's doing, and the Satyrs are throwing books, it's fantastic
Don't forget the hued haze! In the inevitable Pact TV show, I imagine a filmmaker could do a lot of fun things here
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JayManiac 29-Oct-19 08:54 PM
benny hill theme starts playing
“I now invoke all the powers and knowledge personally taught to me by my grandmother,” I said, speaking low and grave. “I call on the instructions she gave me in this very room, the words she gently imparted to me in the antechamber upstairs. I call on the tutorings of demons she summoned on my behalf, everything that was given to me so I might know the words to speak to kill a god.” Not technically a lie, as I saw it. When I invoked all of those things, I was invoking nothing. But both the satyr and maenad looked at me, eyes wide.
Hahahahahahahhahahahaahahhahahahaha this is amazing
and I love that Blake still isn't lying
it's like he only knows how to bend the truth when he's under threat of death if he technically lies
he only ever tells Practitioner Lies, and he pretty much purposefully put himself under an oath not to lie, probably just so he could bend the truth like this.
It's a fascinating piece of his personality
“Deus nihilis,” I started. “Nex-” That was enough to get them to act.
I left the benny hill theme on in the background when I looked it up and it's not hurting the scene.
lol 1
I'm gonna turn it off now, but it was fun while it lasted
She hurled it at me. I shoved my hands through the window. Glass shattered. The local section of the mirrorverse went dark. I caught the book. I leaped over to the dark reflective screen of the television set before I could get shunted, because moving faster was key here. Still holding the book, I threw it, two handed. Glass shattered as the dictionary punched through.
HAHAHA HOLY SHIT THAT'S AWESOME
He really just gets to teleport things around portal-style if he lines it up right how fuckin cool is that!?
The maenad grabbed him by one horn, hauling him to his feet. He leaned heavily on her. What now? Reach for me and I’ll cut you. Throw something at me and I might throw it back.
Part of what's been bugging me about this arc was that I didn't feel like Blake really had any power as a bogeyman, trapped in the mirrors- I'm so glad to see how fucking wrong I was. He's got power, it's just got super interesting limitations, which is the kind of power I like best.
“The stuff you mentioned. Countermeasures and traps?” I asked. “There’s some stuff with the deeb- diabluh- the evil books. Pack of dust stuff, uh, powder. Some more in the shelves. cards. She didn’t even tell the others, but I sleep in there and I preted’d to sleep and watched. She doesn’t want ’em to tamper with any of it.”
Huh, maybe she learned a thing or two from Fell after all?
“Yeah. Corb- Crow man said somethin’ and Rose was scared. She banshid’ him instead of fin’shin’ the door. Tiv and Ty didn’t get the door closed, and then it all went fuzzy.”
Okay, so she does have him perpetually summoned, that's...uh...interesting. But not so perpetually that he can help or anything, dammit!
“What did Corvidae say?” I asked. “That he’d look after her while she was sleep’n.”
Yeah, that'd freak me the fuck out too
“This is been’ drunk? Bluh,” he said. “What’s wrong with people? Why would you want this? Can’t even fly proper.” “People don’t fly,” I said. “You know what I mean,” he said, sounding amazingly affronted. It went beyond the indignance of the young and the surliest inebriated and combined the two.
This is delightful, because they're not exactly back to their old rhythm, but it's got the barest hint of it and I just love these two as a pair so much, whatever metaphysical stuff is involved. They've got their back and forth again and it's beautiful
“I’m not people,” he somehow manged to pronounce the word like he was saying ‘peephole’. He sounded even more belligerent as he raised his voice, “I’m a god-dammed bird of fire and awesome who just isn’t on fire yet.” “Damn straight,” I said.
Blake of the past might've rolled his eyes, blake of the present rolls with it, but there's this thru line of taking Evan seriously, of understanding each other in a way that has less to do with connections and more to do with the kinds of people they are. I mean, what are they losing in terms of time? A week? Yes, they got very close during that week, but these two clicked with each other pretty quickly, and I bet they could do it again. Even if one of them's drunk and the other one's a bogeyman right now.
She was staying low, moving on all fours with about the same ease and speed that I might move on two.
Running on all fours is actually pretty efficient if you have a very specific body type and balance- it's a far better way of ascending stairs, for one.
The maenad lay on her side, both hands on her ankle. I’d raked the back of her calf and her ankle, slicing them. Meaning I’d very nearly missed.
This is the second time blake has undercut (pardon the pun) what would've otherwise been a solid victory
Evan left the bathroom. A small hand-compact shed light.
this is gonna be such a dynamic scene I'm so ready; I love how the book plays with the mirror universe and uses it to its most interesting
“Free Rose, free the others, or uncover the mirror in there,” I said. “Hold off on the traps until I say, unless you don’t see any other option. If you can, get close to Jeremy, give me the word, I’ll stab.” “‘Kay,” Evan told me. “Stabby mirror.”
yep, you got it buddy
“One word, and I can end this,” he said. “What can you do?” “One word, and I can end this,” I retorted.
what word is that?
and how many times do you have to say it?
I'm guessing that's what's being referred to
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jsoh 29-Oct-19 09:15 PM
would his connection to speaking the name even be around
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JayManiac 29-Oct-19 09:15 PM
I'm guessing that thing comes to whatever calls its name
as long as Blake hasn't forgotten it, I think the power is there
The little compact broke, and my footing disappeared with it. At the same time, light flared, another reflection opening up. I was shunted, dumped onto another patch of light.
Okay, I'm a little confused by what happened but just a few lines down it says
I had an idea of what had happened.
so I hope that it explains- oh wait now
yeah okay Jeremy ended it, one word
Stepping closer to the mirror, I could make out the mark on the floor. They’d moved the full-length mirror, placing it in the circle he’d started to make for Evan. He’d then broken the one mirror that held me while they removed the cloth, moving me to the nearest available surface, the one inside the circle. Maybe he’d closed it after. Maybe he hadn’t needed to. I’d been bound the same way Conquest had.
Oh shit, that's a helluva way to lose
And Blake doesn't even have any of Rose's hair to bleed into
“How did you know how the mirror thing worked?” I asked. “You shouldn’t-” “I told him,” Rose said.
You're not winning many points on the "Rose and Blake get along" meter, Rose
“I set up a dead man’s switch,” Rose said. “Me and Barbatorem. If I die, he’s going to get out. While you were breaking windows downstairs, I was talking with Jeremy. It’s not a victory on either side, but it’s-”
fucking insane is what it is, holy fuck, Rose!?
You cannot, cannot possibly justify this, can you? Sweet jegus, you'd let something like Barbatorem out just because you'd be too dead to give a shit about the consequences?
How selfish can you get, what the hell!? You'd better have a real good reason for that
You could choke on a grape and damn the whole town this is the opposite of okay rose
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A bird 🐦 29-Oct-19 09:25 PM
I don't disagree with you, but the idea of a dead man's switch is usually to prevent the dead man, and explicitly not flip the switch
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JayManiac 29-Oct-19 09:26 PM
I know that, but it doesn't change the fact that if it goes wrong, it goes really wrong
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A bird 🐦 29-Oct-19 09:26 PM
Pact.txt
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JayManiac 29-Oct-19 09:26 PM
that's a risk that I'm very willing to label super duper unethical
agree 2
I don't think it's one that Blake would make
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A bird 🐦 29-Oct-19 09:28 PM
The nuclear weapons metaphor from Arc 1 suddenly fits disturbingly well, doesn't it?
agree 2
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JayManiac 29-Oct-19 09:30 PM
“But you’re using a demon? You’re tainted by Conquest, Rose,” I said. “I know,” she said. “They know. Do you think we’ve been sitting on our hands, while I slowly went crazy? We discussed it, we talked it over. We have all these books, you don’t think we have a way to break Conquest’s hold? We decided to keep it. It’s a power source. So long as I’m sure to spend it regularly, he doesn’t get too much of a grip on me.”
On one hand, suprising to learn that Rose was aware of the influence; might lend credence to the idea that the connection between Blake and Rose might be feeding him the worst parts of her plan without the conversations, the planning, the decision-making process. But on the other hand, I can't help but suspect that "We" decided to keep it, "We" discussed it, could very well mean "I" discussed it with them and then unilaterally decided to keep it. Not enough evidence to say either way, at least until we get to talk to Ty, Tiff, Alexis, or Evan about it and see how "we" they thought the decision was.
But also "I decided to keep the thing that's influencing me to seek power because it's a source of power and also totally isn't getting to me" is super duper convincing
“If it helps,” she said, “We believe you now.”
wow, thanks. really wins u all those points back
“But you’re leaving me trapped?” “Yes. Had to happen, now that we know.”
Gods, this scene really makes it feel like no progress was made here at all, doesn't it? I'm coming around to the idea that I can just blame rose for everything because you know what she's a pretty fundementally different person from the Rose we know and love anyways...no! Bad Jay! They have to get along!
“We can’t move you easily,” Rose said. She turned the mirror until it faced the wall, not the bookshelves. “This will have to do.” “Hey,” I said. “Wait, woah, fuck no. That’s not giving me an answer.”
Sweet scion this book is going out of its way to make me super duper frustrated
My hands clenched at my side, I stared at her. “Did Conquest get to you, or are you ten times the bitch that Grandmother was?” I asked. “More likely the latter,” she said.
I haven't brought it up here since it's not my line of reasoning exactly, but E&R have been talking a lot about how this arc parallels the first and subverts or averts a lot of the things that happened back then
This is the first moment where I really felt it, the last (functional) chapter of arc ten, paralleling the first of arc one: Blake spitting an insult and a Rose Thorburn replying with a cold, blase response.
Jeremy spoke, offscreen. “We’ll be taking our leave. Something’s come up. As agreed, we’ll vacate the premises.” “What came up?” “Things went… poorly, with our local ambassador. The wraith is free, not bound as a familiar, and may have started off a chain of events.”
Well shit
also I noticed a thing about the Mags' familiar discussion question (inferred pact spoilers, maybe not Elliot safe?): when you ask a question about a thing that's going to happen and how it'll happen, with the expectation that almost everyone listening has read the story already (since I know you never thought someone would keep relative pace with you), it kind of lets on that that thing is never going to happen in-story, since all those people would be barred from answering. I don't know if Elliot caught on, but it sort of tipped me off. Just something for @Reuben, of Oopw to keep in mind in the future.
Ty was among the last to leave. I saw Evan in his hands, moving to stand rather than lie on his side. He saw me, and offered me a wing-salute and a wink. Maybe my only ally in this, and it was against his will, but he was still leaving. The doors slammed shut.
This is the most frustrating end to any chapter of pact so far, and that's saying something
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A bird 🐦 29-Oct-19 09:44 PM
I'd be shocked if they hadn't considered it
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JayManiac 29-Oct-19 09:45 PM
Yeah, but once i realized all of that, it kind of spoiled me on it since I'm not at that part in the book yet. Didn't really ruin much for me, I think, but I dunno
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A bird 🐦 29-Oct-19 09:47 PM
It's a fair thought. I think E+R have generally erred more on the side of asking for audience interpretation rather than a strictly pure reading experience
And for all Elliot knows, Reuben was tricky about the question in such a way that the spirit of the answers didn't reveal an oncoming twist
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JayManiac 29-Oct-19 09:49 PM
This is true
and also why I waited until now to bring it up
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JayManiac 01-Nov-19 08:43 PM
Re: extratextuality: I think there are instances in which it matters a fuck-ton how much you know about the magic system outside of the text (Stormlight is a really good example of "if you know nothing about how the magic works going in you're gonna have the best experience"), but I don't think Pact is really one of those stories. There is of course still an element of discovery, but it's not usually central to the dramatic tension of the narrative.
Wildbow's a lot more focused on creating tension and twists out of systems we know the rules of already, which is why we usually get powers and such explained or quickly deduced by the characters, in the case of ward's purple fire lady, whose powers are initially unknown but figured out by victoria not too far into the fight. So there isn't a big reason why I shouldn't just look up all the pactdice rules right now. But I'm still not going to, just because I really do like the little moments of discovery, and I think a lot of thought was put into how the story exposits its magic (Famulus, Implementum, Demesnes is a great example of how creative you can get with teaching us this sort of thing, and I really admire how story is weaved throughout its parts) and so I don't want to take those moments away from my reading experience by looking it up beforehand.
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Coro 01-Nov-19 08:44 PM
I don't think Pactdice is meant to be precisely comprehensive anyway
I got the impression that it was very much a meta-level construct arranged to give a good smattering of in-world magic systems a gameable structure
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A bird 🐦 01-Nov-19 08:46 PM
I think Pact in particular would resist any attempt to be comprehensive anyway
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Coro 01-Nov-19 08:46 PM
Like, it's got a grid, but that grid is effectively just there to give a good feeling for what it's like to be a practitioner rather than precisely describing the practice
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JayManiac 01-Nov-19 08:48 PM
Yeah, I've always preferred less adherence to the rules in my campaigns anyhow; I think I'd use them as a jumping-off point and then slowly break down all the categorizations and rules until we're operating from a very basic set of principles.
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A bird 🐦 01-Nov-19 08:48 PM
More of a structure to use than a rule to follow
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JayManiac 01-Nov-19 08:48 PM
I always thought the ideal rpg scenario is one where you can just trust the players and dm and you don't even have to roll a single die, the story just emerges
of course, it's difficult to do that in a way that everyone's okay with, but maybe someday....
pact is definitely the system I'd want to get to that with, though
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A bird 🐦 01-Nov-19 08:51 PM
I've long wanted clones and/or memory manipulation and/or brain partitioning so I could play such things with myself but still have it be a group exercise
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JayManiac 01-Nov-19 08:51 PM
Just gotta master heart of stone
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Coro 01-Nov-19 08:51 PM
You've just described playing pretend or straight-up improv, Jay 😛
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JayManiac 01-Nov-19 08:52 PM
I mean, precisely
absolutely
agree 1
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A bird 🐦 01-Nov-19 08:52 PM
Instead, here I am trying to get a group of friends to find more than two weekends in a year that we can manage to get in the same room
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JayManiac 01-Nov-19 08:53 PM
We used to do that kind of thing all the time as kids, but I want to get back to that with all the ideas and worlds and complexity that fantasy has become for me as an adult
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Coro 01-Nov-19 08:53 PM
That said, and this is a total sidebar, but I think the element of surprise and suspense provided by a dice roll or at least unknown values is a principle component of the ttrpg experience
Have you tried Microscope, Jay?
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JayManiac 01-Nov-19 08:57 PM
Nope!
What's that?
(also, I agree, but ideally that same surprise, suspense, and tension would be created by an extremely skilled and open enough dm)
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Coro 01-Nov-19 09:01 PM
Hmm... It's basically a non-linear diceless tabletop worldbuilding game
Where you pick a topic and a timeline, and basically go around adding scenes and events to that timeline
With a bit of structure to who gets to add what, and when
We did this one based roughly on the pactverse, trying to retell Arthurian Legend as a Pactverse story
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JayManiac 01-Nov-19 09:04 PM
THIS SOUNDS LIKE THE COOLEST THING TO EVER EXIST (barring- of course- Pact, Homestuck, and Mistcloaks)
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Coro 01-Nov-19 09:05 PM
It's on DriveThruRpg for $10, I think
The guy's also written a couple other similar RPGs based around similar stuff
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JayManiac 01-Nov-19 09:10 PM
I'm reading about it, I'm buying it, I'm gonna play it with everyone I've ever had a conversation with this is amazing
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Coro 01-Nov-19 09:10 PM
bulba
We've got a running list of interested parties up in #doof_plays_social
Though only one game got going, the one I linked
Huh, I guess we don't
Well
I'll make one!
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JayManiac 13-Nov-19 11:44 PM
I'm sorry it's been so long, these past two weeks have been pretty relentless schoolwise and acapellawise (our first concert's on friday, so it's been a bit of a nightmare) but I'm back to wrap up arc 10 with another gathered pages- we haven't had one of these in a while and I'm so ready. I also haven't uh...read pact in a while. Which is definitely some sort of blasphamy
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Elliot (Boy) 13-Nov-19 11:45 PM
sharkhi
Yay daylight savings means I can be awake for this!
CharmanderHi 2
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JayManiac 13-Nov-19 11:45 PM
Mr. Samaniego, Thank you for your latest shipment. It was just what I needed. My sister was thrilled with the katana, and intends to use it regularly.
Oh good, I already know exactly who this is!
pro tip: interludes can be hard to get into (especially if you've left your protagonist in a Real Bad situation), so mentioning katanas in the second line is a good way to make someone pay attention
I’m caught between worrying she’ll get killed when it breaks at a critical moment or fall into a funk and be impossible to deal with for a week.
I'm really curious about Eva- she seems like such an unstable individual and we don't know why, or what her relationship to her brother is like. Or maybe we do and I've mostly forgotten because it's been so long. Also I wonder what the metronome means
also also I wonder who the hell mr. samaniego is
we haven't heard of him, right?
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Elliot (Boy) 13-Nov-19 11:49 PM
Nah he’s new
ty 1
The metronome was that thing that fell over in Blake’s vision in 1.1
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JayManiac 13-Nov-19 11:50 PM
Yeah- we've brought it up twice so I assume there's gonna be a third beat and it's gonna be horrible
third beat was just a term, not a pun btw
Reminder: your average practitioner will be able to look and see if something’s watching them, even if it’s a camera.
This tip is one of the first things that seems to put these two on more even ground- probably in solidarity as witch hunters? How much does this guy know about the practitioner world, that he needs the reminder? How old is he? Where's he getting all this money? Can you buy a rocket launcher on amazon? I have so many questions
Andy boy, Good go with the camera. Not so bad.
Okay, maybe not so even ground then. Man, what a dick. He's said ten words and I think all of them have been patronizing- maybe that's just me
Don’t worry about the camera being seen. It’s not for any wizards or whatchits.
More lingo to suggest he's not really part of the practitioner scene-- even though he knows Sandra for some reason
We’ve got a new recruit, about your age, and you know I like to be careful with the trainees. Too easy for bad influence to take hold as they mature. I’m not specifically naming your sister here. Not specifically.
That was pretty goddamn specific. I doubt andy would disagree, but c'mon
The quartet in ‘Magog picked up all the C4 we had to dole out before I could get your bid in. Supplies are running low, with the last source we had getting arrested.
Oh yeah, life's probably a lot harder when you can't just feed the right connections, wrap everyone around your finger and slip through the bars of the law.
for some reason I love the idea of witch hunters being arrested. It's kind of hilarious whenever someone has to explain why they need copious amounts of weaponry to someone who knows jack shit about magic.
Consider asking for help instead. Offer still stands. I trust your sensibility, Andy boy. If you think you need seven (now eight) good witch hunters to cut down the riff raff, you know we’re good for it. We’re all in this together, Andy boy. You two, me and my guys, the Magog nuts, the Montreal organization. If you say no, then I’ll accept that. I’ll trust your sensibility a little less, but I’ll accept that.
good lords of gimel can you get any more passive aggressive and patronizing i'm about to start rooting for the wizards
he's so condescending- i'm surprised at how much it annoys me
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JayManiac 14-Nov-19 12:08 AM
hhhhhhh
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spinagon 14-Nov-19 12:09 AM
Probably depends on reader's age a lot
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JayManiac 14-Nov-19 12:09 AM
I long for the day when I can click all the goshdarn spoile-oh not you too!
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Elliot (Boy) 14-Nov-19 12:09 AM
Jay you can jump into those at the end of the chapter
So not too long a wait
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JayManiac 14-Nov-19 12:09 AM
!!!
got it!
So I guess he is a fellow witch hunter, with maybe some more resources and maybe less experience than Andy. I wonder how connected they all are? I can't imagine there's an international Bureau of Normalcy keeping everything organized, but maybe there's a phonebook
You know those files that Mac always had us fill out? Wouldn’t mind seeing your best attempt at one. I’m particularly interested in just how much danger you think you’re in.
Would you mind rating your chances of extraplanar torment on a scale from 1 to 10?
The diary section. Having sat here trying to figure out what I should do, I can’t help but see the open book and know I really should. If anyone picks up the top book off the stack of volumes, I’ll say here what I said before. I was never good at this. Eva’s better at it than I am, which is weird, since I’m the book guy. She tape records it, but she still does the personal diary bits pretty consistently.
Ilovethis
Sometimes I just really want to hear a character's voice, get into their thoughts in the purest form-- and this is something I do whenever I need to make a tough decision, just to write my way out of it, so it's a familiar kind of style/attitude/approach. It does a lot for the character, and it's why I think Gathered Pages is a really cool framing device, even if I'm cognizant of its potential pitfalls and drawbacks
I’m writing stream of consciousness because if I stop, I won’t get going again. That’s the big problem with me.
oh mood
i've actually been keeping a diary of sorts ever since I got to college- I learned about bullet journals and decided to do that but with post it notes and my wall instead, so now I have a wall just covered with entries in no particular order.
I think my problem is that I think too much. Most of us who start this when we’re kids, we don’t live long enough to leave anyone behind. Humans have an instinctive desire to leave a legacy. I don’t like myself enough to want to leave anything of myself behind.
Ouch
I love how this contrasts with Blake; I don't think he's the fondest of himself- especially if it's an alternate genderswapped version of himself- but he's pretty adamant about the legacy thing. Not to mention that he wasn't alive for very long, and managed to leave so many people behind.
Job commissioned by council. Incident was raised by Joanna Duchamp, the younger, corroborated by other members of the younger council – informal group of practitioners consisting of Behaims, Duchamps, Maggie Holt and possibly padraic.
Oh wait okay, so this is pre-Blakening
I love how the Blakening is such a useful turning point- it's the point in time around when Mags claimed her name, when the dual Lordship contests started in Toronto and Jacob's Bell, in addition to being the turning point of our protagonist.
So the time all lines up pretty nicely, and we can use clues like Maggie Holt and Padraic being not the same person to intuit that Blake hasn't been killed yet, the Lordship contest hasn't started yet, etc.
The puddle was a manifestation of a frog spirit. We rigged a treated wire snare for a countermeasure, and Eva stood by with a weapon. We disrupted the manifestation to raise the frog spirit, and killed it with a treated wire snare.
I love this concept so much, even though I know basically nothing about how that would work
in fact, because I know nothing about how it would work
It reminds me how much of this world I still have to explore
Please see pages 120, 122 and 150 in volume twenty six and pages 45 and 60 in volume twenty-seven. Also, I described a series of creatures on page 71 of volume twenty-seven. Help with identification would go a long way.
I'd love to kind of analyze the witch hunter response to practitioners as a product of its magic system. After all, Pact's magic is such that it's kind of immune to SCP tactics- hell, the PRT would be basically useless in categorizing its threats and abnormalities. The Case numbers would be in the quintuple digits- this is a magic that requires such an individualized approach.
Eva and I would very much like to have our rocket launcher.
This maybe shouldn't be as funny as it is
but the fact that Andy is taking it so absolutely seriously makes it all the more hillarious
If the two of you are on the same page, yeah, I’ll go with it. I’ve asked around about your weapon, and passed on the files. The others will get back to you.
And that's how they got the motherfuckin rocket launcher
Note: Andy’s personal notes, after action reports. Met with the unnamed practitioner
oh shit, we're post-blakening
or well, immediately pre-blakening
we're in the contest now, at least
We left on amiable terms, despite Eva’s initially hostile response (threatening to shoot the practitioner).
giving a teenage girl explosives tends to smooth things over...okay, well at least this teenage girl.
We walked different paths from the beginning. Different forms of training, different amounts of time spent with Mac’s group, Creevey, in Halifax, and with the talons in Rhode Island. They trained us in all the basics, but they emphasized our strengths too. While I was learning to use a hunting rifle, Eva was hunting goblins with a sword in hand. While I was learning about the basic principles of the practice in Halifax, Eva was in London, Ontario, doing god knows what. I’m increasingly worried that something went wrong. That she ran into something and it got to her. I’m not sure it was one of the monsters. Not in the fang and claw sense.
This is even more fascinating. My friend and I have been having the argument conversation about whether it'd be a good choice to enter the Practice. I've been on the "no" end, and she's been on the "yes" end. From my perspective, stories like Pact or Worm take all the problems you currently have and then multiply them by a billion by magically realizing the shit out of them. From her view, it's better if your monsters are on the outside, because then other people can understand them. Then they're valid, then they're real. I respond at this point that I have no trouble realizing social and mental problems as demons and goblins and imps, and then we're back at square one. But here we're with the witch hunters, and we're dealing with a few of those more abstract monsters. Wait, no, not that kind of- you know what i mean.
We had two jobs on behalf of the council, keeping things tidy while they get their ducks in a row. Non-allied threats are still lingering. Goblins are supposed to sleep for sixteen to twenty-two hours a day, but I’ve noticed goblins have been more awake and active than that.
This is the thing that's always kind of confused me: where do the witch hunters stand, when it comes to practitioners? Is their job to keep practitioners in line, to be used as just another one of their weapons, to work with them now with the goal of wiping them out? What is their purpose?
I’ve wondered for a long time why the monsters gather in the same places the practitioners do. The obvious answer is that the practitioners follow where the monsters are, drawing on the power the monsters can give them. But I don’t think that’s it. The monsters should want to avoid the practitioners, who are the best equipped to bind them.
I mean, through my metafictional lens it's pretty obvious: the Others are driven to conflict in the same way shards are- they seek out stories. The Faerie are the most obvious example of this, straight-up stealing names just to see what the contest has to offer, but every Other's got a little bit of it in 'em. Energy, whether in the form of ghosts or goblins or giants, wants to be pointed in a direction, needs to be bound more than it needs to be free. Practitioners represent opportunity for Others like Pauz who hope to elevate their station in being used as a weapon, they represent that blue eye/red eye chance of power. Every Other wants to be- if not where the shit is happening, then close enough to make a difference. They want interesting, they want new, they want to beat the shit out of each other or- in Pizza guy's case- catch the bits that fly off
The second answer is that monsters are practitioners.
How long did it take me to come up with that theory? I think I said "all Others are or were practitioners" or something to that effect before we first met Padraic in person, so not very long. I kind of stand by it, while recognizing the nuances of Others that are created, carved off of humans like vestiges, or Others that are created by Other Others, like imps, etc.
This is a thought I’m putting together as I put pen to paper, something I’ve thought about in the shower, but what if the monsters are following practitioners because there’s some fallout we’re not fully aware of? What if we’re gouging reality?
Okay so first thing's first: absolutely. We've talked about how Blake and Pauz and Conquest all kind of have different types of "radiation", and ghosts (which absolutely also have that radiation) are described as a human-shaped imprint on reality, when you hit it so hard with your death that there's a wound there. So it follows that this radiation, this gouging, this fallout that Andy's talking about it absolutely real.
But also: it's almost as interesting (okay not really but that's because I love magic systems even more than I love characters) that Andy wonders "what if we're gouging reality?"
even if he's not calling himself a pseudo-practitioner here or anything, he frames it so that he's complicit in the crime, at the very least
I watch Sandra and Johannes interact, and I see them practicing. A part of me wonders, are each of those displays generating some attention? Are some or all of the monsters detecting magic in the air like sharks in the water detecting magical signals or sniff out blood?
Yes. Absolutely. 1000%. It's this conflict-drive, this drama, this one thing that all of humanity and all humanity-derived beings desire and move towards, even subconsciously.
They become a little less human over time. They make compromises, and they might unwittingly be inviting the monsters into Jacob’s Bell. Sandra does it because it’s the way it has always been done in her family. Johannes does it with the future in mind. Both do it to be on top.
I think it's pretty witting of them; after all, practitioners should want to keep Others around for the same reasons you said Others shouldn't want to be around: they're sources of power, pawns to be manipulated, dangerous- but useful- assets.
they might not intuit, but I don't think they mind
I was inspired to write this entry by the meeting with the girl with the scarf, because I definitely want better records if memories are being altered, and by the night that followed, because a thought crossed my mind, and it felt like more of an epiphany.
This comes back to "if you wrote Blake's name, would you remember him?". The answer is still no, but maybe if Andy never mentions Blake he'll be able to figure out things that slipped everyone else's mind when Blake was Blakened- maybe he'll be able to subvert a little bit of that memory alteration.
What if I’m as bad as she is? I’ve yelled at her so many times for getting into hairy situations, for taking risks, or making blind leaps, picking a fight without knowing exactly what she’s fighting. But she’s a genius, in terms of talent. She can go toe to toe with a faerie that’s glamoured itself up as a vampire, harboring some of the best traits of both, and still cut the thing’s head from its shoulders.
Sometimes I read something and just wonder if it's a story Wildbow's got kickin around somewhere in the vast pre-pact repository. Because- and I feel like this is something I say in 9/10 interludes- I would abso-fuckin-lutely read this book, about these two kids- two human weapons in a world where everyone else has magic.
The thought hit me that I’m just as bad as she is. To want to get arrested. To have it end. Knowing that she’s behind bars, and so am I, and the responsibility is over. No caring for the sister who trained in how to fight monsters and became one. Just me, a prison cell, and a book.
Wow. sweet jesus. Wildbow interlude bingo space #2, I know, but I feel really bad for these guys. It'd be one thing if it felt like they relied on each other, that no matter what else is happening they at least have each other. Andy seems like he's torn between two worlds, and that he doesn't really get support, friends, or fulfillment from either.
I don’t want to go down that road. That means being more regular with my diary entries. Polish my skills.
No, no no
Not going down one road doesn't mean jack shit in the positive, it means you're not going down that road, and you still have an infinite amount of potential paths to choose from. the answer doesn't have to be diametric, throwing yourself in the exact opposite direction, becoming more like your sister.
Andrew, I know we haven’t been in contact, but three people have been in touch with me in the past week, asking my advice in identifying the creatures you’ve described this past week. Rather than let the irritations continue, I’m going to the source. You’ll have ten deliveries in the next two weeks. Boxes of books. My secondhand tomes.
think you could forward that my direction?
The girl with the scarf is now ‘Mags’, a local ambassador. Rose, too, has returned.
Okay, so solidly post-blakening now
They always pushed paper in training. The idea that paper is more permanent than the digital.
whoever said that clearly didn't tweet about how "boomer" was the ageist equivilent to the n-word, because then they would've learned just how permanent the digital can be. There are great advantages to writing things down on paper; permanence is not among them. Or maybe that's just because I lose everything that's not on google drive...
My papers are getting awfully messy, with big gaps in the files. For any poor soul that has to dig through my teenage ramblings, any gaps in the files are because Eva opened a window and some of the pages blew out the window.
hahahahahahahahaha what did I just say
I'm telling you: Other's haven't figured out the internet yet, but they can sure as hell control a little wind
The files that went missing seem to have something to do with the younger Rose. They cover the point in time when Rose Thorburn the younger replaced Molly Walker. Trickery, or did the universe want to erase traces? Even my memories of Rose are fuzzy and nonspecific. It feels somehow like it’s the first time I’m seeing her face.
Yes, yes, yes, yes
So the files themselves are lost; makes a lot of sense considering what else has happened. I bet if blake wandered the drains for long enough he'd find that they fell through the cracks soon after flying out the window
But because of this suspicion, because his interactions with blake were few, and because he's not as tied into magic, maybe he can figure some of it out...
When we ask, “How did Rose manage?”, we struggle to answer. When we ask, “How did the second Thorburn heir manage?” we can mutually agree that the heir was almost eerily in step with this world.
Hehehehehehehehhehehehehehehehe
As witch hunters, free of any vows or ties to the world the monsters and practitioners inhabit, we’re protected against the trickery. A measure of innocence can challenge that reality, and clearly see the emperor without his clothes. It’s the youths that are going to make a difference. Good or bad. ■
You can't even begin to tell me that this isn't political; the witch hunters are those who are free of ties to the system- we can see the practice as a metaphor for western modernity- and from there intuit this measure of innocence. And as for that last sentence, it works all on its own.
Good to stress that this isn't the book's political view, it's the book telling us what Andy's political view is.
Eva’s commented on the change in my outlook. We’re working more effectively as a team now.
yay? I think I'm rooting for these guys still
It helps that we have less administrative work, with Mags taking on the messenger duties, standing by at meetings. She doesn’t have a lot of firepower, but there’s a symbolic element to it.
I hope splitting the duties of being the town neutrals brings these two parties closer together- Lords know they both need friends right about now, and I really want that for them. Andy could maybe see Mags as a bit of a kindred spirit, if he squinted.
The remainder of the action reports are as follows: -Eva baited a skinchanger into an old boathouse past the marina. I crushed it with a deadfall trap. -Went with Mags to help with goblin hunting, helping to herd them to a place where she could bind them. I believe they’re still bound, and she’s waiting them out.
Look, they're even going goblin hunting together!
Junior council pointed us at a new child at school. We followed. No parents or furniture in house, never slept – only stood in the house. Executed quietly, no blood was drawn by cuts. Plant matter at core.
was gonna maybe not pull every single one of these but holy shit this is unnerving
I mean, maybe things like this shouldn't get to me anymore, but Pact is the closest thing to horror I'm comfortable reading so this isn't quite standard faire for me
my friend who's reading Pact has read a horror story for basically anything that could be remotely terrifying- she's on r/nosleep a lot; it's interesting to watch us have really different things that disturb us in this story.
Arrogant practitioner among first outsiders to make open bid for leadership. Small bomb under seat of car. Sandra and Duncan, the new police liason, diverted attention of authorities.
Oh hell, outsiders are making bids for Lordship!? I mean, I don't think they stand much of a chance against Johannes, Sandra, or...okay maybe Duncan, but it sure as heck complicates things
Practitioner was posing as a tertiary member of the Duchamp family. Sandra’s records showed no such evidence of marriage. Simply trying to hide in the background. I took him down with the second shot from 150m range with a hunting rifle. I don’t enjoy the killing, but I was proud of that last one. Things are accelerating.
being by-the-book has its advantages I guess. Andy's pretty terrifying in his own right
Samaniego told me to keep logs, in case something happened to me. If something happens to me in the near future, this is going to be at the root of it. I’m writing it as I remember it: ■
Okay okay this is a really cool transition to typical form, I love it. Normally I'd be annoyed by the format break but I actually like the idea of jumping into third person here, even if I don't know why we're doing it yet. Maybe first person narrators can seduce you to a particular way of thinking, and to show Andy's flaws it's best to pull back and watch from a little more distance here. Not that Wildbow would have any experience with that problem...or anything.
Mags entered the church. Molly ‘walked’ a half-step behind her.
ah, so this is the other way we're using the chapter: to wrap up the shit that went down sans-blake, that we won't be able to get to while Blake is bound. Clever.
“We were just talking about you,” Johannes commented. “I don’t suppose you want to start over from the beginning?”
I love Mags
It's interesting that the most unknown quantity in terms of perspective here is going to be the character we've been with for the entire chapter
will he actually find some kind of friend in Mags, or see her as another one of those selfish practitioners vying for power and making dumb mistakes?
“We’re not your enemies,” Sandra said. “Yet somehow I don’t think you’re baking me a cake in here,” Mags said.
I hope that Blake's declaration that Sandra was an enemy isn't souring this interaction too much- but it probably is.
“If we’d stood by and let you continue down that road,” Sandra said, “You would have become a non-entity all the same.” “But not without making a mess,” Mags said. Sandra sighed.
Reading these little reactions as motherly is a lot more sad now, even if this one really works. Have I mentioned that I love Mags? Man, someone get this girl more explosives.
one could argue that she made a mess anyways, though
“Is a three week span enough time for you to lose your sense of appreciation?” Duncan asked, from the sidelines.
I'm never gonna get tired of time being the first thing chronomancers bring up
“I’ve done exactly what you guys did for me. I took a wild, unpredictable element and I made an effort to normalize her, to keep things quiet.”
I don't doubt that this absolutely was part of her motivation here, and tied into her penance. So I'd be pretty miffed if they kept questioning me too.
“With no mind to consequences?” Johannes added. “I paid lots of mind to consequences. I just pushed them aside,” Mags said.
Hahahahahahahahhahaaha
same
It's the essence of how bout I do...anyway
“Molly,” Mags said, not looking at the ghost. “Do you harbor any love for the Thorburn family?” “My immediate family yes.” “For Rose?” “Definitely not Rose.” Mags spread her arms.
oh, cool, problem solved
I love how she spreads her arms like "see? Nothing wrong!"
Andy made a note in his book. Not an entry, but something to inform his entry when he wrote it. Besides, it gave him something to do with his hands. He hated these meetings.
hhhhhhh i don't have much of a narrative issue with things being hidden from the audience that the pov knows like scott does or anything
I just think it's satisfyingly frustrating right now
“That’s for us to decide,” Duncan said. “Can we not let Dudley Donut here keep talking?” Mags asked.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahaha
I just, how is she not the best godsdamned character in this entire booooOh yeah Evan exists
still, second place
“Not helping,” Sandra told him. “What sort of amends?” “A child from each group,” Molly said, staring. “A meaningful sacrifice from Johannes, who doesn’t have a child to spare, but who stood by and let me be killed.”
Oh, uh....yikes
at first I was like"yeah, okay, they killed you so an apology would be good. I think it'd be a growing experience for everyone involved" and then she started demanding children, and things went downhill from there
“This is the way it always happens,” Molly said. “My grandmother, my parents, my aunts and uncles. They’re greedy, selfish, they refuse to face the consequences. Those consequences get passed on to the young.” And the young are tasked with changing the status quo, before they become the problem, Andy thought.
if I didn't have to leave so soon, I'd have so much shit to say about this
In fact, I'll write it all down at some point, probably as a 20-minute thing that'll be easier to squeeze between chapters
Have I mentioned that I already have a six-video series on Pact planned? I'm waiting until I finish the story, but it's a comin
Andy didn’t stop Eva from raising her weapon. A pistol loaded with salt shot. She fired. The wraith was fast to move out of the way.
I was sure that was the end of Molly for a second there
The wraith’s voice echoed through the church, “I can’t promise you’ll walk away unscathed, but I won’t come for you, murderer. The others, the old ones… they have to face what they did. The city does.”
Well there goes that, I'm sure it won't become an issue further down the line
guess you uh
shouldn't fuckin kill people
how's that for a moral?
Have we all learned our lesson, adults?
Andy crossed the floor, offering Mags a hand.
my [friends/enemies] dial is movin a little to the left and I'm happy
“What’s she doing?” Fourth. “Starting something,” Mags said. “Don’t you feel it?” “No.”
Oh fuck, I thought this would be a later-problem, one of those "I'll be baaaaaaaack" things, but we're doing this now
“Each toll, it’s filled with negativity. Each one is worse than the last.” Fifth toll. “Everything in the city is going to feel it,” Mags said. “They’re going to think it’s a signal, and that’s enough.”
Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck that's some Not Good right there
Andy felt a peculiar calm settle over him as the bell continued to toll.
I kind of feel this here, just because we've spent this whole arc wondering what the inciting incident of the war would be, and now that it's happened it's a release of tension....in like a bad way, since the war's not gonna be pleasent, but at least we know, you know?
But the promise to Mac had had contingencies. If things got bad enough, and things were bad, he had another responsibility.
It'd better not be to blow up the whole town
would that even work?
I feel like it'd just create more chaos, newly made or newly empowered Others flocking to toronto...
Mags looked up. “Thirteen tolls.”
Okay, this is super bad and all, but you gotta admit that it's also really cool
and of course the most dramatic thing would be the thing most felt by the Others, because of all that gouging reality stuff I was talking about
One of these days, after years of loyal service, when it didn’t put too many people in danger, he’d skip the council meeting, and act while they were all in one place. He had a rocket launcher at home for just that purpose.
That. Is such a good payoff of the rocket launcher beat.
Oh man, what a chapter end.
I knew this would make me want to read all of Pact right now again, but some part of me still wasn't expecting the pull of that next chapter button to be that strong.
I've gotta go in about negative three minutes but I'll be keeping up with the channel til next time! See you hopefully a lot sooner!
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JayManiac 14-Nov-19 09:13 PM
Well I'm free to talk now and for the forseeable future
I'll be doing other things, so not quite free enough to jump into a read, but if anyone wants to chat I'll be around till sixish EST sharing thoughts, answering questions, and maybe jumping into a read sometime in the next few hours
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JayManiac 14-Nov-19 09:54 PM
speaking of, I've been thinking about the witch hunters a lot more; I really did have a much worse read on them than you, Elliot. There are so many angles with which to look at them as an organization that they just sit in a weird place for me. On one hand, they're all about sharing information, creating a wiki, spreading an understanding- I've mentioned before why I think categorization of things can be a detriment when it comes to dealing with the Practice, but maybe with a detailed and thoughtful enough understanding of the forces at work something could actually come of it. On the other hand, I see the vehemently anti-practitioner mindset as something that could be cultivated in its members and exaggerated to degrees that make everything worse.
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Wildbow 14-Nov-19 09:59 PM
Hmm, how vehement are they though?
They do cooperate with councils.
And even facilitate such.
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JayManiac 14-Nov-19 10:00 PM
This is true- I suppose with a name like "witch hunters" they fall pretty moderately on a spectrum of vehemence.
On the other other hand, In trying to fit them into my critique-of-modern-society method of analysis, I'm having a bit of trouble. There's an angle I've been thinking about, but i'm not sure it really slots: witch hunters as the government, supposedly serving what's right and keeping things under control, but really just doing the Practitioners' (which represent economization, the market sphere, huge sometimes-literally soul sucking corporations) dirty work and dealing with the problems that Sandra, Johannes, or the Behaims let them deal with. I don't think it completely slots, but there's a bit of a connection there, I feel. The practitioners/the economic powers have no motivation to anything but themselves, anything but a profit. They might have driving ideals, but to put any into practice requires a lot of raw power, a lot of playing to the existing market and thus spinning the wheel. Their obligation is ultimately self-serving, towards profit. The witch hunters/government, on the other hand, are bound to what they do by an obligation to protect the innocent, to keep things under control. They keep the promises they made- not because it will hurt them [financially/metaphysically] if they don't, but because they're in service of something right (if not exactly Right).
Now the comparison might in fact end there-- witch hunters are recruited, not elected by the innocents they protect (who have no clue they exist)-- so they don't serve as an exact 1-1 comparison by any means, but I think it's interesting to think about.
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JayManiac 14-Nov-19 10:15 PM
Although now that I think about it it could be speculated that the system they serve- it was mentioned that they kind of reinforce karma- is ideologically determined by what are generally accepted to be the values of society as a whole.
given my own understanding of the world of Pact (which is that the Practice is made up of and shaped by human consciousness) it almost couldn't be any other way. And in that sense, the thing which the witch hunters uphold is elected, even if they aren't. You've all been awarded a tasteless odorless, intangible and physically weightless "I voted" sticker. Congratulations.
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Ishamoridin 14-Nov-19 10:18 PM
Yeah the fact that the witch hunters mostly work for the 'witches' screams regulatory capture
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JayManiac 14-Nov-19 10:21 PM
absolutely; and i'm sure some newer, younger government officials would really rather just get em all into a building, grab a trusty rocket launcher...
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Ishamoridin 14-Nov-19 10:21 PM
Also, if there were a real world analogue for witch hunters we wouldn't know about it to make the comparison, whatever they're guarding us against 😛
Honestly, modern politics could use a bit of rocket launcher
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JayManiac 14-Nov-19 10:22 PM
To be clear, I don't actually agree with his choice there- I just think it's a very understandable position.
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Ishamoridin 14-Nov-19 10:22 PM
Oh definitely, I don't really think anyone should be blown up
Well, maybe one or two...
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JayManiac 14-Nov-19 10:24 PM
I know it's probably a naive and simplistic worldview- I know I should always come at it from a place of nuance and consideration of context- but also im of the pretty firm belief that [Blowing people up = Bad]
Like, I'd even say that if you blew up a terrorist who was unquestionably about to blow up even more people, what you did by blowing up that one person was bad. I would also say that saving lives is good. And I would also also say that there isn't any erasing the bad, and that it's kind of impossible to weigh them against each other. Which is annoying when you have to make those types of decisions and thus weigh them against each other.
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Ishamoridin 14-Nov-19 10:27 PM
Yeah ethics is hard
Sounds like you also favour the Stannis approach. Reward the good and punish the bad, neither cancels the other. (edited)
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JayManiac 14-Nov-19 10:28 PM
I wrote "utilitarianism is bullshit" in my psych notes last monday and I stand by it
I should look up that approach
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Ishamoridin 14-Nov-19 10:28 PM
Utilitarianism works perfectly in a world with only yourself in it. It's the assumption that human experiences are fungible that it falls apart
You can't really compare pleasure between two people, imo, same with pain. You can considered the biology at work and go by that, or the behavioural effects, the physiological, etc, but you can't ever really equate the subjective experiences so you'll never be able to handle them numerically the way Utilitarianism requires
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JayManiac 14-Nov-19 10:30 PM
Right, it's a complete denial of subjectivity and reduction of value. But also if you're the one in the driver's seat, how can you not make the utilitarian choice
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Ishamoridin 14-Nov-19 10:31 PM
That's the thing really, all ethical systems are flawed and can be shown to be, but we need to do things in real time and even bad systems of ethics are better than just running off instinct
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JayManiac 14-Nov-19 10:33 PM
The more we "know"- and by "know" I mean empiricalize, numerize, and reduce to our way of understanding- the more of these trolly problems start popping up, and at that point you're put in a corner of saying "my beliefs and worldview are more important than these [insert number that one cannot possibly understand here- like 300 or something] human lives", which nobody is ever gonna do. Oh and if they did, we'd probably call them a monster.
but keep making those choices, keep reinforcing that understanding and soon we're Nietzsche's last man in an iron cage
soon we've decided that life as opposed to death is the only thing anyone can possibly value, and then life becomes meaningless and calculated by a state of 1 or 0 (alive or dead)
which even reduces the complex process of death to being alive or being dead- or worse, reduces things to "equals one person" or "does not equal one person".
"Person" being a numerical unit of measurement by which to weigh any ethical decision
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JayManiac 15-Nov-19 12:13 AM
I mean, I see practitioners as absolutely the corporate criminal types who never actually technically break the law (karma), and thus render themselves immune
But there's another perspective that I forgot to talk about with regards to that chapter, which you guys actually brought up in the episode: the focus on youth, and specifically the children's role in potentially overthrowing the cycle. As soon as you said it, I was able to map the dynamic between the younger witch hunters and the older ones onto the Boomer/Gen Y vs Millenial/GenZ dynamic, where one group has grown up with easy access to things like the internet, cameras everywhere, etc. and yet they're still in many ways reliant upon, subservient to, and patronized by the other.
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JayManiac 15-Nov-19 12:25 AM
It might be one source of our different reads on Samaniego- I immediately pulled the similarity of: "yeah, okay what you did with that technology stuff wasn't that bad, but when you need me to come in and do things the right way, call us over" which is a sentiment i hear all the time. I guess it annoyed me a bit more, that he was constantly pointing to Andy's youth, calling him "boy", implying that he's inexperienced and can't handle the situation, saying he trusts Andy's sensibility but only when it agrees with his sensibility- even the language he uses: "wizards or whatchits" is reminiscent of the old man who can't be bothered to learn or use the young-un's terminology, even when it's right there in front of him.
You know those files that Mac always had us fill out? Wouldn’t mind seeing your best attempt at one.
I'm rereading one of his letters just to pick out the parts of the language which might've spoken to my read, and this is another good example. Appeal to tradition, followed by "your best attempt", which is a bit of a patronizing way of wording that. To me it reads a little bit "well, I know you wouldn't do it right, but..."
which can be....real frustrating
because we see how the adult witch hunters are just kind of wrong sometimes, like about paper being a more permanent way of storing things. It's just as fallable, if not moreso. I know I'm Real Biased about this, so I'd appreciate taking a look at where your read came from too (also I'm not trying to call you old or imply that you don't also deal with older generations looking down on you, just formulating a hypothesis that could be totally bullshit)
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Wildbow 15-Nov-19 12:35 AM
Mm, where are you located, generally speaking, jay?
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JayManiac 15-Nov-19 12:38 AM
Geographically? Grew up in Silicon Valley, currently attending college in ohio, about a five hour drive from Jacob's Bell. Why do you ask?
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Ishamoridin 15-Nov-19 12:42 AM
Location is a big part of the spell he's casting
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Wildbow 15-Nov-19 12:45 AM
Nah. Just where I'm at, especially with a lot of people with scot/brit background, there's a tendency toward the understated.
Like, someone makes you your favorite meal and a cake. "It's not bad." Best sex of your life? "Wasn't terrible." Aced an exam? "Did okay."
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JayManiac 15-Nov-19 12:51 AM
Ah, that'd also make a lot of sense, I never considered that. I can see how a lot of what I might've read as patronizing could be cultural difference. I read it again with a british accent this time and it didn't sound as bad.
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JayManiac 15-Nov-19 01:49 AM
Ah! even better
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JayManiac 17-Nov-19 12:06 AM
Alright, time to dig into arc 11, as much as I can get through in the ~ two hours I have!
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Elliot (Boy) 17-Nov-19 12:06 AM
sharkhi
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JayManiac 17-Nov-19 12:12 AM
My existence was reduced to a pizza slice of reality. A triangular section of a room with light shed from a window high above that I couldn’t see.
and here we have the resolution of Blake wanting a slice of pizza in that first arc, and getting it in the worst way possible now. It's like he asked the friggin shards for pizza.
lol 3
Screaming, though. I could get away with screaming. Even if I knew it wasn’t necessarily making me any friends. Without the need for breathing, my scream could be a howl, continuing well past my usual lung capacity.
We've seen something reminiscent of this in worm, when scion started screaming during gold morning and never had to stop and it's such a powerful beat that it hits me almost as hard here.
Pausing to look around at my surroundings for any possible clue, I found little except for the edge of the desk, no books perched on or under it, the side with the drawers beyond the scope of the reflection, floor and wall. No chair to sit in. Nothing I could pound or throw to vent my frustration.
This is so much more hitting than having Blake throw and break things in a rage, because more often then not, when people feel anger in real life there's still something that prevents them from just ruining everything around; you can rarely unleash it all, and so we're all at least a little familiar with that feeling of having to just sit there with nothing to put it towards. I've only been that angry once in the past few years, and it was after accidentally deleting three hours worth of footage for a video I was trying to make. I would just be walking around the house, picking things up, and then putting them down as I decided it wasn't worth it to throw them. It probably looked really pathetic.
I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of what might happen if I was trapped in a circle with no mirror to go to. I’d leave the option open for a last-ditch effort.
Hahahaha nopenope nopity nope to that. The one thing that might be worse than just sitting here, trapped? Probably that. Well, maybe it wouldn't be worse. But it'd sure as all kinds of hells try
I tried to use my sweatshirt, slinging it through the two holes and then around the leg, and didn’t get it to budge. Only the beginnings of a tearing sound.
No, please, I'm too invested in the character of Blake's sweatshirt at this point
Once the light was largely gone, I didn’t have any way to track the passage of time except my own thoughts. Where my own heartbeat or breathing might have helped me punctuate the minutes, it was different now.
I really appreciate that Wildbow somehow thinks of these things, brings back these logical conclusions in such powerful ways- first with the neverending screams, then here with the breaths to measure time- something we see again (ward)in Chris' interlude.
completely off-topic, but now I'm thinking about how we kind of do measure time in heartbeats, in a sense. When we have adrenaline, when our hearts are beating faster, more "objective" time seems to slow. when we're at rest, time flies more quickly. I feel like that could be a part of a magic system. Jot it down for later.
these books are really good at conveying through words what it's like to think
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Elliot (Boy) 17-Nov-19 12:32 AM
What do you think about the fact Blake is fighting the impulse to just zone out?
I gotta admit, I think I’d just zone out and lose track of time till someone showed up
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JayManiac 17-Nov-19 12:34 AM
I now had time to think, and I didn’t like where my thoughts were going. Had my life been based on someone else’s? An outside source that could fill in the gaps, a life that I could step into? That wasn’t me. Not how I wanted to operate, to be.
I think a lot about homestuck while reading pact- specifically the aspect duality of Blood and Breath: Blood is the things that tie you down, connections, chains, relationships, duty, honor; Breath is freedom, movement, agency, independence. And while I know it's not a perfect 1:1 translation, these works are just pulling from the common symbolism of society, and the duality helps me codify Blake's breath-oriented character a little. Of course he wants to be his own person; if he steps into a life then that life surrounds him, restricts him, makes his decisions and the things he cares about something he’s forced into.
I was typing that before, but I think it's also the answer to your question; Blake doesn't like relying on other people, relying on circumstances outside of his control to determine what he's going to do and who he's going to be.
Even if he's doing absolutely nothing, he's going to be there, doing the nothing.
In certain circles, he’d been seen as a hero. A benevolent spirit. Not so common for bogeymen. If I even was a bogeyman.
Ah labels, how you restrict us so. Clearly Blake's not much of a bogeyman, if I still kind of see him as a hero. Sort of. With like, a lot of stipulations
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Elliot (Boy) 17-Nov-19 12:39 AM
Universe: See Blake you can tune out and you won’t have to suffer Blake: fuck you universe! Only I get not to make me not suffer!
lol 2
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JayManiac 17-Nov-19 12:42 AM
I spent some time dwelling on that too. It gnawed at me. Where it gnawed at me, I changed. The branches finding just a little bit more ground.
I love the wordplay/metaphorplay here. It's almost the most primal version of a magic system: taking the metaphor that our language implies, and then literalizing it right there. And Pact is the magic system best suited to to that, as the one built on the primal foundations of magical thought.
I mean, take that and add the way homestuck treats metaphors, and then you've got the recipe for half the thought-through magic systems in all of fiction
I traced lines of branches and felt the raised portions. “Don’t suppose you guys could poke your heads out and help me?” I asked
Aw, at least he's trying to make friends with the spirits slowly taking over his body? That's...good? Insofar as (ward)victoria making friends with waste is maybe good
When I looked again, they’d moved closer, clustering at my arms. Where I’d had branches around my hands, a feather or two stuck out. When I looked again, they’d retreated to their hiding spots. “Thanks for trying,” I said.
aw, they did their best
not all the demons wrestling for your soul will have the handy side effect of blaster/shaker powers
“Well, you listened,” I said. “I like you. I’ll call you Lefty.” Was talking to yourself a sign of impending madness if you were a frankenstein hodgepodge of reflection, drainstuff and spirits?
Personally, I'd like to think that talking to yourself isn't even usually a sign of impending madness. Well, I hope. glances nervously at username
(edited)
lol 3
In all seriousness, as soon as I realized how useful it was to write a character just monologue to themselves for a few minutes I realized that it's pretty useful to do it myself, too. I think it's just about controlling the speed at which you think: thinking is faster than talking is faster than typing is faster than handwriting is faster than some shit we ain't got time for. And we all make decisions or have ideas best at a certain speed- or a certain speed is best for a specific kind of idea. That's why, if I were just kind of reading pact and talking, I wouldn't be half as insightful- but I'd be slightly more insightful than if I were just reading pact and thinking. I have the ideas as I write them. Not to mention that, for Blake here, keeping his thoughts temporally anchored is something that's important for him right now.
“Well, Lefty, I’ve got to talk to someone, to distract myself from the fact that I’ve been stuck in solitary by the people I tried to save. It isn’t helping any. It’s sort of killing me, even.” Lefty had his head cocked when I next looked down.
also I've gotta start skipping over some beats and not pulling every goshdarn sentence in the chapter, but also also lemme just say that having a not-too-scary version of weeping angel mechanics for this conversation is so, so cool. It doesn't really add much except a sense of logic, controlling the pace and tone of the dialogue, a bit of flavor- okay maybe it does really add much.
“What’s the worst thing I could have picked for tattoos?” I asked Lefty. “I liked some pretty dumb cartoons as a kid. If I was the sort of person who held onto nostalgia, instead of loathing my past, maybe you’d be a pastel-colored bug with a symbol on its back. What do you think?”
Yeah, blake doesn't seem like the type to get tattoos that reminded him of his past; Blake's tattoos are pretty breath-oriented. I mean, there are the birds of course, as symbols of freedom, flight, the air, but there's also the tree, ever-growing, ever-new. They're both more about being who you are right now than holding onto any anchor.
At the same time, there's a bit of a contrast, because birds are movement-oriented, freedom, flight
whereas trees have roots; they can grow, but they can't move.
Almost like, as Blake's tattoos overtake him, what's really happening- or what's happening on some level- is the polarization of the self into blood and breath, into his absolute symbol of motion and untethered-ness, and the absolute symbol of his cultural, ideological, and familial roots.
ohoho I really like that
Random thought #imneverfinishingthischapter: I still think Blake's ideal implement/demesne would be an implemesne: his motorcycle. I bet he could come up with an argument for why it's both a place and a tool, and I like a lot of the symbolism that would carry.
I say this fully aware that Blake is likely incapable of having either, and that the Hyena is probably the closest thing he's got.
My right ribs and the bone of my pelvis at my waistline were the worst spots, branch mingling with bone, I’d fallen hard when fighting the temple guardians, Tweedle Dee, Dum and whatever the third one was called.
Bleeding Profusely, I believe. Or Comedy Gold, I can't remember which.
With all the talk of wildbow books on this server, it's truly a crime that we don't have a "it's both" emoji yet. We'd get a lot of use out of that one.
agree 2
or at least I would
There was a gap in the branches and bones. I put my finger in there. I felt one of the bird spirits brush past it, and the hand came out as fast as if I’d touched a hot stove.
hHhhhHhhhhhhh not comfortable with that
I can't describe this feeling with anything but this meme bcuz i only get it reading these books
“What’s the solution, Lefty?” I asked. “How do we fix all this? If it’s a monster that needs killing, that’s a whole lot easier. But this is a flawed dynamic. I can’t set it on fire or trap it in a binding circle.”
And here we have the resolution of that argument my friend and I had about whether it'd be better to live in the world of Pact or not: just because some monsters are concrete, doesn't mean all the problems that aren't go away, it just means that all the problems that aren't now have much worse consequences.
She's on arc 4, so I can't exactly use this evidence to let her know that I've won yet...drat
“Do I take a cue from the vigilante revenant, and carry out the sort of task that a bogeyman is supposed to, only with an acceptable target? Or do I take the Blake route?”
I mean, I think I know which one you're going to take. You've never been very good at being what you're supposed to.
I heard the door open, and turned, though I couldn’t hope to see it. “Hello?” I asked. “Hey,” I heard Ty’s voice.
sharkhi
He stepped into view in the long mirror, visible from head to shin. He wore a sleeveless t-shirt and pyjama pants, and had Evan perched on his shoulder.
This is exactly what I needed: my two favorite people in the story right here to be themselves for a bit
“I’d say ‘Evan want a cracker’, but I don’t, so I won’t,” Evan said. “Good call,” I said.
Hahahahahahhahahahahahaha
not only is this beat just funny on its own, it's also the answer to the question from a couple quotes up. Evan's not doing things the bird way, he's doing them the Evan way. And Blake thinks it's a good call. (edited)
“If I thought you needed water or food or something else, I would’ve found the excuse to come to you, but as it was…” “I was musing on the subject earlier, but I think I’m still degrading, like this,” I said.
And if this "degrading" is the polarization I was talking about earlier, then what is the book saying with that? That the enemy of the self is its exaggeration? A loss of nuance? We'll keep track of it, but so far I like that interpretation.
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JayManiac 17-Nov-19 01:22 AM
“I feel pretty horrible about it,” he said. “Dunno if that matters.” “Matters some, but it doesn’t help,” I said. “I don’t want you to feel horrible.”
being around certain people makes blake into a better person, and these are two of them. I really like just watching them exist here on the page.
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A bird 🐦 17-Nov-19 01:24 AM
Evan counts for at least three
agree 1
lol 1
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JayManiac 17-Nov-19 01:24 AM
“We were suffering from the worst hangovers to date-” “First hangover! And probably my last!” “-and doing our best to shore up the defenses. Four walls protecting us, and not a lot else. More than a handful of things slipped in and needed to be dealt with.”
1. I still like that Wildbow spends so much time on characterization that he can do this and it reads perfectly naturally because there could be 10 characters in this room and I'd still know that's Evan.
Ilovethis 3
2. with everything that was lingering at the edges of hillsglade before, I'm almost glad I didn't have to see whatever slipped through
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Ishamoridin 17-Nov-19 01:25 AM
'Bow can write in-voice like no other author I know of
agree 4
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JayManiac 17-Nov-19 01:28 AM
Ty stepped out of sight. I wasn’t sure if I was in the clear to ask Evan about the wink and salute earlier.
If Evan isn't on Blake's side in all this I don't know what I'm gonna feel
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JayManiac 17-Nov-19 01:47 AM
sorry about the pause, wifi went down for a bit
“You know, when you said thanks, I totally thought you’d give Ty a dad look. Or a mom look, like Rose sometimes gives, or even Ty sometimes.” “A dad look?” I asked. “I can’t do it. I don’t have the right face muscles. You know what I mean? That look like you’re just pretending to take me seriously, and you’re pretending so badly you just gotta look at someone like, ‘ha ha, we’re not really taking the kid seriously, am I right?'”
I love this so much, because it puts words to the things that I've had bouncing around in my head for...like, as long as I can remember- it's astounding how much of this book does that for me, making such acute observations of things that are just part of the human condition. It's also a thing that kids do a lot, which is why it's so much fun to hang out with them sometimes. They make inferences about what they're presented with, and even if we'd consider them wrong, they're just interpreting the world and society we've shown them, so it's a valuable insight. So it's doubly incredible that Wildbow is able to write such an authentic 8 year old child- like moreso than lewis carroll- and either through that or with that put names to so many of the things that we experience. I also think this is probably why kids like to hang out with me: there's something called the "kid look", and it's the one that the kids share when the adults are failing to play along, failing to "get it" or giving each other dad looks. I share that look with them far more than I share any mom or dad looks with anyone, because the adults are far more ridiculous to me.
Moral of the story: take kids seriously, or they won't take you seriously
and sometimes they still won't take you seriously
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Ishamoridin 17-Nov-19 01:49 AM
Lewis Caroll feels like a weird person to go to for childlike perspective, he was pretty creepy with kids
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JayManiac 17-Nov-19 01:50 AM
Read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland for my english class like a week ago, so that's what's bouncing around in my head rn
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Ishamoridin 17-Nov-19 01:50 AM
Fun fact, I grew up less than an hour from the house he wrote in. I used to pass it on the bus, it still has the tree that the real Alice used to sit under
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JayManiac 17-Nov-19 01:51 AM
!!!!
that's so cool!!!
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Ishamoridin 17-Nov-19 01:51 AM
It's a bit weird really, you'd think it'd be a tourist attraction but I only found out by happenstance (edited)
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JayManiac 17-Nov-19 01:54 AM
it's still kind of weird to think of Alice as a real person in the first place
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Ishamoridin 17-Nov-19 01:57 AM
He denied that he based it on her, but I think that was to belay the creepiness. Through The Looking Glass even spells out her name
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JayManiac 17-Nov-19 01:57 AM
that denial is...uh...pretty laughable
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A bird 🐦 17-Nov-19 01:58 AM
I am not loving these revelations
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Ishamoridin 17-Nov-19 01:58 AM
In all fairness there's no evidence to suggest he ever did anything to her, just had a creepy fascination
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JayManiac 17-Nov-19 02:00 AM
I don't like to draw that many conclusions about creepiness from it, but I hear that side of it
“I’m not about to be condescending with you, Evan,” I said. “As far as my memories go, I didn’t really have parents to model my behavior off of.”
this is part of what I always liked about their relationship: it felt like they treated each other like peers, with respect. So many stories take relationships like this with a parental lens, which is fine, and I can see why they do (most people have or are or have been parents so it's easy to relate to and cuts pretty deep, it helps distance the work from accusations of pedophilia, etc.). But that's also why this is kind of a unique dynamic. The story doesn't have to rely on them being "like brothers" or "like father and son" or really any kind of familial tie to show that relationship, which is doubly important for a book that’s about family, social stigma and “law”, and making things authentically yours instead of just basing them in what you’re supposed to do.
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Ishamoridin 17-Nov-19 02:01 AM
Technically Evan's the older of the two of them
psyduck 3
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JayManiac 17-Nov-19 02:02 AM
I mean, not by much
he's existed for what, a year?
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Ishamoridin 17-Nov-19 02:02 AM
A year is a lot when you're a month old
and I'm being generous calling it a month there
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JayManiac 17-Nov-19 02:02 AM
This is true
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A bird 🐦 17-Nov-19 02:03 AM
To be fair, it's been a hell of a month
🥁 1
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Ishamoridin 17-Nov-19 02:03 AM
Evan's year wasn't great either, mind
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JayManiac 17-Nov-19 02:03 AM
Well first it was a hell of a month
then it was hell for a month
Maybe now that the behaims have someone more competent it's gonna be hell in a month
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Ishamoridin 17-Nov-19 02:05 AM
Or hell as a month, friggin' chronomancers
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JayManiac 17-Nov-19 02:05 AM
I made a so-so gesture with my hand. “Enough. Maybe the opposite. Rose got too much attention.” “Tiff too, in a bad way,” Ty said, returning. He held up a pack of cards, still in the box. “Same general type, in that respect.” “Sure,” I said. “Is everyone okay?”
1. aww, Ty is still trying to give Blake peace 2. I love watching Blake try to avoid thinking of Tiff and Rose as in any way the same because of how much that would violate his current pattern of thought
3. I have to go in around negative six minutes.
ohno 3
Did I expect to finish the chapter today? No, not really
But did I expect to get a little more than halfway through? Foolishly so (edited)
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Ishamoridin 17-Nov-19 02:07 AM
My bad there, I started the Caroll tangent 😛
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JayManiac 17-Nov-19 02:09 AM
well if you know the parahumans fandom. you know it wasn't close to the longest Carol(l) tangent we've ever taken...
🥁 3
Bidoof 2
okay but I do have to go, see you guys soon!
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JayManiac 25-Nov-19 12:36 AM
Alright, I only have an hour and a half, let's see if we can get this chapter in the bag of things Jay has read before then! (While giving everything its due to the best of our ability, of course)
Also I'll add as a note that it's thanksgiving break, and this year I'm all hells of thankful for the opportunity to read Pact slightly more than usual! Huzzah!
Okay, so when we last left off: well, I don't know!
Hey Ty, what was going on when last we left off?
“And the state of things?” “Ugly. The fights so far are small, contained. Nothing that’d scare the innocents, but aggressive. Can’t speak for the others, but I was glad to get back here, even with the lousy defenses. Once it got late enough in the day that there weren’t people on the streets, other stuff came out.”
Cool, cool, alright. So standard Jacob's Bell fare, except measurably worse. Fantastic.
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A bird 🐦 25-Nov-19 12:41 AM
Okay, so when we last left off: well, I don't know!
In your heart of hearts, you knew
Also,
CharmanderHi
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JayManiac 25-Nov-19 12:42 AM
Oh this book is burned with runes into the essence of my being I was just using that as a setup for the fact that I literally stopped when the book was about to recap the current state of things
which is fun
also,
sharkhi
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A bird 🐦 25-Nov-19 12:43 AM
greeneyes
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JayManiac 25-Nov-19 12:46 AM
“Deal me in,” Evan said. Ty reached around, grabbing a book, and placed it so it sat open, standing up, blocking his view of Evan’s cards. He did the same for me, dealing the two cards face up, behind the books. It looked like he’d done it before.
This picture of the two of them having spent whatever downtime they had playing cards with each other- well, it's like my heart is made of fragile material that expands with heat, so this moment warms it and breaks it simultaneously. Tiff and Alexis are probably closer with each other than Tiff was with Blake, but we don't really know what Ty and Alexis' friendship was like without Blake, so when he was just...gone...well, I'm really glad the bond he made with Evan stuck around.
Man, you listen to the Balance arc of Taz and then suddenly you're saying bonds instead of connections, really gotta catch myself there.
“Real money?” I asked. “Found them in the cupboard about a week after we all moved in,” Ty said. He issued the stacks of coins.
You know, I don't think this book is the type to have them play with cursed coins and not realize the consequences of their actions until much later when it sets up some soul exchange- just because the book has more visceral and focused ways of creating conflict and hurting us- but I can't exactly rule it out, either.
let's hope Rose found time to vet these coins for casual play
The bids were small, one coin per, but all the same, Evan had a few more coins than Ty or me. “Maybe Go Fish,” Ty said. “But I like winning,” Evan said.
I absolutely love how realistically competent Evan- and the kids in Wildbow's stories in general- are. It's really done what Worm did for me in terms of powers, but for writing child characters which is make me super duper frustrated about how every story that's not a wildbow story handles it (with many exceptions, of course, it's just an average). Evan is such a great character, and I love how he interacts with the world. Sometimes it feels like he's one of the least "childish" people in the story.
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JayManiac 25-Nov-19 01:22 AM
“It’s like being a fencer, and you think the other guy’s going to play by the rules, and he just comes at you with a foil in one hand and his other hand swinging. Except he’s following the rules. Evan doesn’t fold when he should, which throws me off, but when I try to play it smart and efficient, by the odds, he still pulls ahead wins because he has the devil’s own luck, as the idiom goes.”
I was just about to say something about how Evan provides this great contrast to the rules of this world, and then the story went and did it for me. But this also kind of rang true for Blake, too, as I was reading it. He survives long past when he should've, doesn't give up when it's tactful, and follows the rules only in the loosest sense. I love the fact that I can still refer to the Bird on the Chessboard as a metaphor for him, intentional or no.
“Kind of loses its shine when playing smart doesn’t win. I blame magic,” Ty said.
But if magic was society the whole time....
“Or,” Evan said, “Or, or, or, I’m a genius.”
You know what, that's what I'm gonna go with
Ty gave me a look. “That’s the dad look,” Evan said, hopping up, pointing a wing at Ty. “Did you see? That, right there.”
Hahahahahahahhahaha
I leaned back, well past the point where I could see the cards or coins, and rested against the corner of the desk. “I’ve missed you guys,” I said.
D'aww!! This really is bringing me back into where I was with the story: just kind of happy that some of my favorite characters were all here and interacting and...well, I thought there was some other meloncholic emotion there, but you know what let's just-
Ty’s expression was hard to read. Sympathy, maybe. I hadn’t been on the butt end of his sympathy, not in my memories.
ah, there it is
“What was it like?” “Dark,” I said. “Like all of the ugliness of this world we’ve been introduced to, compounding all the worst parts of being homeless.”
Directly calling out the metaphor we followed while we were in the drains; you guys were right, that homelessness was the more specific aspect of poverty.
“Are you about to backslide?” Ty asked me. “Slip back through the cracks?” I thought about how I’d considered breaking the mirror, and the consequences when I didn’t have any place to go. Any place but down? “No,” I said. “I have too much to do.”
I love that that's the reason he can't go back to the drains; as if you have to want more than just to get out of the drains to leave.
There's gotta be another drive there or you never crawl back up
because if you just didn't want to be in the drains anymore, you might not be ready to face the worst of it to leave
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A bird 🐦 25-Nov-19 01:33 AM
You were typing it as I was wondering whether I should, and Ilovethis
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JayManiac 25-Nov-19 01:36 AM
Living on a fucked up commune, that was another kind of place I might’ve backslid to… one I’d wanted to, even if it was for one moment of weakness. But after I’d met Ty, had he had that same look of sympathy for the antisocial guy Alexis had brought in, a guy who spent more time looking out the window or at the ground than at people’s faces? The memories segued too smoothly into reality.
There's this aspect of metaphysics we've been talking about in my classes- sociology and psychology specifically- that memory (psych) and by extension all of reality (soc) is constructed by the mind, never observed or recorded. That's how we can misattribute things, or create false memories- and it's how we can create a world that is superstitious, magical, or scientific: by applying abstractions onto what we intuit, bringing the world into existence with our perception. Every time we remember something, we reconstruct it, and in that sense we are each the same age as Blake, for our memories are new. It's an interesting angle on his whole last thursdayist situation
I had a thought on the tip of my tongue. The sort of thing where I wasn’t sure if I should say it, because it might be awkward or stupid once it left my mouth, or I wasn’t entirely sure how to form the thought. I said it anyway. “You know what?” I added. “I did sort of make friends, down in the Drains.”
And I love how he ties his experience of homelessness and his experience in the Drains to each other, and is able to look at reality through that analogy.
“That’s… hard to explain,” I said. “It was easier to make friends. I think… well, without the burden of bad karma, it’s easier. I imagine Rose is having a hard time of it.”
the idea that the drain denizens don't have karma is an interesting one to tie back too- like the homeless are able to interact on a level less determined by what is polite and socially "right", and start caring about a more innocent version of humanity
“But this, I can’t agree with it, obvious bias aside,” I said. “This dead man’s switch feels like an even worse idea.” “We were talking about it when you first showed up, and Rose kicked you out,” Ty said.
Hear hear; you're talking about releasing a demon maybe more powerful than Ur, just because if you can't have dominion over an ordered Jacob's Bell then nobody can
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A bird 🐦 25-Nov-19 01:42 AM
I don't think 'polite' is quite the right angle, but I like the argument
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JayManiac 25-Nov-19 01:44 AM
Well, karma has a strong tie to superficial politeness and agreeability with little to no concern for what is honest or genuine- that's more of the politeness I mean
karma probably docks you for having your elbows on the table
or eating with the wrong salad fork
“She redrew the circle around the barber,” Evan chimed in. “Evan, cut that out,” Ty said. “Pshh. I’m a part of the team, and I have as much say as you. If the circle isn’t taken care of, in a way that only she knows how to do, both for how the circle’s supposed to be and how it needs to be taken care of,” Evan said, “The Barber can get out. If it does, then she’s the only one who knows how to bind it again.”
Yess, Evan! Spill the tea!
“Can we play more?” Evan asked. “While we talk?”
I'm wondering how this aspect is going to change the conversation, if it'll suddenly become more competitive and gamelike?
I gave that a moment’s consideration. If I was going to win over Ty… could I win him over?
that's gonna be a yes
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A bird 🐦 25-Nov-19 01:47 AM
Conquest was very nearly also an incarnation of working within the system, and I don't think he's anyone's definition of polite
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JayManiac 25-Nov-19 01:47 AM
Oooo, I don't think I agree with that exactly
that might be the Lord's position, but unless you're saying Karma is based in Conquest I don't think it lines up with his nature very much
Okay, I got through pitifully little but I've gotta go now, so I'm gonna pick this up later
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JayManiac 01-Jan-20 05:13 AM
👀
^me opening my reading eyes
let's do this
and by "this" I mean read as much as I can, break for dinner, and then read at least another chapter after that- I've been away much too long. I'm really glad someone started another liveread though! More people reading pact is always a good thing. Probably.
Between finals week and trying to get my video output to a place where I can consistently upload during the spring semester I haven't really been able to spare time for reading- whenever I've had a huge chunk of a day, the eight things I need to finish jumped right into my head and I was always piling more on- but I've really missed it.
But now that I have a deadline, I'm gonna move a lot faster maybe probably not who knows. I will catch up with Deep In Pact while that's still possible, and that's gonna mean shorter reads on average, maybe not getting to finish a chapter sometimes, and abandoning a little bit of the structure to see when I can find good times to settle in and read.
Also I may or may not be
subtly (edited)
pushing
my
liveread
down
the
screen
so
no
new
readers
get
spoiled
That enough?
Probably
Now, when we last left off I was actually in the middle of a chapter, so to recap: Blake is super duper screwed.
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Elliot (Boy) 01-Jan-20 05:24 AM
sharkhi sharkhi sharkhi sharkhi
bulba 2
Now, when we last left off I was actually in the middle of a chapter, so to recap: Blake is super duper screwed.
Does this narrow it down at all?
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vivachuk 01-Jan-20 05:25 AM
What chapter are you at?
So I know whether or not your posts are safe
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JayManiac 01-Jan-20 05:25 AM
11.01
So...uh...not exactly
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vivachuk 01-Jan-20 05:25 AM
Ok will avoid.
🙂
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JayManiac 01-Jan-20 05:25 AM
Sorry to kick you out!!
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vivachuk 01-Jan-20 05:26 AM
You’re not!
I’m working right now so I probably won’t have time to read tonight
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JayManiac 01-Jan-20 05:26 AM
👍
Alright spoilers start now!
So yes, Blake was super duper screwed, but also he's hanging out with Ty and Evan (who may be a little more on his side than everyone else) so how screwed could he really be?
I did read the whole chapter again up to this point, I just didn't liveread it because Time
I won with a three of a kind. I gave that a moment’s consideration. If I was going to win over Ty… could I win him over?
So I was never sure what exactly this meant, especially since Blake can't say binding things anymore (with the exception of "if I say untrue things, Dionysus can totally fuck me up", which I'd assume is less potent when you're not in a room with his acolyte).
Under the pretense of needing to move and stretch a bit, I shifted position. I bent limbs in odd ways to intentionally make parts of me pop and snap. In the midst of it all, I changed my perspective relative to the mirror, and got into a position where I could gesture to Evan with one hand.
The ol' Familiar Tag Team. I can't help but wonder if Evan has a plan here, and how it's going to interact with Blake's?
“I helped one of my Drains friends get up here,” I said. “You brought a bogeyman into the world?” Ty asked, just a bit incredulous.
Weeeellll, maybe not if you wanna get technical. Blake's framing this in a way that makes it seem like an actual dangerous bogeyman was brought into the world, which is dubiously true at best. Bogeymen are the way they are because that's what they had to become to fight their way back from the Abyss, something which Green Eyes- despite her monstrous appearance- never did. So theoretically she's not a bogeyman, at least not in the way Blake and Ty are implying.
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Fursuit Lightsaber 01-Jan-20 05:37 AM
spin
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JayManiac 01-Jan-20 05:37 AM
“You keep answering questions with stuff that makes me want to ask more questions,” Ty said. “Okay, putting aside how you got out of the drains, or the form this advice took, or how you were in a position to call in favors from Faysal, do we need to worry about her? Raise.” “Not any more than you need to worry about your next Other,” I said. “Call.”
Ty is catching onto more than I am where Blake's plan is concerned- I might be too hung up on word choice, but I don't see how the game is involv- wait
I mean, you could maybe use the spirits favor gained from winning three hands against Ty to maybe get advantage on your persuasion role- but I'm not sure if the spirits would actually translate between those forms of the game, and it doesn't explain what he's doing with Evan
“Is she good looking?” Evan asked. He wiggled his body one way and his head the other, “Do you liiike her?”
Hahahahahahaha, this is prime 8-year-old, I love it.
“I don’t know her well enough to know. But she seems like a good sort, all things considered. I’m not in a position to be picky, so I won’t rule anything out in the grand scheme of it all,” I said.
I can't help but wonder whether Blake's going to be the first Wildbow protagonist with a healthy romantic arc. Probably not, and like Blake says we don't know Green Eyes well enough to know, but I was always curious how exactly he'd handle it, especially since it's something other books do so often. Maybe he wouldn't, for that reason.
(edited)
I extended my arms, showing off the tattoos.
Okay so he's: 1. communicating something to Evan, which he seems to be playing along with 2. textually intentionally calling attention to his abnormalities 3. Winning at cards
...still got nothin
“Fold,” Evan said. Don’t be so obvious about it, I thought. “She’s a mermaid, though, so it’d be awkward,” I said, to distract Ty.
Hahahahahahahaha, so they're obviously cheating somehow to get Blake to win, but this beat is also hilarious. He's just saying things that are crazy and not elaborating on them, which is a kind of humor I appreciate
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JayManiac 01-Jan-20 05:58 AM
“You liked Isadora,” I said. “I like new, whatever it is, if it’s entertainment or food or girls.” Ty said. “Mermaid is new, as girls go.”
that's an interesting angle on Ty, I'd never looked at him in exactly those terms but it makes sense; being open to- or rather, enthusiastic to new things is something I really admire in people, and something I'm proud of in myself when I exhibit it. On the other hand, I've always taken criticisms of Ty a little personally, because I relate to them a whole bunch: specifically the starting 3,000,000 things and finishing maybe 2 of them because you were distracted by the others. It's only now that I've connected the criticism as pointing out the downside to that positive personality trait, but it makes a lot of sense.
lol 1
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JayManiac 01-Jan-20 06:05 AM
“She’s a bogeyman mermaid,” I said. “It’s not what you’re imagining, I’m almost positive.” He shrugged.
Man, now I'm just wondering whether Ty would mind or not; blake specifically doesn't describe Isadora as being beautiful, so Ty's taste is more what's unique and mind-blowing, and less what's conventionally beautiful. Like, you know, having skin that covers your whole face
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JayManiac 01-Jan-20 06:13 AM
“The Drains are harsher than that,” I said. “And types like she and I are tougher than you’d think. Not that I want to push that toughness. Seems like it’s Blake that takes all the grief, and the stuff from the Drains that gets stronger.”
It's an interesting twist that Wildbow's had in his works, at least this one and Parahumans- although probably Twig too now that I think about it. His fantasy/magic/extended metaphor in Pact and Parahumans has a lot to do with this compartmentalization of the self, the Othering (or Alienation, as the case may be) of a part of your own psyche, characterized and represented by the works as the Shards and, well, the Others. The idea that 'you' are actually a smaller part within the larger 'You'. And what doesn't kill you makes You stronger, but it might not actually make you stronger. If you're not careful, it makes the externalized, alienated, othered part of You stronger.
Ilovethis 2
And I wonder if there's a way, magically speaking, to fight in a way that makes Blake stronger.
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JayManiac 01-Jan-20 06:20 AM
In terms of compartmentalizing the soul, it's interesting that Worm takes an individualist approach- the magic adhering and following your personal identity and trauma- while Pact takes what I'd call a Neo-Freudian approach- not to say that it has anything to do with sex, just that the forms which "magic"(in this case being the reorganization of the self) takes are reliant on society-wide concepts and categorizations, as opposed to individual ones. In Worm we see the individual trapped by the Self, whereas in Pact we see the individual trapped by Society, by norms, laws, and self-perpetuating cycles. You could say that Worm is a psychological magic, whereas Pact is a sociological one.
Addendum: obviously there are examples of the individual trapped in society within Worm, and there are individuals trapped by the self within Pact, this is purely with regard to the metaphors each magic system is employing.
“I can ask Rose if there’s any problem with you getting a book on bogeymen,” Ty said. “I’d like to stop you being in here from being bad for you, if nothing else.”
I have a feeling that if Rose wanted Blake to know what he is, she would've told him instead of just saying "I know what you are" and flipping him entirely the wrong kind of bird.
Three wins. That was all I needed. Three wins. A toehold, some leverage with the spirits that managed everything, so I could maybe convince Ty to give me something I needed.
So I was right, that was what he was banking on. Interesting. I'm not sure it'll work, especially because Blake is cheating and thus maybe not pleasing the spirit of the game, as it were, but I suspect we won't get a "it worked" or "it didn't" kind of answer. Things will happen and we'll be able to interpret them as working slightly easier than we'll be able to interpret them as not working, or something to that effect
Except, Ty was better than I was. I lost the next hand.
Oh yeah, maybe we won't get to see at all
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Elliot (Boy) 01-Jan-20 06:27 AM
idk if the spirits care that you use a secret teammate to cheat a win
See: everything
lol 2
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JayManiac 01-Jan-20 06:28 AM
You know what you're absolutely right- maybe I've spent too long away from this book, I must be forgetting how unfair and dumb spirits can be sometimes
I lost the one after. He was paying attention now.
Well? You're just going to let him? Quick, tell him how you met a fallen god of light or something!
He won the hand. Leaving me out of money.
Well shit diddley, so much for that. Guess you'll have to win Ty over the old fashioned way: by being his friend. Sweet cheezits, being a practitioner hasn't been good for Blake's gamification of reality.
“I’m thinking you two are in collusion,” Ty said. “And something tells me it’s a bad idea to let that happen. Go fly, Ev. But I think we’re done with poker for now.”
And besides, if you can't trick your friend into getting to play just one more round of random bullshit with you, are you really even friends?
“He was really yours,” Ty said. “Hm?” “He’s loyal, and I can see the connection between you two, even now.”
the fact that I took Ty's statement as speaking metaphorically, forgetting that he can Literally See That, proves a number of things: 1. magic was just extended metaphors all along (haha, suck it tolkien) 2. I shouldn't take such long breaks from Pact 3. I'm still getting used to the fact that Ty's a practitioner, and that Blake isn't one.
But oh what I'd give to see what that looks like- is it a new connection, next to the severed, old one? Is it the old one revitalizing? Was the old connection one of the ones that snapped, rather than being cut, since Evan was above- and is it one that could be repaired?
I can't decide if I'd want it to have been cut, so I can believe this kind of connection is possible with everyone Blake was severed from, or if I want it to be that this is one that snapped, because fuck everyone else I want Blake and Evan: Familiar Squad back
“I wasn’t real, as far as I can tell,” I said. “But I’m suspicious someone was. Maybe someone the lawyers acquired, or another family member, or… I don’t know. I feel like it was based on something. That, or it was a really clever piece of work, putting together a lot of reality wholesale, and I don’t even want to go within ten miles of whatever’s capable of doing something like that.”
I have a feeling you might be within ten meters of something, buddy. I do wonder how Ty and Blake were ever able to remember each other, since I assume Real!Heir never met Ty, Joel, etc.
What I'm guessing, is that the connections were just forged and left strong, and then together they retroactively created the false memories as soon as they met. It'd explain why (to my knowledge) there isn't any reference to Ty before 4.1. We'd have to check that. The connection was there, but without any memory Blake would have no reason to reference him.
“It isn’t how demons or diabolists operate,” Ty commented. “Creating anything.”
I do wonder about that. Seems like you could take someone with existing connections and split them, explaining Alexis, but was something or someone else responsible for the rest of Blake's connections? It seems like something an Enchanter would specialize in, but it doesn't seem like any of the Duchamps were approached for Rosalyn's little showdown.
“We were friends,” I said. “But we weren’t as close as Alexis and I were. If you’re looking for a Blake-shaped hole in your memories, you might want to look at your work. I remember helping you set up. I gave you feedback. I was one of the first people you went to when you’d started a new kind of thing and wanted to just share everything you were doing.”
Dude I'm gonna cry again; I've read like 1/6 of a chapter and it's already got me. Probably because some of my closest friends are like that, or I'm like that with them, needing to share all the details of my work and get feedback, give feedback....
It hits real close to home
“I’ve been feeling an itch, like I really want to talk to someone about the magic stuff,” he said. “Maybe that’s the Blake-shaped hole.”
I can absolutely imagine that- please talk to Blake and also us about magic stuff all day that's all I want. But if you can't because Rose is about to be a bitch, then I have the perfect solution: find a channel on discord where you can obsessively vent all your thoughts and people listen for some reason- can you see why I relate so much to Ty?
lol 1
Ilovethis 1
Ty turned his head. “Rose.” “I can think of five ways what you’re doing right now is a bad idea,” she said.
Yup, here it is
“Are you going to order me not to?” he asked. “I don’t do the orders thing. Slippery slope with big C in my head.”
That's...actually a pretty good call. I'm glad to see this side of her, and that she's being careful about what she does and how she thinks. Doubt Blake will recognize it.
How are you, Blake?” she asked.
The fact that Rose genuinely doesn't seem that bad in this scene is making me nervous
every other time, the other shoe has dropped and she's said exactly the wrong thing. I mean maybe this is the arc where they finally start learning to get along, or at least not super duper hate each other, maybe they're gonna learn to be friends, but that's not the reaction the book's trained me for.
“No hang over, and I’m better, after having some company. You’ve got to at least leave me with a book, the next time you leave me in solitary. I’ll lose my mind.” “We’ll see,” she said. “A novel or two, maybe, nothing magic.”
All novels are magic, if you think about it. Especially this one.
I closed my eyes. I’d trained for it, in the course of interacting with Lefty. Shifting the focus of my awareness. Letting other things wash over and around me.
Is he gonna be able to manipulate the mirror dimension? Because that would make a lot of sense; it's the same kind of extension of self, shaped by expectations, but potentially manipulatable.
My presence pushed other influences out of the mirror world.
Or if not manipulate it as in change it, at least understand what he does to it in order to use that?
There was something of a melancholy feeling in my chest as I opened my eyes. The knowledge that Rose hadn’t been able to pick this up, it pointed to the simple fact that she was real and I wasn’t.
Or you just think differently...
“Which reminds me of Laird,” she commented. “I’m putting a bogeyman in the room to watch over you. It worked with him.”
I mean, it's not the big other shoe drop that I was expecting, but it's still kind of a dick move.
“Break the mirror if he does anything untoward,” she said.
Now that's a fuckin dick move; pretty sure he goes back to the drains if that happens, and you're letting whoever this is determine what "untoward" means.
Alright, I'm gonna break for dinner, then try to knock out one more chapter before bed!
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JayManiac 01-Jan-20 07:25 AM
11.2! Blake has figured out that reality is his to command
I couldn’t influence the outside world, but I could influence this one.
Well, more like he's figured out that this little splinter of reality is his to maybe make some adjustments to.
Still an improvement over his "i have jack shit to do except scream until someone notices me"- sweet cheezits when I put it like that it throws Blake's whole temper tantrum into perspective.
My presence had made it so they weren’t reflected, establishing my presence in this mirror world. But a lack of activity, a shift of focus, a bit of release, like the smallest kind of surrender, and I’d let them through. The reflection of the cards.
That's some good clarification- I'd assumed that it was something like that, but probably best that the confusion gets cleared up early.
I kind of doubt he can do that with people, but I'm still gonna wonder if he can do that with people
I didn’t have all of them. Ty had taken some with him, or kicked them out of the scope of the mirror, or something. Not playing with a full deck, I thought
uhhhh, are we gonna....acknowledge that? I mean we maybe knew Blake was going crazy, but I didn't think blake knew it.
Twenty large, fat coins.
I still think Ty shouldn't've just plucked random coins from a diabolist's house and started to play poker with them; seems like a rookie mistake. Then again, maybe they really are just random coins in an ancient language with no magical significance whatsoever- that always happens.
Two books. One on alchemy, more like a dictionary than any kind of spellbook, filled with tables and measurements and Latin words. Aqua Regia, Aurum Regia, Aqua Justatium, Lapis Philosophorum, and so on. Each chapter was prefaced with the sort of stuff that started with ‘Evidenced herein’ and spent more time referring to other parts of the text than it did actually saying anything.
I can't help but wonder if this is Wildbow's little dig against the Pages concept. Turns out Actual Freaking Textbooks might be an absolute bitch to read or write. Understandable.
The second book was a catalogue of bogeymen.
Oo! Something halfway useful?
A quick perusal suggested there was very little in the way of vital information.
Nah, why would books ever have that in them!?
Just by the language of the text, the assumption seemed to be that the people who were reading the book were very angry types with revenge or hostility in mind.
Ilovethis
I love the idea of something written like "and here's all the information, in the context of destroying your enemies!"
"The house has a wonderful backyard pool....could be perfect for drowning your victims!"
"we have a stunning lookout point on the second story, if you were to push someone off they'd probably be impaled on the fence spikes...hypothetically."
"the patio's floorboards are removable, in case you ever needed to hide anything under there. Like a body. A human one. Because you destroyed your enemies"
Okay so maybe I just stole the paired concept from John Mulaney's Comeback Kid, but I was in a hurry and couldn't think of anything else https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reJpDoW42Zg
Provided to YouTube by Drag City Inc. Could Be a Nursery · John Mulaney The Comeback Kid ℗ 2017 Drag City Inc. Released on: 2017-06-16 Auto-generated by YouTube.
The last chapter, however, did have some information I could use.
But I'm sure the rest was very entertaining. Eh, maybe Blake's not in the right mood to get it
Binding a bogeyman typically involved using some form of the natural elements, and things with permanence. In the former case, it depended based on the type of bogeyman and the place beyond the cracks in reality that they had come from. Some were particularly vulnerable to running water, others struggled to move solid objects and could easily be trapped or stopped by a simple closed door. Yet others didn’t like fire.
Interesting, I always thought it had a little more to do with the set of motifs a bogeyman used to build itself (branches, birds) than it did with the Drains/Forest/Backwoods/Carnival (been talking about Pact with the guy at my college, he told me about that one) they were created in, but I suppose it depends on how much you let the environment shape you, how much you adapt to it. BatBlake would've been a creature very different, very limited by the expectations of the drains.
The final chapter was, as far as I could tell, the ‘I fucked up, how do I run damage control?’ for novice scourges. Troubleshooting and understanding where things could go wrong. It said a lot that it was the last chapter, as if the assumption on the part of the guy who put the catalogue together was that the scourges would prioritize summoning first and fixing problems later.
Ahahahahahahahahahaha, yeah that sounds just about right.
Diabolists, priests, and now scourges, as sorts who were their own worst enemies, setting themselves up for failure.
Crazy to think that maybe there are disciplines of magic that don't force you to do all this crazy shit. Of course, it's just different crazy shit, but it might be nice to work a nice, honest (technically) job for honest pay in power rather than gambling with the universe every six minutes.
The book followed a trend I’d noticed, where authors really liked referencing their other texts. I imagined it was a way of selling more books to what was no doubt a niche market.
Ahahahahahahahahahaha
Couldn’t fully understand the contents of ‘Lost and Bound: Bogeymen’ without ‘Plumbing Darkest Depths’ first.
This is gold
Sent bogeyman to go murder someone in the most horrible ways possible, but they were blocked, and came back to me, what does the practitioner do? Do the same thing, and hope they aren’t equipped to bounce it back for the third total time, because it would be far stronger on the third trip.
Dude no what the hell that's how you get Tromos'd
I heard the door open, interrupting me as I read.
when you're caught with the playbogey magazine planning your escape
Tiff.
sharkhi
“Rose was saying at breakfast that you were falling apart?”
"Yeah that thing that's basically me and sentient is slowly succumbing to the forces of the abyss, pass the honey"
“I wanted to ask if there was anything I could do,” she said. “Talk to me,” I said. “Keep me company. Or let me go.”
Oh, Tiff. I love that Blake's friends are coming to help; even if they don't remember that they care about him, he picked some good people (or someone picked some good people for him to pick) who wouldn't just leave someone like that without trying to help.
“I see,” I said. I traced my finger along my arm, following a ridge. “Who is Rose, to you?” “A friend. Someone in need.” “You were my friend,” I said. “Look at me. I’m dying. I’m in need.” She frowned.
Okay Blake, we need to work on not sounding that overtly manipulative- or maybe not trying to manipulate people while you're calling them your friends. I know it's a really frustrating situation, but trying to use your friends as handholds to get what you want isn't gonna do any favors for what's left of your humanity.
“You were my friend,” I said, a second time, with emphasis. “You alone, Tiff. Alexis is… I think you’re among a very small group of people who can imagine what Alexis means to me. She helped us both in very similar ways.” “Yeah,” Tiff said.
I just really hope he can manage to build on these connections without yanking on them for momentum, because that would probably break my heart. And whatever's left of his.
“If it feels like I’m turning away from Alexis and Ty by saying that, that’s not it. I will help them. However contrived our friendships were, I will die if I have to do it to save them.” “I’d say that’s a relief, but I don’t want you to die.”
Framing things in terms of self sacrifice is maybe not what you should be doing. Positive attitudes and all that. Besides, if Tattletale were here...anyways
“When Rose entered this world and I headed off to the Drains.” “Yeah. Ty just couldn’t process, on a mental level, and Alexis took it really hard emotionally. It came and went, and affected them especially at night. Alexis said it was worst when you’re in that twilight of near-sleep and your mind’s wandering, she kept tripping over-” “-A Blake shaped hole,” I said.
I can't imagine being one of the Knights, just to hear what losing a single person was like...I really don't know what I'd become in order to deal with it. I love how the ways in which they hurt come from the areas in which they interacted with Blake most. To me, talking about projects is so that I can process them, interpret them, mentally work through and realize whatever I need to. If Blake was Ty's method of doing that, and he didn't have it anymore...that would be really horrible.
“Yeah, a Blake shaped hole. Ty took a while to find equilibrium. Different. He’s really a guy in how he just doesn’t recognize how bad he was, looking back.
Love that angle on emotional self-awareness from Tiff.
Rose was… on a level, we knew Rose. Or we didn’t know her but we were familiar with her. She offered help, and where I couldn’t do anything to help Alexis or Ty, Rose could heal that damage and fill the gap, help them through the bad nights.” I wasn’t sure how to handle that. Being as angry as I was, yet hearing that she’d helped people I cared about. It jarred. I frowned, and I hoped it didn’t look as scary as it could, given what I was.
See, I think we really are seeing some distinct counterexamples to the idea that Rose is horrible. I mean I still don't agree with her, but I don't exactly agree with Blake all the time either, and in the past two chapters she's seemed civil, and maybe even downright caring, even if she thinks about how to show it in a very Rose way (Rose and Blake are, interestingly enough, possible counters to Tiff's idea of gender and emotional awareness. Okay maybe neither of them are all that self-aware)
“She thrust you into this situation,” I said. “She treated you like sacrificial pawns, rejecting the rules that others were trying to set, knowing they might go after you to get at her.”
Blake is just stumbling right on through this conversation; he's so wrapped up in proving his worldview that he doesn't realize that maybe setting himself up directly counter to Rose isn't a great strategy for getting these people on his side.
I hadn’t realized how upset she was getting. That defensiveness I’d noted wasn’t because I was winning. It had been because I was losing her.
congratulations, jackass
at least he eventually does realize it. Not that it'd help now.
I’m sorry for getting you into this.” “Did you?” “Yeah,” I said. “I’m… damn it. Joel told me to be selfish. He wanted me to be genuinely selfish for maybe for the first time in my life, and I may actually be accurate there, with how short my life has been. And I asked for help from people I cared about, because I couldn’t do it alone. If this goes bad, and something happens to you guys, I’ll never forgive myself.”
Which is, in turn, a kind of self-centered and other-people's-agency-removing way to frame that...am I being unfair to Blake? Yes, absolutely, but that's probably just because I can see a lot of my own problems in what he's trying to deal with here specifically. No, I'm not mad at my mirror twin or anything, just...the whole not-accepting-help or not-forgiving-myself-for-accepting-help thing.
“That you came from a bad family situation, and Alexis helped you out. That I really like your art, and I’m jealous that you’re capable of doing it. That you were horrified at the notion that because we had our first date of sorts at a coffee place, that I might nickname you ‘donut girl’.”
Better place to start, probably
“I don’t know for sure,” I said. “Alexis introduced us. She wanted you, me, and her to have an… event.” “Oh god,” Tiff said, hands flying up to her face. “I think I know what you’re talking about. She hinted. Stop right there, or I won’t be able to look you in the eyes.” “You haven’t been looking me in the eyes for a little bit now,” I said.
Pfffft, that's a great way to bring that up
Oh. She hadn’t been paying attention to the monstrous bits. I’d meant my comment to be more melancholy, recognizing what I’d become, not teasing.
When you accidentally trip over angst and fall well-built chest first into seduction- happens to the best of us. This is hillarious.
ahyperlul 1
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JayManiac 01-Jan-20 08:24 AM
That made just the right amount of cheesy nonsense to be really funny
and now a bunch of innuendos just popped into my head (What, trying to get a glance at Blake's wood? I wonder what's work, his bark, or his bite) Sweet cheezits I've been listening to way too much Duke and Duchess
She gave me a curious look. “Yeah. I was windmilling my arms, looking for something to hold on to. I did stupid stuff. Stuff that, if I had different luck or a little more time, might’ve made me into my parents, despite my best efforts. Drinking, drugs, just leaping into relationships with guys that weren’t… good. It was all easy, and if I’d spent another week or month doing it, maybe I would’ve gotten trapped. Then Alexis was the next thing that turned up that I could hold onto. Only she wasn’t so bad for me.” “Yeah,” I said. “She does that.”
Jokes aside, this is just genuinely lovely. I adore these characters as much as I anticipate Blake screwing this up by the end of the chapter
I managed to resist the urge to say something about Rose, and the cost there. Tiff didn’t pick up on the hint, which was probably a good thing, because she was still listening, and maybe it would reach past the walls she’d erected.
dude
Stop talking about Rose, stop thinking about Ros- wait if you do that you might actually stop existing. Shoot.
She wasn’t aware. “If there’s one thing in all this that terrifies me, it’s the idea of going into freefall again. Being forced into freefall. Backed into a corner until I have no choice but to do something stupid, and then keep doing stupid things, and I don’t want that.”
Then you entered entirely the wrong profession, my friend. You just described everything that happened to Blake
Feeling the fluttering in my chest, I had a bit of an idea. It related to Evan on a level, and it related to this.
Oh shit, what now?
Remember when Blake having an idea was a good thing?
me neither
I won’t tell you that if you just released me, I could protect all of you, and I’d do everything I could to keep your fear from coming to pass.
Hearing this is worse than hearing Azazel say it from trapped within your circle, because I know that Blake believes it, or believes the part of him that is the demon.
I’d been able to transfer power to him, in a very crude way. I could imagine that this kind of practice was second nature for more experienced Others. Recognizing what they were made of and how they could use that.
This is about to be a really bad idea
however, it's also probably about to be a really cool idea, so I'm down with it
With my right hand, I held the book. I slammed it into my ribcage, as hard as I could.
Hyup, this is awesome. And bad, probably
I slid my hand into the central space. Within, I found a morass of branches, angular and rough, largely devoid of leaves.
THIS IS SO METAL I LOVE IT
“Come on, Lefty,” I murmured. “Show me you trust me, at least.” I felt a bird hop down into my palm.
Ah, so that's why you were thinking of Evan, and the flutter. Because your plan was "I can smash myself open like an idiot". Clever indeed.
It flew around me twice. By the end of the second loop, it was struggling to stay airborne. The spirit returned to my waiting hand. I returned it to the hole in my side. There.
Not gonna lie, this was pretty badass
Spirits were the arbiters of this world. They drove things, negotiated things. They were everything simple and simultaneously very complex in what they could do. I had a store of spirit-stuff inside me. It was a question of how I could make effective use of it.
And this magic system is still the most amazing I've ever seen- it's got an abstract logic to it, such that you can have insanely specific and creative solutions to problems.
I touched him to the mirror, passing him through. He made the faintest of sounds as he landed on the ground.
SPIRIT BIRD HELL YEAH
I’d meant for the spirit to nudge the foot of the mirror’s stand, to change the angle of the mirror’s facing by increments, until I could maybe see books. With books, I could have had an escape route If it had failed, I would have brought it back, then called out a group, trying the same thing. Failing that, I could have torn up paper from the books and tried to create a proper physical body for the birds to inhabit. I wasn’t sure how or where I’d take it, but it was a thought, and I didn’t have many options. Instead, it nudged the bottom of the mirror itself.
I have a feeling we're about at the end of our "pizza slice of reality" part of the arc, for better or worse
“Wasn’t me!” I called out. “The bird nudged the mirror!” He slowed.
That's such a flimsy argument, based on such a non-applicable sense of self that it just might work
How had he found his way back to this world? How had he been cast out? “I’m pretty sure I’d lose if we fought,” I said. “You look like the type that fought his way back.”
Ah yes, the new and improved Blake tactic: make friends with the monsters!
worked with pizza guy
He screamed. Rage, anger, the sort of roar that summoned up all the fear and prey instinct of one’s target and made them freeze, certain they were going to die. The sort of horror that made a guy standing a quarter-mile away pause in momentary terror.
Abort, abort, bad plan
My back touched the ladder that led up to the second floor. I scrambled to climb it. There. The book I needed. Rose hadn’t moved it, or she’d kept the same filing system as Grandmother.
Good plan?
“Can’t cross the circle,” the bogeyman said. “Wanted to warn you.”
Ahahahahahahahahaha, I should've thought of this. Okay Rose really should've thought of this. I trust her less and less with Jacob's Bell by the minute.
“You moved the mirror?” she asked. “Trust me,” I said, improvising, “I did not want to move the mirror like that! I definitely didn’t want to offend Fish-hook there.”
Blake is still saying things that are very technically true, still thinking like a practitioner. He didn't want to move the mirror like that, but...
“If I move it, will I destroy you?” she asked. “No, but-” She spun the mirror around, flipping the facing so it was back in the original direction.
To Rose's credit, she does ask. I still think she's not a horrible person, she's just not ready to take on all of Jacob's Bell, she's in a really shitty situation, and she has to deal with Blake! Who wouldn't go batshit crazy?
“Help by not distracting me from keeping those four alive, all right? You’re a big problem, more than you understand, but you’re not even in the top three issues we’ve got right now.”
I'm not not on Rose's side here, despite any issues I may have with her individual life choices. Maybe if she had more than half a life she'd make better ones.
“Fuck,” she said. “I really want to know how you did that. But the house is under siege, and given the pattern- why am I even talking about this with you? Stay put for one minute. I’ll put you in a different damn mirror and bring you with me.”
Yay! Mission accomplished! Kind of....maybe...not really at all.
The book was one I’d glanced over before leaving the house, in my efforts to get a sense of the way this world worked. One of the first books I’d noticed on setting foot in the library. Sympathetic Magics.
Oh?
Sympathy is a branch of the practice that deals with commonalities, heavily tied to enchantment. Expert sympaths can form a connection between a doll and a person, and inflict harm on the individual by harming the doll.
Kvothe!? Is that you!?
I reached into my chest, through thickets of branches and twigs, and gripped one bird that wasn’t fast enough in escaping my hand. Twigs broke as I pulled it free. I pressed it into the deck.
I have no idea what this could do, but card magic is one of my favorite kinds of magic systems so I'm already excited.
I fished out another bird, and pressed it into the deck. I felt tight inside, a little less like I could fake being alive. This wouldn’t be a trick I could repeat without regaining power somehow. I’d need to eat, or feed my bogeyman nature.
Wildbow always manages to make really cool moments equally forboding, and I love it
I slammed the pack down on the ground. The cards that were still laying on the floor from my game with Ty assumed a similar position.
Oh, Oh
I skipped over and through, moving to the bathroom one floor downstairs. I took another step, putting me in the living room, to one side of the shattered window.
You absolute madman, I love it. Ahahahahahaha, this is wonderful
“Who’s attacking you?” I asked. They practically jumped out of their skin. “No,” Rose said. Her voice was tight. “You… motherfucker.” “Who’s attacking?”
As much as I kind of agree with Rose just a little bit...this was still all unholy hells of satisfying, gotta say
“The Behaims,” Evan said, sounding just a little too happy to see me, for a guy who was supposed to be on the down-low. “Want to come stop them with me?” I asked. He looked at the others. I shouldn’t have even asked.
But not as satisfying as that! They're back together again! I can picture that as such a cinematic moment
Okay, I'm very very very tired, but I'll be right back at it come tomorrow unless I'm not, so I'll see you then for 11.3 probably hopefully maybe! I hope you guys enjoyed, I'm very glad to be back, and I'm ready to wrap this up in three months. Happy new years, everybody!
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JayManiac 01-Jan-20 07:48 PM
bulba Thanks so much guys!! I'm glad that everyone's still along for the ride! Now I have a lot of Jay Vids to write today, so let's get ourselves into the writing-extensively-about-stories-and-magic mood by covering as much of 11.3 as we can this morning!
sharkhi 3
“I don’t like that sound,” Evan said. He was perched on the roof of a car, while I was reflected in the window. I could hear it too, though it was faint. Not so much a sound as an echo without a source. It was as if the town had a heartbeat, a noise that resounded with a slightly uneven rhythm, the tolling of the town’s namesake bell.
That thing's still going? Or maybe it goes off at specific intervals? Whatever the case, it's still tolling the Shit Going Down Sounds. I love that I get to listen to DiP as I'm doing this, because they remind me of things that happened towards the end of last arc and I'm like "oh yeah, that like just happened". Also hearing the intro again felt great, I'm so glad to be back.
I had one of the fat coins placed between my pinky and ring finger, and was trying to ‘walk’ it over the back of my hand.
I've always wanted to do this; I feel like I give off such Rogue vibes irl and this would just complete the look. Also I read about it once in a fantasy novel that everyone my age seems to have read in fifth grade for some reason. Good book.
update: just tried it with a quarter I had on my desk and it turns out I still haven't spontaneously developed that ability.
I still think the coins are going to come back as important, or at least magically potent objects at some point, probably not like they're Rosalyn's special coins for beating bad guys or restoring one of the 9 lives she has as an evil cat, but that they're primed for use as spiritual symbols or something. I don't know, you don't just find ancient coins in a house of ancient magic without any special properties that's just a rule. Rosalyn didn't seem to be much the sentimental sort; I have trouble believing she'd keep something around that she couldn't use.
“Lots of stuff around here wants to eat me,” Evan said. “We should find a safe place before night falls, because that’s when the bad stuff really comes out. There’s a big spell that everyone joined in on, even Rose, that keeps other people indoors and keeps them from looking outside too much.”
That's probably a good plan; I like that we're getting the rules and limitations of the game being played. They're pretty standard ones, as rules for magical tomfuckery goes (we only come out at night, the days are much to briiiiiight, we only come out at night) which gives it a familiar feel. Like Minecraft. But way way way worse, and also not a game except for the part where it kind of is.
In the end, a "game" is just a conflict with agreed-upon rules, so everything in pact is a little bit of a game. sweet scion I just wanna play PactDice
I've heard that starting WeaverDice campaigns at college was a good way to get people into worm....
that's a plan for when I'm not playing in 2 dnd campaigns and running 1
“Got it. Careful. I guess that means no-” “No sparrow of blood and death and doom,” I finished for him. “Aw. How’d you know I was going to say something like that?”
I've been so wrapped up in how horrible it would be for none of your friends to remember you (because it would be horrible) that I hadn't considered that sometimes it could be a lot of fun. You could finish your best friends' sentences without them knowing you were going to do it because they forgot the long and extensive conversation you had on the subject! I love that they're falling into this new rhythm with each other. Just as Jacob's Bell falls into a much more foreboding one.
There were a group of Others on the approach. Female figures with a range of body types, with babies strapped to their chests, backs, swaddled in slings, or in strollers. Six in all.
What is it with Wildbow and creepy baby/mother/childbirth imagery!? We got mewling dragon!babies, womb demesnes, (ward)Nursury and MotherOfMothers, and now this. I wish I could say it was played out, but the fact that I'm so readily disturbed again means it's probably really not.
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Ishamoridin 01-Jan-20 08:15 PM
Kids are just inherently creepy tbh
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JayManiac 01-Jan-20 08:16 PM
Oh don't even get me started on creepy kids, that's already a way longer list
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Ishamoridin 01-Jan-20 08:17 PM
And childbirth is both a huge trauma and the undeniable contact point between sexual love and familial love, which makes people uncomfortable to think about
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JayManiac 01-Jan-20 08:20 PM
Bonesaw, Gray Boy, all the friggin heartbroken, that plant kid we saw a chapter or two ago, Crone Mara, (Twig)Sylvester, Helen, Nora, Lara, Mary, the Ghosts, (ward)Kenzie, to a certain extent. Also the heartbroken, I know I already said them but they bear repeating I'm gonna stop here because sweet cheezits that's a lot of creepy kids. I'm surprised there haven't been more in Pact honestly.
I can only really think of Crone Mara and the Plant Kid, but tell me if there are any more
i guess Padraic glamoured himself up as a kid and that was kinda creepy.
We weren’t too far from the school, and it was early in the day It made sense that mothers would be coming back from dropping off some older children. But the feel of them…
it seems like Blake is becoming sharper at noticing Other-related shennanigans, possibly as a result of becoming one. Just...vibes I guess. Especially since Evan isn't typically too shabby at realizing when something's up, and he doesn't seem to pick up on it here. Maybe it's a kind of self-awareness, since he's learned to better notice what about him is different and Other, so he can see it more clearly in the rest of the world.
Dolls. Their skin was too perfect and even in complexion, their makeup painted on. Their babies, by contrast, were far from perfect. A little too hairy, with ears pointed at the tips, a little too intelligent in how their eyes moved
ahahahaha, nope we don't get to have creepy mothers and creepy dolls that's doubling up and you know it! I wonder if the mothers are just the puppets of whatever's in those carriages? I'd also like everyone to know that this is what I'm picturing
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spinagon 01-Jan-20 08:29 PM
There were the vestige children in Maggie's arc
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JayManiac 01-Jan-20 08:29 PM
Changelings was the first idea to pop into my head. A myth that I remembered learning about before, from some movie or another. The child was removed from the crib, often by the faerie, for something resembling a baby, so the faerie could put one of their spawn among humanity and have a human baby to raise themselves.
Hey, yeah! Literally the next line! The way I learned about it it was demons, not faerie (and plus, I assume the faerie would be way better at it than whatever these things are).
There were the vestige children in Maggie's arc
True, but I felt more bad for them- they were the victims of creepiness, not the source.
I guess just the Others who hang around Johannes in general
the Piped, you could call them
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spinagon 01-Jan-20 08:31 PM
Yeah, but consider mouse teeth
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JayManiac 01-Jan-20 08:31 PM
please no i almost forgot about mouse teeth
I didn't really
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spinagon 01-Jan-20 08:31 PM
Evan was a bit creepy before familiarizing
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JayManiac 01-Jan-20 08:31 PM
how the fuck would I forget about the mouse teeth
You know what you're right
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spinagon 01-Jan-20 08:33 PM
Briar girl is weird, not sure if creepy or not
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JayManiac 01-Jan-20 08:33 PM
I think she's also too old to qualify, creepy or not
cutoff is like...12, I think
Then it's less creepiness because of the kid factor and more just because creepiness
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spinagon 01-Jan-20 08:33 PM
I probably imagine her younger than she is textually
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JayManiac 01-Jan-20 08:34 PM
I think she's 15/16 range?
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spinagon 01-Jan-20 08:34 PM
No idea tbh
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JayManiac 01-Jan-20 08:35 PM
Says 15-18 range, which like...I'm in the 15-18 range so I don't consider that as Kid. At least not of the kind where creepiness would be easily derivative.
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Ishamoridin 01-Jan-20 08:36 PM
Yeah I picture Briar Girl as prepubescent but that's probably just because her name includes 'girl'
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JayManiac 01-Jan-20 08:37 PM
makes sense
Roaming, on the watch. Spies, or scouts? If they were faerie or faerie-associated, did that mean these children were in league to Sandra?
I'd be careful in straight up labeling them changelings and assuming the Unfair Folk have jack shit to do with them. I get that it's the only lead he has to go on, but I think they'd be more perfect looking if they were really fae
And they might in fact be in league to Sandra, but I wouldn't bet on it
My guess is Johannes, just because everyone else seems to have pretty specific kinds of Others helping them out whereas his demesne would attract just whatever the fuck
“There’s a lot of stuff like that,” Evan said. “It’s worse than it was before, and before I didn’t feel safe going out to fly.” “But you’re with me?” “I was going flippin’ crazy in that house. So much worrying, and I beat all the games that Ty brought for the handheld, and I beat all of the good games on Tiff’s phone, and I even beat two games for the console, which is really flippin’ hard when you’re the size of the controller. The rest of the stuff is boring or I can’t do it without someone to use one side of the controller while I use the other. They’re so busy they can’t sit down to play a game or play with me.”
So very relatable. You can only be cooped up for so long before you get bored and start going on dangerous monster hunts. Being small and edible would be a bit of a deterrent, but never underestimate boredom as a motivator.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m even less willing to be cooped up than you are.”
Hey maybe that's just because nobody gave you a game console
I want to keep track of where Blake is at mentally, just to see if he lost anything personality-wise when he started throwing birds at his problems sidepiece-style. I mean bogeyBlake as an entity is probably less powerful, but did it tax Blake the Person, or just the spiritual side of him?
“The others want to sit back and wait. Rose is safe because of the dead man’s witch-” “Switch,” I corrected.
Every few days my friend Grace messages me with a scenario and asks "would this be a lie in Pact?"
“I know,” I said. “And I don’t want to wait and see what they throw at us before acting. The priest attacking is clue enough that they aren’t in any shape to just sit back and wait for the other guys to pick themselves off. The metaphorical guns are too big to let the other guys shoot first.”
The inevitability of war causing the inevitability of war is a theme in The Stormlight Archive, so I've been thinking about it a lot. I mean, not that war isn't inevitable here, it just is that way because everyone agrees that it is. Including Blake, now.
“Can you find the source?” “Of the smell? Yeah. Do I want to? No. Too many things want to eat me, and dying once is enough for me, thank you sir.”
Evan is in a unique position to come to terms with his own mortality. I think I probably did that when I was about nine too, but was only kind of a ghost bird at the time.
“Good point,” I said. “You know where the Behaims are hanging out?” “Which ones?” he asked. “Great answer,” I told him, breaking into a smile. “Nearest one first. Point the way, and I’ll follow.”
I don't know if I can explain to you how good it feels to have these two working together again. They're such a great team and I love them. I'm still concerned about their potential viciousness but they're also just such a cinematic duo. At the end of the last chapter I pictured Blake smiling from the window as Evan flew towards the camera- then credits, and it was such a visual moment for me.
They would work super well in terms of motion dynamics- with Evan flying smoothly in a line while Blake jumps from mirror to mirror. Got some of that smooth/disjointed foil to it. I just think it'd be really cool
I knew my memories were fake, that I wasn’t real, and that it was fantasy to even think about it, but I’d always thought about having a place, about getting it looking nice. Not too big, or it would be too much upkeep. Maybe something with a little statue in a small but dense garden, a bird bath and feeders in the back, a bike in the driveway.
There are these little flashes of something very human in Blake that are so relatable and emotionally resonant and ultimately tragic as he remembers slowly that he doesn't get to have any of it anymore, not even the hope of it. I do well in small spaces that I can completely inhabit and make my own, and I can remember having similar hopes for the future at different times in my life.
n the weeks I remembered adjusting to life off the street, I’d contemplated backsliding because it was easier, yes, but I’d also had a vision of what I really wanted, deep down, and as much as I didn’t love the idea of tying myself down to one place, I imagined that if I did have a place of my own, I’d want it to be comfortably mine, everything in good working order.
I can't help but wonder if this is more Rosalyn Programming, liking the idea of making something yours and taking care of it because that's what a demesne is supposed to be. I realize that I'm probably reading too much into this, and Blake likely wasn't supposed to live long enough to get one of those, but it's something in the back of my head
“It’s dark. I can’t even look inside,” I said. “Wards,” he said, in his sagest tone.
I love that Evan and Blake are both seasoned veterans by Practitioner Standards (at least in terms of experience). Evan speaking in a sage tone is equal parts ironic/hilarious and unironically awesome.
“Who lives here?” “Dunno exactly. Behaims. They’re older. Rose said they’re heads of the family.”
Ah. These fuckers.
Had I been properly alive, the book I’d tucked into my pants would have been ten times more uncomfortable.
I like the idea that you get the feeling of what you're supposed to be feeling without the actual feeling to it. It's a wonderful way to illustrate the Other in Blake
“…ster’s getting results,” a male voice. Man one. “As I’ve said a few times, he’s been saying he’s getting results. With very careful wording. How big are the results? At what cost? In what timeframe?”
Ah yes, Alister Behaim? I love that Wildbow works so much of the behaims magic focus into their dialogue and their concerns
“Stop, Ben. Let me finish. Aimon was lax about following the rules, and let several individuals slip through the cracks. Maybe on purpose, maybe not. But Laird was one individual who had as much free reign as the family could get him. Alister is another. Whether Aimon saw all of this coming or not, he made those two critical pieces in this war.”
that already makes me pretty wary of whatever Alistair is up to- it's interesting to see the Boomer Practitioners' perspective on this generation of practitioners, whose ethos seems to be "fuck all the rules" at this particular moment.
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JayManiac 01-Jan-20 09:21 PM
Ben continued, “I live my life simply. Up until I retired, I worked hard. I was responsible to my family. I’ve always been faithful. If that means anything, if it has any currency at all, then let me say this. I believe in balance. I believe in living in accordance to God, the spirits, the elements, and the natural order of the universe. Living that way makes us strong. You know this.” “Ben-“ “Let me finish. I think we’re getting away from that. Not just us here, not us as a family, but everyone. We deceive our enemies with misdirection and omission, while paying only lip service to truth. We lie to ourselves, damn it, because if we believe the wrong thing, then the spirits cut us an awful lot of slack. We’re all just being… fundamentally dishonest. I think the universe makes us pay for it more than we think, and I don’t want that to be the foundation for our Lordship of Jacob’s Bell. Not for us, and the tone it sets, and not for the way I think it’s going to be seen by other eyes, from above or around us.”
I mean it's easy to say that this guy is just another Boomer yellin at all these (probably literally) damned kids, but he has a very interesting stance. Of course I like the idea of honest practitioners and straightforward Lawyers and truth and stability...but at the same time, truth in the world of Pact is so often about how you frame it, so it's very easy to lie to yourself as you lie to everyone else. Truth is something created by society, created by each and every person's perception of the truth, but I also wonder if Pact argues that there is something more fundemental, more real than perception. That's getting away from his argument a little, just a side tangent.
I wonder: is this guy just creating a truth out of his past, conveniently forgetting that practitioners in his time weren't actually much better than kids these days, and just had a different set of flaws and values?
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Wildbow 01-Jan-20 09:26 PM
That on its own could be a driving theme for a story
agree 2
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JayManiac 01-Jan-20 09:30 PM
I can't decide if you're being tongue-in-cheek here, because yes I absolutely love that, but I'm wondering if you're saying that because it's already a driving theme of this story? Certainly the idea of retroactively creating the past is relevant to this story...but I don't really see this context playing into it; most of the characters in Pact don't seem to have a particularly generous view of how things were in their past.
Maybe I should write some stories...
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Ishamoridin 01-Jan-20 09:31 PM
You should! I'd read something you wrote
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JayManiac 01-Jan-20 09:32 PM
Thank you! I'll let you know when I do! (well, when I finish writing something, anyhow)
“Window’s open,” a voice said. Not old, not young. It had a rasp to it. Other. “Raise me up.”
Uh oh. You know, I said that Behaims would use more specific spirits, but any and all intuition I had on that front escapes me now because I have no idea what this is. Hell, maybe they do use creepy children; it would work with the age theme
“Up, up,” the voice said, “High as you can go.” “Hello little bird,” the voice said. “Enjoying the warmth of a toasty house?”
This feels very "I know you're not just a bird, bird, but I'm gonna humor the idea that you are". Love it. I wonder how loyal this thing is to the Behaims?
“Problem, Cranaus?” the woman called out from below. “No. Not at all. I’m having a conversation. I’ll return to you when I’m done.”
A conversation might imply they know what they're talking to can talk back.
“Can you get down?” “My dear, I’m disappointed you have to ask.” “Alright, alright!” the woman said. As she left the room, I heard her mutter, “Had to be a damn cat.”
So apparently they don't have all that much control over what forms their familiar takes- bird was pretty obvious for Blake and Evan, but I wonder how it would've gone with a familiar who wanted to be a dog? Would they have been able to prevent it? Also this is exactly how a cat would talk; I get big cheshire vibes from it, and also big 'the cat named Moxie who wanders our college campus and thrives on our worship and is definitely a bit smug'. Also me. I relate to Cranaus.
“We were leaning toward disruption, buying time,” I cut in, before he could get us into trouble. “I’ve more or less decided against any sort of disruption or mischief.” “Do tell.” “I liked Ben’s argument in there.”
Ben was the Behaim who wore a hat while driving and who Blake thought was cool despite that, right? Yes, okay, that makes sense. It seems like he and Blake are still on the same page, where the larger conflict is concerned.
“If I’m being honest, I’ve been devious before, even as recently as twenty minutes ago,” I said. “But I try. My bird friend here, I think, is pretty straightforward.”
It's interesting to see this conflict within Blake; he wants everyone to be straightforward, but as soon as he's in a conflict he starts thinking ways around the language, lying and misdirecting. It's a value that's pretty quickly abandoned when he's in trouble- though interestingly enough he tends to misdirect more when he's under a specific limitation to tell the truth, almost as if he can still fool himself into thinking he's being honest. It's why people tell lies of omission in real life, most of the time. We don't feel as guilty, or even if we do feel as guilty, we feel clever enough for having come up with it that we're distracted from the guilt.
“There’s a difference between being genuine and being guileless,” Cranaus said. “The genuine fight with one hand tied behind their backs, but the guileless are already doomed. They don’t know it yet, but they’re doomed all the same.” “Guileless?” Evan asked.
come over here and say that again you lil sunnuva-
I really don't think Evan is guileless. Cranaus isn't giving him nearly enough credit. I think that a lot of 8 year olds can be pretty good at lying; Evan is one of the ones who would prefer everyone to be genuine.
“If the universe decides to turn around and hurt that bird,” I said, “I’m not sure this is a world I want to fight for.”
You said it. Birdbois for life. Or..death, I guess. Kind of life?
Evan hopped back on the windowsill, occupying the same relative space I was. A black paw snapped out, stopping on top of Evan’s head, pressing it down just slightly, holding him in place.
YO
“He passes, then,” the cat said. “But I’m forced to hold him hostage until I decide what to do with you.”
Uh...okay, I guess that was some sort of test of genuineness?
“Who are you with?” Cranaus asked. “I’m with myself,” I said.
If you're going to try to be genuine, try a little harder than that
“Three people within the Thorburn household, and this little guy. To a lesser extent, innocent bystanders. To an even lesser extent, myself.” “Why rank yourself so low?”
Ouch. Poor Blake.
Actually let's just apply that to everything in the book so far.
reinforces my read that Rose-hatred is a convoluted form of self-hatred, maybe
“Because when my nature was read with tarot cards, they drew the Fool. I’m worried I’m one of those doomed guileless. Every time I act on my own behalf, I have to watch how others suffer as a result.” “That suggests you’re not supposed to be here, in the grand scheme of it all,” Cranaus told me. “That suggestion sounds painfully accurate,” I said.
pretty much what everyone's been telling him since the book started, yeah
“Then why do I continue to exist?” I interrupted. “I like your question better than the one I planned to ask. Do tell.” “Because I want to change that. I fell through the cracks, where things that don’t belong go. I don’t know if what I became down there is all about entropy, destruction, or if it’s about change, but I’ve got to use that, and hopefully I can use that to make my existence a net positive.”
I know it's not perfect, and I know it's probably not the most healthy outlook but damn I really love how awesome an existentialist conclusion this is. It is ultimately a positive one, and it's from an ethos that could be (and has been) used to frame the existentialist question in our lives, too. There's no way to reverse entropy- even when you create order, it's at the expense of the order around it, so in a sense existance could be viewed as entropy and destruction- and of course existence is all about change, change of the self, change of the world around you...but in that sense, are you not also creating? If creation is change and change is destruction then they're two sides of the same coin, the same coin that Blake's just trying to walk across his fingers, the same coin that represents money, status, value, economy- maybe this is why each chapter takes like 3 hours now
“Why does it feel like you’re testing me?” I asked. “Because I am,” Cranaus said. “We keep the company of men and women. But as much as I liked the company of my master when she was a child, she changed. I love her and I will do what I can for her sake, but I do not always agree with her.”
I can't guess what kind of Others these cats are yet, and nothing's coming to mind, but I really like Cranaus so far
“What do you do when you disagree with her?” “I imagine I see spies lurking nearby and I accost them. I do what I can to keep them from overhearing anything more, and I inadvertently let slip that the Behaims have a weapon, and they’re deciding who they should give it to. I’d accidentally share that they stand on the brink of deciding.”
Does that really count as accidental? Hmmm
“We win, whatever happens. We can’t act directly against our masters, but we like to have a say in events.” “We draw strength from it,” Hylas the gray said. “If you perish, on the other hand, we’ve indirectly disposed of an intruder.” “We draw some strength from that as well,” Hylas said.
I can't explain exactly how but this just absolutely nailed how cats would talk and interact in a way that not every fantasy novel does
“Geez,” Evan said. “I want to grow strong too. I’ve been trying to push this fire bird thing, but nooo.” “Fire? Pah,” Hylas said. “Imagine a bird of the storms, of cascading torrents.” “Or of the earth,” Cranaus said, “Not conventional, to be sure, but impressive, impossible to ignore. Aspire for greater things than mere flame, my little acquaintance.”
Just what Evan needs, a little broadening of his ambitions. I don't exactly see he or blake really getting into the earth, but a Sparrow of the Storms would be frickin awesome. Interesting that these guys would downplay flame in such a manner- maybe it's too obvious a power, and actually a weak one. Eye'd tend to disagree, but who can say?
“We were men,” Cranaus said. “The sorts who were brief-lived legends, to the point that godhood was a possibility. Nothing more. We subsist now by a long existence of being familiars for one master after another. Chronomancers like to draw the greater legends from history for such a thing.”
I absolutely love this concept- of course it would make sense for the Behaims to go back to all the great traditions of olde and conscript some Roman Emperors and shit. Not all that different from Evan, except that they're older and likely more powerful.
You liked Benjamin’s words? You act like you would follow them.” “I’d like to,” I said, “But I’m not sure I can do this with one hand tied behind my back, so to speak. I want to try, if it’s possible.” “Then try.”
Ilovethis
“He’s meeting the junior council outside the school,” the cat told me. “Making use of the time between classes to touch base. They’re often late for their first class of the day, after homeroom.”
The junior council sharkhi
I'm really curious to catch up with them
Maybe Lola Duchamp will finally be friends with Mags (prolly not)
“First,” I said, “Can I ask who’s mounting the attacks on Hillsglade House?” “That would be Alister,” he said. Ah.
Pfft. That makes a lot of sense
If we went back together, we risked missing our window of opportunity. The span of time between classes wouldn’t be that big. If we went ahead together, without notifying Rose… I was risking doing exactly what she was worried about, throwing everything into disarray. Fuck. “Yeah,” I said. “We’re going to stop him.”
It's a nice thought spared for Rose...but we all knew what Blake was gonna end up doing. For together they are the Sparrow of the Storm, and the Pidgeon of the Chessboard. It's gonna look like a tornado came through here
We moved, Evan flying, me running. We operated on two entirely different planes, two modes of functioning, but there was a measure of synchronicity. Neither one of us fell too far behind. When I looked through the windows or mirrors and up, I could see him half the time.
see this is exactly what I was talking with. If you've ever walked parallel with a series of slightly oddly shaped windows, your refliction is traveling in slightly different, more disjointed movements as you're moving fluidly and it's this awesome contrast that brings a lot of character to the travel. I'd love to see this filmed, but I also love hearing it described
The decision gnawed at me. There were no cell phones in this universe. I hated the idea of leaving Rose in the dark.
Good, you probably shouldn't feel great about it. I don't suppose you'll remember that this was your fault if she acts on lack of information and does something stupid though, will you? no, then it'll all be Rose.
maybe I'm not giving him enough credit
The kids, I noted, were all armed. Ready for war. “I smell blood, here,” Evan commented. “Something tells me that anyone who tries to hurt those guys is going to be the one bleeding,” I said.
I wish we'd spent a lot more time with the junior council than we have in the story so far- E&R call them the Young Justice of Jacob's Bell and I just really want that series. They'd reflect their mentors and parents in such cool ways, all the while determining the fate of the town's future...
Drawing the Hyena, I began to carve letters out, as slowly and carefully as I could. Rounded edges were harder. The paper cut, then turned black and brown where the blade had touched it. Rose, Behaims plan to back Alister. They have weapon for him. Must discredit or stop or attacks can become more serious, worse. Give permission?
This is clever, and I really love that Blake is not only thinking about Rose, but directly consulting her and informing her. He seems to be warming to the idea that at the very least they're trying to protect the same people. Will he wait for this permission? Fuck no, but at least he asked?
“I’d like you to meet the junior council,” Mags said. “Blake shouldn’t be here,” Joanna said. Letita’s master, I recognized. I’d met her while with Ms. Lewis.
Hey! It's Joanna and Letita! I liked them for the three pages they were in the story! I also love how these (fairly) seasoned practitioners jump out of their skin at the sight of blake. Bogeyman indeed
“I’m ambassador, I say he can be here,” Mags said. “I don’t think it works that way,” a female Behaim said. “Tough luck,” Mags said.
I love Mags so much
My eye fell on one young man. Eighteen, apparently. He had the Behaim look, dark haired, with very strong features, a little taller than average. His features, though, weren’t so blocky as the other Behaims. Strong cheekbones and a prominent chin and an odd face shape. He wore a leather jacket with a heavy wool scarf tucked inside it. The way his hair was styled, the narrow jeans, the shiny black boots… something told me he was a Toronto resident, not a kid who’d lived in a small town all his life. His eyes were a bottle-glass green as he peered at me.
Getting half behaim, half Sylvester vibes from this kid. I love it, he's gonna be such a great villain
“Alister?” “Yes. You’re here to make a formal declaration of war.” It made sense, doing it that way. If I was going to do this seriously, with a minimum of casualties to Rose’s game plan, doing it tidy was one way.
I forgot that that's like...a karmically good thing to do, rather than what Blake was probably planning on doing.
He cut me off. “That wasn’t a question. It was a statement.” I was starting to see where Ben had been leery of him. He did take risks. “Statements like that are dangerous,” I said. “They are if you don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said.
Oh you smug motherfucker. I am going to like you.
He drew a deck of cards from his hand, holding it up. The Fool was the card that faced me.
he's already a card-carrying bastard
“Your friend Rose is going to give you her signal. You’ll make your declaration of war, because you have to. But this won’t go the way you want it to,” he said. “It might!” Evan chimed in.
I admire Evan's optimism from afar, because I don't share it at all.
The echo of the bell continued in the background, an angry noise. “I like doing things this way,” Alister said. “A proper contest of skill. Game on.”
And from now on this is how I picture Alistair: a teenage benedict Cumberbatch lookalike. Love it.
Absolutely awesome chapter, I'm so ready to see Alistair unleashed.
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JayManiac 01-Jan-20 11:08 PM
I think the card motif opening the arc, with Blake losing, is absolutely supposed to parallel Alistair's framing of all of this as a game, and his use of cards directly.
As to whether it was planned that way, or whether that detail of Alistair's character exists because of the way the arc opened, who can say?
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JayManiac 02-Jan-20 01:31 AM
This is from the chapter, and where I got the Benedict Cumberbatch from. I was like: Hey, who has strong features, high cheekbones, odd-shaped face, piercing gaze, and can look like a bit of a prick sometimes?
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Elliot (Boy) 02-Jan-20 01:32 AM
okay cool so I wasn't just making it up
(I'm referencing the first spoiler block there Jay, which should be safe for you. Don't touch the second one though)
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JayManiac 02-Jan-20 01:33 AM
(gotcha)
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JayManiac 04-Jan-20 06:54 PM
Technically, as the one who imagined the event based on a bunch of symbols on a screen, you are the one responsible, Scott.
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JayManiac 04-Jan-20 07:31 PM
Scott, for a while the tagline of my livereads was "when we last left off, Blake was screwed" and I think that's a pretty good indicator of the kind of book this is
Ilovethis 2
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JayManiac 07-Jan-20 02:34 AM
👀
Spoilers
for
11
.
4 (edited)
Lie
Ahead
Just
Like
All
These
Damn
Practitioners
Okay
Let's
Gooooooo
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Elliot (Boy) 07-Jan-20 02:37 AM
sharkhi sharkhi sharkhi
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JayManiac 07-Jan-20 02:38 AM
Okay lemme just forget which chapter I'm supposed to be on for a moment, cool, cool
“Game? Evan asked. “This is a game to you?”
Have you never seen any Bond movies!? I thought Ty tried to fill you in on the greatest hits, Ev!
I still also have not seen any bond movies- but still...
Maybe Evan just needs to watch more anime
or play undertale
I would pay to watch Evan's let's play of undertale
we're getting off topic
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Ishamoridin 07-Jan-20 02:42 AM
I'd rather watch him work the controller
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JayManiac 07-Jan-20 02:42 AM
No that's a huge part of the appeal too
Alister held up the deck again. The card facing us was Temperance. “Balance, union, opposites, agreements, and compromise. An earlier reading suggests you’ve killed before, but you don’t want to murder me. If I suggest a deal, a gentleman’s agreement…” “You think I’ll accept?” He smiled. As smug as he was, a thin-lipped snake’s grin would have fit him, but he had very full lips, as characteristic of many Behaims. When he spoke, it was with confidence. “Yes. I well and truly believe you won’t deny the agreement, if it’s fair. No killing, no permanent harm, nothing that would alarm the locals, beyond our small battleground here. I’ve got a ready-made spell in play. No interference.”
Alistair totally watches anime. I think he's said like five lines and he's already my favorite villain in the book; I love how theatrical he is, and I'm diggin the tarot mechanics. I've actually been getting a lot more into tarot recently as I meet people in college who I can talk to about it, so I'm super psyched for more of that in the story moving forwards.
Also, on a somewhat unrelated note just before we get too submerged here: I was listening to the DiP (which I usually do in prep to read the next chapter) and I really like that you tie the problems with the modern Practice to the emergence of new socioeconomic systems like capitalism- that the problems can stem from a homogenization and globalization of what can be a very positive (or at least relatively harmless) system in isolation. Comparisons to the market economy are very apt.
agree 1
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Elliot (Boy) 07-Jan-20 02:54 AM
Yeah I think we spent quite a while trying to avoid talking about stuff like that
but eventually it just became too much to talk around
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A bird 🐦 07-Jan-20 02:54 AM
CharmanderHi CharmanderHi CharmanderHi
(to the Jay read, not the inevitability of capitalism discussion)
lol 2
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JayManiac 07-Jan-20 02:55 AM
Well, you know it's a part of the story I really enjoy breaking down, so I'm always going to be for it
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A bird 🐦 07-Jan-20 02:55 AM
Though I think Pact doesn't deal just with capitalism, I think it deals with systemic power
Within which capitalism is an inevitable discussion point, along with say, Conquest, family, ruin and change
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JayManiac 07-Jan-20 02:57 AM
Absolutely, and I think it explores that idea in a few ways, but since there's so much discourse concerning capitalism that happens to be the part I latch onto just because I know how to talk about it a little bit more readily than the problems of systemic power as a whole
agree 1
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A bird 🐦 07-Jan-20 02:57 AM
It's much easier to discuss something once you've named it
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JayManiac 07-Jan-20 02:58 AM
Also, since it's on my mind because of the cast: On the topic of Johannes and how he fits into this, I don't actually think he's trying to usurp such a system, but instead plays into it by creating a "corporation" of sorts where plenty of people suffer in small ways in order to serve his power source. Yes, he's trying to break the wheel in his own way, but ends up merely asserting himself at the head of the system, within which the individual is still relatively trapped and powerless. So Elliot, there's your reason to keep hating Johannes, if the book hasn't given you one by the point you're at!
It's much easier to discuss something once you've named it If only there were a book about that...a kind of newer speak where discussing issues with relevance to changing the systems of power is dominant, and thus nothing can change...
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Elliot (Boy) 07-Jan-20 03:06 AM
“Is Johannes’ Demesne a good idea?” Is a DQ we’ve had sitting there waiting to be asked for a long long time. (edited)
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JayManiac 07-Jan-20 03:06 AM
Oh please
I'll write an essay
I wrote a flash fiction piece for the last one and I already have The Tragedy of Johannes as a planned Pact Vid
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Elliot (Boy) 07-Jan-20 03:08 AM
I also think it'd be fun because Reuben and I seem to disagree on every level of what he's doing and what he stands for
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JayManiac 07-Jan-20 03:08 AM
See!? Those are the best!
Besides, how many more discussion question opportunities do we have left? You gotta start squeezin em in there
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Elliot (Boy) 07-Jan-20 03:09 AM
yeah it's legit been sitting at the top of our document since arc 8 (edited)
we are definitely running out of time
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Ishamoridin 07-Jan-20 03:12 AM
That could be a good one for the 24 hour stream
So it has the full story's context to inform it
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Elliot (Boy) 07-Jan-20 03:12 AM
I am suspicious that's why Reuben has kept putting it off
Johannes will prove me right. You all wait!
Ilovethis 3
well actually as I say that Jay is probably the only other person here who does need to wait
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JayManiac 07-Jan-20 03:15 AM
Sometimes I forget that almost all of you have read this book before and aren't just reading it right now still
bulba 2
As it stood, I felt just a little shaky. A little less like Blake and more like a broken reflection, sticks and spirits all glued together with Drainstuff.
The idea that Blake is using up all the helpful spirits really helped to contextualize what he's doing with spirit energy, and why it might be bad that he's getting rid of the spirits within the wider Blakesphere. I will now use that term to refer to the Blake that is Blake and Lefty and all the other spirits in his bogeyman self because I love thinking of him as a demesne of sorts that he has to master. Tim Urban from WBW has this great series on procrastination that externalizes certain human/animalistic drives in hopes that the thought experiment can help you think your way out of your problems, and that's kind of similar to a direction Pact could take this. In a sense, the spirits are externalized human thought, human concepts. They're the base level of the magic system, which is society. And what that could end up meaning, is that Blake is being eaten away by expectations, by social norms, he's being driven by the bad parts of the world, and he's stuffing the positive, cooperative drives into cards to throw at his problems
Ilovethis 4
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Fursuit Lightsaber 07-Jan-20 03:17 AM
Always enjoy your livereads btw Jay!
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JayManiac 07-Jan-20 03:17 AM
bulba
“Fine,” I said. “Consider this my declaration of war. We’ll make this an even contest.”
Dammit Blake; I know he's right, but you don't have to prove him so. Actually you probably do...that is what being right means. Oh Alistair's gonna be so much fun- he already is so much fun
agree 4
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Ishamoridin 07-Jan-20 03:18 AM
He's a delightful cunt
agree 1
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Elliot (Boy) 07-Jan-20 03:19 AM
Alister is so fucking great
agree 1
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A bird 🐦 07-Jan-20 03:22 AM
Picturing him with Yu-Gi-Oh hair is also very fun
agree 3
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JayManiac 07-Jan-20 03:23 AM
“I’ll try to remember to be careful with my eyes, then,” Alister said. “When I speak of you, I speak of you as a pair, a situation unified. Which, I imagine, isn’t too far off the mark?” He showed us the card at the bottom of the deck. The two of cups.
A flock of doves, a school of fish, and a Situation of Thorburns. I had to go look that tarot card up- I can barely remember half the major acrana at this point- but it's pretty self explanatory. And pretty accurate. I like that we haven't really gotten into the prediction side of chronomancy yet, the divination.
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Elliot (Boy) 07-Jan-20 03:23 AM
Nah Alister is Kaiba - a person with relatively normal hair surrounded by friends/family with wacky yugioh hair
lol 1
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Ishamoridin 07-Jan-20 03:24 AM
I stand by Crab Bucket as the collective noun for Thorburns
same 1
agree 1
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JayManiac 07-Jan-20 03:25 AM
Because it's the behaims, I can never be sure how much of his divination is magic, and how much of it is keen observation, vague statements, the ocasionally risky prediction, etc. I expect that it's a balance of both that he keeps in order to make himself seem far more powerful that he is.
lol 1
Even as I’d mentioned the irritation the deck was causing me, I was thinking about it. The deck was important. Was it his implement?
And if this is true- which, holy shit that's the coolest fuckin thing I love it- then it probably means I'm on the mark- the behaims are using magic, but they're using it for very convincing magic tricks
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Fursuit Lightsaber 07-Jan-20 03:27 AM
I think that's an interesting take Jay
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Ishamoridin 07-Jan-20 03:27 AM
"it's both" is generally a safe bet round these parts
lol 2
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Fursuit Lightsaber 07-Jan-20 03:27 AM
Because he explicitly aims for non-vague statements
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JayManiac 07-Jan-20 03:28 AM
That is an interesting aspect, and might be what elevates him over the typical psychic- I like that as a difference between himself and the other users of tarot
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Fursuit Lightsaber 07-Jan-20 03:31 AM
He says stuff like, you've come to make a formal declaration of war
Rather than like "You've come to attack me"
(ALSO YOU'RE NOT READING WARD?!?!?!?! psyduck But on the other hand, does this mean we get a Jay livereads Ward once you're done with Pact? bulba )
sharkhi 1
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JayManiac 07-Jan-20 03:34 AM
I've read most of it, but I had to stop at arc 17 because College Life just absolutely exploded; if there's enough demand I might do it, although it would slow down my rate of finishing ward and also postpone reading any of it till after march 7th because hellifim gonna be done with pact any earlier; I have no doubt I'll be scrambling to the minute.
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Elliot (Boy) 07-Jan-20 03:34 AM
Hey that's where I'm up to in Ward!
I'd forgotten how busy #parahumans_spoilers is
suspicious 1
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Fursuit Lightsaber 07-Jan-20 03:35 AM
Oh that's fair
You do what's most enjoyable for you Jay!
CharmanderHi 1
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JayManiac 07-Jan-20 03:36 AM
In terms of other Alistair symbolism: cards are used for games, which is how he views the Practice and the war for Lordship. Cards are also pretty luck based in most games, and you could say that in life Alistair was dealt a much better hand than the likes of, say, Blake or Mags.
I'll let you know if I think of more; I'm sure there are associations with the tarot deck specifically but I don't know past what I've already said.
You know I can tell how slowly I'm reading by how far down the table of contents I am on the webpage- I'm at arc three and it's been like an hour
lol 3
I could see how he kept the deck in his peripheral vision. Cut, combine halves, bottom of the deck visible, showing different cards. Answering questions he wasn’t asking aloud.
This is some excellent imagery, really selling the gamemaster idea. And I have no doubt that Alistair is doing it for that purpose as much as he's doing it to get answers.
“It could be a scam,” Evan said, loud enough for Alister to hear. “Feels like it’s all fakery.”
Oh hi Evan, here to comment on what we've been talking about? should we have waited five lines?
“You’re smiling, but you’re not saying he’s wrong,” I said. “He’s wrong,” Alister said. He said it so confidently. I almost lost my stride.
You know, the book makes it pretty dang difficult to hold onto the whole "he's faking it all". That line was like a slap in the face. He's not trying to play it off, not staying mysteriously silent, he's just flaunting power he knows he has. (or so it seems?)
Ilovethis 3
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A bird 🐦 07-Jan-20 03:47 AM
An absolutely infuriating opponent. Fucking delightful reading, though
agree 2
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Fursuit Lightsaber 07-Jan-20 03:49 AM
I also love that Alistair leaves the bait dangling
He doesn't deny it
Until he can explicitly throw it back in both of their faces, along with what small hope they had
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JayManiac 07-Jan-20 03:50 AM
“Evan could be onto something,” I said. “Bravado, showmanship, appearances. You show off well, but is there anything beneath the surface? It’s not a scam, but only because people buy into it. Like glamour? Or even certain magics that desperate practitioners try to pass off as chronomancy?”
I tried to describe how I use fantasy to one of my friends the other day, with interesting results. He didn't see things like money and power as fantasies, which was just so....interesting to me. To me, it seems obvious that fantasy and magic are our ways of realizing and thinking about systems of power that can't be adequately explained in the terms we usually use to explain them. Like, if I try to imagine the spirit of a spider within me as I'm climbing, that can be a lot more useful than thinking about physics and my center of gravity sometimes. It's all about using the system which illustrates what is actually going on in a way that you are most receptive to, so you can figure out how it works. Most of my life is just trying to find the right magic system to solve all my problems. In a sense, we live in the world of Pact. People take our concepts, feed them with different symbols and colors, and then manipulate us en masse to pay attention to or not pay attention to certain aspects of certain things. It's runes, or it's advertising. A piece of paper changes in the quantity of physical change it can manifest based on what number is written on it. Money is magic. The thing that makes Pact the quintessential magic system then, in rough terms that I'll extrapolate out to a video series later, is that it realizes that magic works because it is a tacit agreement, and its systems are entirely based in how we think they work.
All magic is a scam, but if you've convinced "the spirits" (our concepts) then it really isn't, because we're actively all involved in creating the world we exist in.
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Ishamoridin 07-Jan-20 03:53 AM
Yeah it's like how differential equations are complex, but our brains can just solve them on the fly and let us catch a ball without us needing to do any of the intellectual legwork. Writing a fantasy system is a great way of 'just catching' complex systems of power that would otherwise be beyond our grasp.
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JayManiac 07-Jan-20 03:54 AM
Right; Kvothe and the other Relar trying to calculate out the position of the ball- it might work in the end, but it's not terribly efficient. Even all of our best equipment and guides must sometimes be ignored in favor of the idea that we must use the force.
Ilovethis 1
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Coro 07-Jan-20 03:55 AM
Imagery is really dang powerful
There are a couple of bits of imagery I can use to pretty precisely control my heartrate, which is crazy
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Ishamoridin 07-Jan-20 03:57 AM
Reminds me of that TNG episode where they're all "Shaka, when the walls fell"
wholesale concepts passed around and each individual contextualising for themselves, rather than explicit descriptions that everyone has slightly different interpretations of
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JayManiac 07-Jan-20 03:59 AM
To me, a lot of fantasy is about realizing that humans don't function on science, they function on magic. And it can be a great window to figuring out what kinds of magic are being used to influence and manipulate you, what systems of magic dominate society, and what their flaws are.
“Death as a card isn’t quite what it sounds like. The ten of swords, by contrast, is a loss so complete you don’t need to worry about further losses. There’s a kind of peace you have to make in the face of absolute failure.” “I’ve been there more than once,” I said. “Your card has it wrong. Things can always get worse.”
Ahahahahhahahahahahaha, I believe it. I think the human mind doesn't have a limit on badness. You could have ten swords in your back, and have a shitty attitude about it
agree 3
“Rose is currently debating what to do. She’s on the brink of a decision. Does she send you help? She’ll decide to, very soon. Act recklessly, and you’ll lose what little faith she’s placed in you. The fallout… well, things can get worse, but it’s the sort of loss you never recover from.” If I’d had a proper heartbeat, my heart would’ve been pounding at that. Well played, Alister.
The conclusion of my whole magic schpeel for me, is that what actually happens is pretty irrelevant in the end, what matters is how people are framing it. You cannot state something without contextualizing it with expression, neither can you think something without doing so, and so what's important is that translation- not getting the translation right, but getting it good. Getting it to do the thing you want it to do. What I'm getting at, is that Alistair, through his presentation of knowledge, is allowed to control how his subjects are thinking about that knowledge- in terms of knives in the back, and worst case situations- and that's where his power is coming from. He, far more than Blake, is deciding the terms of this confrontation by being the one to make the first impression, to deliver information in a way that benefits him
Magic is about thought, and Alistair is controlling how his opponants- and likely his allies, who he might still view as opponants- think.
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Ishamoridin 07-Jan-20 04:05 AM
Great interpretation
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Elliot (Boy) 07-Jan-20 04:09 AM
I love it. In this world, what happens is so much less important than what it means - and if you can control that, you control a lot more.
agree 1
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JayManiac 07-Jan-20 04:15 AM
“You’re making a lot of very definite statements,” I said. I tried to fake him out, changing the direction I was walking when he didn’t have a clear view of me. He didn’t miss a trick. “Dangerous for a practitioner.” “Useful too,” he said. “The spirits like it. Keeps things simple, with everything being less effort for them to arbitrate. It puts me on better terms with them, because I make it all easier.”
Let's talk about the Practice and Politics for a second, because I think there's something to be said for Practitioners as polititians and spirits as a kind of democratic process. Because issues are complicated, most practitioners will hedge bets, acknowledge nuance, and try to avoid making statements that compromise that balance. Alister is the anti-practitioner here, in the same way Trump is the anti-politician (I bet that now talking about socioeconomics in vague terms on the podcast is starting to seem pretty nonconfrontational comparatively). He ignores nuance, turning the game into a simpler, more easily understood one, and appeals to people who didn't want to think on the level of nuance and complexity (to be clear, Trump is not the only one who does this; every polititian does to an extent, he's just the most extreme and blatant about it). The spirits are parts of our thought, our concepts, and Trump gets on good terms with them because they're simple slivers of being. They distrust hedged bets and conditions, they like simplicity and direction, and they like to be entertained. Alister is direct, theatrical, charismatic, confident; he's basically everything the spirits are drawn to. But he's also gonna ignore nuance in favor of putting every answer to every question into the same 78 boxes- the same 78 cards (once you get into reversal and order of cards it becomes more than 78, but it's still a reductive system of thought).
tl;dr Alister is basically Trump
if you liked that tl;dr better, you're letting him win.
lol 2
Ilovethis 2
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Elliot (Boy) 07-Jan-20 04:17 AM
huh, I'm pretty sure my read on the cards was almost exactly the opposite of what you said at the end there
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JayManiac 07-Jan-20 04:18 AM
Interesting...
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A bird 🐦 07-Jan-20 04:20 AM
Tarot discussion is juicy in Pact
Remember when Conquest sent Blake on three suicide missions to improve his Conquest tableau?
And the drawings for Blake and Rose?
Three beats are neat
agree 1
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JayManiac 07-Jan-20 04:22 AM
This is how I get all my new college friends to read pact
By giving him chances to show off the cards and make predictions, I was letting him score points. Every spirit that was nearby, maybe excepting the spirits inhabiting me, was getting to be very pleased with this young man who made it all simple for them.
See, it's like lining Ben Shapiro up to take down a bunch of college students; you're only strengthening his power through simple opponants. Like it or not, Blake doesn't have what it takes to deal a blow to Alister's karma right now.
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Elliot (Boy) 07-Jan-20 04:26 AM
I love how Alister feels like Behaim 2.0
agree 2
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JayManiac 07-Jan-20 04:27 AM
Oh you 'figured out' the Behaims?
That's cute
“She’s decided, with the counsel of her acquaintances. The cavalry is on the way,” Alister said. The card he showed me was the Chariot. The white-crowned man, ostensibly Conquest or Conquest’s man, standing before a starry backdrop, a ruined city in the background, sphinxes pulling the namesake vehicle. A little ominous, all things considered.
Hahahahahahahahaha
lol 2
You know, when they were talking about drawing for Blake and Rose, I wonder who was doing the drawing? Whether or not it was Alister, he almost certainly knows Blake and Rose's cards, making this a calculated move to put Blake on edge. Not that it isn't also true, but, well..
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Fursuit Lightsaber 07-Jan-20 04:32 AM
If he remembers what he drew for Blake that is, and can connect those two things
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JayManiac 07-Jan-20 04:33 AM
Or he could just draw for Blake at any time and figure it out; I don't think that even now Blake's changed enough to warrant different cards.
“I don’t know what a lot of that means,” Evan declared, “But I know that when someone attacks you, the rules say you can hit them back.” “You’re not wrong. That’s-” Evan flew past Alister. He only barely moved out of the way as the sparrow practically bounced off his face. Ricocheted like a flung stone.
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha, you don't get much more direct than that!
if you want really direct, you might wanna call a kid. Or a sparrow. Or both
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Elliot (Boy) 07-Jan-20 04:34 AM
Evan: subtext is for nerds.
Ilovethis 1
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JayManiac 07-Jan-20 04:34 AM
me, a nerd: hell yeah go get im
agree 4
“I thought you said you’d watch your eyes,” Evan said. “I said I’d try to remember to,” Alister said. He used the side of his thumb to remove one drop of blood from the side of his face, but it was replaced a second later, fresh blood welling out.
Evan's quips will never not be the best. Weak comeback by Alister here in the second quarter...
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Elliot (Boy) 07-Jan-20 04:36 AM
and now we wait for the third Evan gouges a Behaim's eye beat
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JayManiac 07-Jan-20 04:37 AM
I vote Duncan!
remind me to come back for the symbolism of cards, coins, and books- the three things Blake let in. I feel like we're gonna be dealing with the other two a lot in this arc too
Golden light appeared around him, realigning until it formed ribbons punctuated by Roman numerals, the edges serrated with zipper-like teeth. They interlocked, ran crosswise with one another, and parted, rotating around him, forming a faint, rapid tickticktick that blended in with the knell of Molly’s bell.
Who got to decide that the Jacob's Bell alarm system was a clock tower- seems like it gives the Behaims a pretty distinct adva- abruptly remembers that they've been in power for generations and yes Jacob Motherfucking Behaim probably was the one to decide that
Count that as a solid Jguess
A dot of crimson flew from Evan’s foot, darting to Alister’s face. No sooner had it made contact than the injury was gone.
Oh you fuckin cheater
“I don’t think he can really reverse time to fix a tiny scratch,” Evan said. But my eyes were fixed on Alister’s green eyes. I could read his expression, and I could see the slight smile. “I can,” Alister said. “I did.”
You literally just did that to show off you stupid jackass. Still, he's pulling out all stopwatches for this one, it seems. Blake might have to deal with the real real real chronomancers this time!
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A bird 🐦 07-Jan-20 04:42 AM
Behaim unbound
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JayManiac 07-Jan-20 04:42 AM
Why the hell did Rosalyn think that was a good idea again?
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A bird 🐦 07-Jan-20 04:43 AM
I'm curious as to why you think Rosalyn did anything
same 1
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JayManiac 07-Jan-20 04:44 AM
Oh well she did say something to the effect of "it'd be a good idea if we weren't bound by our families right?"
and look what happened
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Elliot (Boy) 07-Jan-20 04:45 AM
"Quick Aimon team up with me so our families won't have to go around fighting each other." (edited)
"Instead, they'll choose to"
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JayManiac 07-Jan-20 04:46 AM
Reminds me of that video: "I took a pill that accelerates my brain" "so you're smart now?" "I'm stupid. Faster."
Ilovethis 5
“Well,” I said. “I’m… almost lost for words.” “That’s sort of the point,” he said. You’re-” Cutting the deck. Pause. Cutting the deck. Pause. “-Something of a container for spirits. You’re impressed on a level, the other spirits in the area here are impressed.”
I do want to keep track of the possibility that the spirits inside Blake might parallel those around him, shifting the Blakesphere in the directions of karma
How could I use that? The cavalry coming to aid me wasn’t necessarily a good thing. I needed to do something decisive fast, or his prediction could come true. But I couldn’t ignore the prophecies, either, or I’d walk right into that ‘ten of swords’. Bad ending. This was a game, so to speak. It was all about framing things, positioning. Being in the right place. Evan had caught him off guard.
Hey look, Blake's talking about framing! Positioning!
Positioning. He’d outlined the rules of this little ‘game’. He’d spelled out what was going to happen. If it did happen, he won. Somehow.
Blake, we need the pidgeon. It's not a chesset, but its the closest you're gonna get.
I still had the book. It was still tied to its brother by sympathy.
How did I fail to realize that this is literally Sympathy from Kingkiller, except instead of the Alar you feed the bond with belief by taking little bird-shaped handfulls of belief and just shove those fuckers in there
Also I like that blake thinks of the relationship between reflection and object as brother/sister.
I mean, well, as a sibling relationship
maybe I got a little ahead of myself there (be nice to your sister Blake)
Okay, I gave myself two hours and I got through a third of the chapter, I'll have to pick this up later in the week. I hope I get a chance pretty soon! We got into some awesome discussions today and I'm so glad you guys were able to make it. I'll see you guys whenever I can!
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Elliot (Boy) 07-Jan-20 04:56 AM
Sorry for the distractions Jay!
Next time!
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JayManiac 07-Jan-20 04:56 AM
I live for the distractions, don't feel anything but proud of them!"
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JayManiac 29-Jan-20 11:29 PM
I'll have to pick this up later in the week. I hope I get a chance pretty soon! Narrator voice: He did not get a chance "pretty soon"
I'm just gonna pick up right where I left off- I've reread the first part of the chapter and naively expect to finish the rest of it in the next two hours!
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spinagon 29-Jan-20 11:35 PM
sharkhi
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JayManiac 29-Jan-20 11:39 PM
“Didn’t change anything,” Alister called out. “It’s all slated to unfold.”
I'm just never sure where exactly Alister stands- how genuine his confidence and bravado really are- traditionally, tarot is seen as something of a con-man's game (maybe I'm biased, having had my tarot read by a con man at five in the morning the other day), but when you can con reality, who knows what to expect? I'm really excited for the DiP of this chapter in particular, since I think we'll read into very different things.
The way I see it, he's translating everything into the concepts expressed by the cards- he gets to define what terms are being used to express truth, and thus can profit off of what form it takes.
Tarot works- in a general sense- because your mind applies what it's already thinking about onto a random set of concepts, and thus the events of your life are clarified and expressed through those concepts- it'd have to be a catastrophically incongruous reading to fail to speak to things you're already considering, and the reader themself can guide you through that process, saying all the things you want to hear.
The appeal of tarot is that it translates all the complexities of life into something readily archetypal and understandable, something with very culturally reinforced symbolism (see: stories). There's nothing that makes Blake's situation that of the ten of swords in any objective sense, but as soon as Alister can spin it like that, he can nudge the universe into making it happen as a self-fulfilling prophesy. Suddenly, Blake is a lot more screwed, because both the spirits and blake himself, will be shaped by the expectation of his disastrous, sword-through-the-neck downfall.
He was using his words to garner an advantage. Could I use mine?
Uh...yes. Blake, have you been reading this book at all?
ahyperlul 2
He did a partial turn, and I moved again. Just one tiny hesitation, and I had the slightest of edges. If we were making individual moves, I now had the benefit of the first move.
This really accelerates the tension of the scene, framing things in terms of capitalizing on this hesitation, not letting him catch his breath. Also the Hyena gets Five of Coins, which I would look up except Alister's about to tell us so I don't have to.
“What does it say, Alister?” I asked. “Adversity. Loss.”
See, and each card has a range of meanings that the con-artist can pull from in order to explain the situation- that's the skill behind reading tarot: learning what your mark wants to hear, and how you can shape that construction to be more convincing, and more manipulative. Five of Coins- which I did look up, because hey why not- also means ignoring possible help, poverty, self-pity. Do those fit the hyena as much as adversity and loss? Maybe, but it'd be a different impression if he'd chosen to focus on those meanings.
“You don’t know? That has to cost you points with the spirits,” I said. “Maybe Evan’s right, maybe what you do is a sham, and you’re just conning the spirits.”
It's Pact, so probably both if I were to guess
I love that part of Blake's plan involves playing the token skeptic to the Magician, as it were. Fits so perfectly.
He managed to find me, locking his eyes with mine. I raised my arm, and Evan took note of the signal, flying. Evan went straight for the deck. Problem was, Alister was expecting it, and held the cards firm. He punched the bird out of the air with the same hand.
Even if Blake is trying to pull a con of his own
Evan hit snow. I winced. Evan didn’t necessarily heal through any connection to me. Any damage he sustained…
I see he's inherited the unfortunately unforgivable behaim trait of harming small slightly-defenceful birds.
apensob 1
“Tick,” Alister said. The paper broke away into a swirl of sand. I heard that same tickticktick whir I’d heard earlier, only it had a cadence to it like a chitter.
Pact reminds me like every 13 lines why it's my favorite book, favorite magic system, favorite urban fantasy. It takes all the connotations of something like Time, puts its little spin on it, and then sends it on its way through such a versatile yet intuitive system.
As a side note that has nothing to do with anything (because would it really be my liveread without tangents? Nobody else has stepped in to distract me, so I'm forced to make do) I'm currently reading in perhaps the most gothic/hogwartzian building on campus and it really adds to the aesthetic. Not to mention I'm actually reading Pact during winter in a small town in the northeastern united states, so I'm much closer to the actual setting, which helps.
A clockwork arachnid, with a bulbous behind. An hourglass was built into the behind, suspended in a globe. “Guard me,” Alister ordered. “Focus on the bird.”
Ah, yep. There's the Pact-ness of it. Small critique: I have no idea how big this is. At first I thought it was like, car-size, then I wondered if it was arachnid-size- I'm gonna settle on dog-size until proven otherwise, but it's not getting any closer to explained.
Had I scared Alister, just a bit? Or had the Hyena scared him just a bit? Enough that he’d wanted to summon something?
I kind of hope it's the latter, since we've been getting little hints that the Hyena is something kind of special, a recipe for some top tier disaster. 1/2 ton of mid-tier goblin, hang from tree till it looks good and shaped-like-a-sword. Shatter well. Preheat the Abyss to "system of pipes and drains" degrees....
(edited)
Busying himself with Evan and the summoning had let me slip away again. I walked on the edges of reflections, so I could step to the next window or mirror with a single stride.
This is a really dynamic fight that I'm sure would be even more dynamic if I didn't stop to write culinary-based-comedy
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JayManiac 30-Jan-20 12:25 AM
“You apparently didn’t like what the card said about the sword,” I told him. “You don’t feel like sharing. Why?”
I don't know how precise Blake is being in his approach (though, if I felt like guessing based on Blake's character...) but this is absolutely how I'd try to beat Alister: by making statements, and thus controlling the language with which this conflict is unfolding. Blake's being pretty blunt-force with it, but I think it could work.
“Weapons can cut both ways,” I said. “Don’t want me making declarations to the spirits, Alister?”
Then again, we'll see how this goes. I'm interested to see how other conflicts between these two will play out, when they're using different strategies.
Evan flew at him, then veered off as the tick raised its forelimbs, lunging at him.
Also I totally missed this pun until now. It's fantastic.
Don't you hate it when you just wanna tock with someone and then they summon a tick?
lol 1
I stuck my arm through the window, and speared it in the head. I was shunted, cast off to one side. The tick, by contrast, was dead.
I love that Blake's learned to fight so effectively- it's a really cool system of limitations to power, having to be near a reflective surface to engage.
It's these little mini-magic-systems that make Pact and Parahumans fights so interesting to read
“You want to know what the sword does?” I asked. “It leaves wounds that don’t heal.” “Ah,” Alister said. “Too bad. That was a favorite little summoning of mine. I can’t ever repair it?”
Blake and the Hyena- via their little journey through the drains- might've just made themselves perfect foils for the behaims. They can manipulate time, but the Abyss is pure Entropy, and their magic might not extend to that kind of reversal.
“I can undo it,” Alister said, moving himself to a position in the middle of the street. Evan was perched on a car, and I was in the largest window nearby, at the front of a house. “That’s what the cards are telling you?” I called out the question. “Common sense is telling me. The cards are telling me something else.”
I love that Pact shows us these little faltering moments- Alister's not some unbeatable badass, and doesn't even seem like he is in this conflict. But that just makes the danger he poses feel more real, less artificial. it's a technique I wish more stories employed. Especially since this might've technically been a little lie, cutting Alister off from some of his power.
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David Hunt 30-Jan-20 12:38 AM
Don't you hate it when you just wanna tock with someone and then they summon a tick?
Seems perfect. You tick. They tock. Teamwork.
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JayManiac 30-Jan-20 12:39 AM
But then we're both ticked off, and hour conversation falls to pieces.
I shattered another window. “Another-” he started. I carried through with the same motion, drawing the broken blade against the back of a car. He didn’t finish the sentence, caught off guard by the vicious metal on metal screech
Aaaaaaaaaaaaa, that's clever and oh so painful to imagine.
He might be able to see my next move, but if I was quick, he couldn’t see the one after. “Enough of that,” he said. He still managed to sound confident.
This is such a good limit to pseudoprecognition
I felt clarified.
Maybe you can be "the screech": a horrible bogeyman who subsists on sword/car based audio torture
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spinagon 30-Jan-20 12:42 AM
This is like seeing enemy intent in Slay the Spire
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JayManiac 30-Jan-20 12:43 AM
The only thing I know about this game is that it contains a worm reference apparently
“Offer still stands,” I said. “One slice. I can reach through glass, mirrors, even some ice. If you’d rather I stay away from the face…” “A bluff,” he said. “Which part?” I asked. “Me avoiding the face?”
These two make such an excellent pair: Blake's a foil to the art of practitioning via pidgeonshit methodologies, while Alister embodies it so well that he seems equally a foil to it. They're the two opposing directions you can step away from that norm.
A gamble, but all the same. “Do you know how I remember spending my eighteenth birthday? Can your cards tell you that? Or are you going to show the spirits how incapable you are a second time?” He didn’t hesitate. Deck cut, card displayed. A woman in a tattered shawl and a child, making their way through the snow beneath a stained glass window. The five of coins.
Well there's the second time that card shows up- I wonder if we're building to a...
I chuckled a little, pleased that I’d managed to rope him into showing the same card. “Adversity and loss.”
Yep! Probably! I wonder if Blake intends to play this three-beatdown in a more abstract way, or a Hyena way, or...who knows?
This was pretty friggin awesome though, feeding him an answer to gain an advantage on the other side of the board
If he’d refused, I’d still have gleaned an advantage. It had been a win-win, with a very good chance that I’d been wrong, and my background would have turned up a different card. Such was the nature of the game he had posed. Positioning. Getting the other guy into a position where he was cornered.
Reminder not to forget the idea of games in this arc
“You have all those advantages, Alister, but you’ve got one thing that’s always going to hold you back,” I called out. “What’s that?” “You’re a fucking Behaim,” I shouted. I slammed the Hyena into a window. The glass broke.
Hahahahahahahahahahahhahahahaha
lol 3
“Your Evan can only stall them for so long,” he said. He wasn’t smiling with his mouth, but those bottle-glass eyes were sparkling. He was enjoying this, fear aside. “The Others arrive in a moment.” That was the problem, in the end. I was blind. I didn’t know why he was pleased about that. I didn’t get his aversion to the Five of Coins. He, on the other hand, could see everything coming. That was, as I’d just revealed, a double-edged sword.
In the words of Terry Pratchett: 'Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.' Is it possible that the Five of Coins is the card Alister most fears drawing himself? Not the Tower- ambition leads to disaster- or the ten of swords, but poverty? Losing all that trust-fund-kid status in the Practitioner world? Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but who knows? With Pact, there's kind of something at every level.
I’d just been talking to the two cats about taking the direct approach. “Surrender,” I told him.
And now it's blake who's pulling all the unbeatable villain moves. Like telling a much more obviously powerful foe to surrender, while holding the evil looking sword and smiling evilly
“I’ll tell you how I can win,” I said. “I’m going to attack you. If you use your deck to predict and avoid the attack, you’ll probably draw that card, because it’s associated with this blade. Somehow, I don’t think you want me to force you to draw it three times. That’s what my instincts as an ex-practitioner are telling me.” “Why do I need to draw anything if you just told me?” he asked. He wasn’t smiling anymore. I was. “Why indeed?” I asked.
Like, look at this evil sunuvabitch go! I love this, I love this, Ilovethis ! I love this because literally nowhere else do you get a conflict with boundaries this creative and have it work.
He didn’t have his ability to view the deck. To know what was coming. Anything I did could be the attack I’d mentioned.
I mean, it's risky, but it's also a win/win situation for Blake if he pulls it off. He's getting good at setting those up (although he's also expending a lot of power breaking those windows, and I'm not sure if the power he gets from increasing entropy is the same kind of power he's giving up. Might not be as nice and cooperative).
He dodged it. No looking at the cards. Only human ability. The Hyena clattered to the ground.
this is just such an awesome scene I'm just so wrapped up in reading it
“Well,” he said, “The bird failed. That’s it.”
I'm really hoping Blake turns that last part into a tacit lie
I willfully relinquished my presence on this mirror realm. I let the real world be reflected as it was. The Hyena spun lazily on the ground a few feet to my left.
As soon as I realized what was going on, this became instantly the most badass thing I've read all month.
I kicked the broken sword in his direction again, sending it skidding his way, every part of it bladed, spiked or otherwise hazardous. I watched as it veered off to one side, as if a magnet were pushing it off course. “Enough,” a woman’s voice called out. Sandra.
Don't you hate it when you're just about to win, and then the parents show up and tell you that the game you're playing is "dangerous" and you're "gonna poke someone's eye out" and they "found the bodies and you're going away for good"? Kills the mood, every time.
same 4
“What we’re doing here isn’t just fighting each other for Lordship. We have to prove we deserve the position. Knowing what’s going on is critical, if we’re going to earn the trust of the neutral parties,” she said. She walked amid the broken glass. “I have something of a web spun across Jacob’s Bell. I can feel the weights of certain events and entities.”
I hate how awesome a Lord Sandra would probably make. This is brilliant, and we probably should've expected something like it. I love this as a mechanic
That's another thing about Pact and Worm: almost every mini-magic system could be the magic of an entire world, if extrapolated.
Wildbow's able to find seemingly infinite depth and variation within even a certain dicipline
She was heading for the Hyena. I beat her to the reflection, grabbing it, and sliding it. Two more steps took me to the nearest window. I punched my hand through, retrieving the blade before I was cast aside.
I think I just love reading about Blake moving around/attacking. It's very visually satisfying to experience, for me.
She drew her chalice from her bag and tapped it against the nearest mailbox. It sang, a ring of metal on metal, every bit as pleasant as the gouging of the mailbox hadn’t been. She touched it to one shard of glass. The bits of glass vibrated. “Back you go,” she said, authoritarian. “Where you’re meant to be.”
Just because I love to speculate, it seems like Sandra's implement can serve as a receptacle for ideas, so she taps the mailbox in order to "tune" the magic in the chalice to a certain idea, a certain ideological wavelength which she can then project onto any number of other subjects. Which is probably not exactly how it works, but is in fact fucking awesome if it is. If I got it wrong, then whatever the actual explanation is for how it works is probably even more awesome.
Eblis?” she asked. “It’s easier for your kind than it is for anyone else.” The tall man snapped his fingers. Like lightning, the seams disappeared. I saw reflected areas appear around every window I’d broken, like a flash of lightning.
I wonder if the tradition this guy comes from has to do with mending, or a reversal of entropy? apparently he's a genie of some sort- or a fallen angel, depending on which paragraph of the wikipedia entry you skim. Maybe because he's an angel, putting things back in order is easy? Whatever the case, this also looks awesome.
he turned her attention to Alister and me. “You two are done. I would like you two to agree this is a draw. We leave it at this.”
But Blake started it!
this reads so kids-caught-playing and I love it.
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JayManiac 30-Jan-20 01:28 AM
You probably know a lot more about this than me, and it pretty much tracks with what I found. Cool stuff! I wonder if we'll see this guy again? I also wonder what happens to an Other when they get Islamized/Christianized like this, or like Grendel, basically any celtic folklore, etc. I imagine a remnant of their old existence is still around, but they might gain some qualities of whatever they're recontextualized as.
“This was a fair competition, with rules established in advance. We played by the rules, we kept the civilians out of it,” I said. “Interrupted as it was, there was no clear winner.” “Wuh?” I heard Evan, a short distance away. “I agree,” Alister said. “What?” I heard Evan, again.
What!?
Huh! That's not what I expected him to choose at all! He chooses to relinquish a hold on Alister to possibly win back Rose's trust. I think I have to count that as character development, right?
I mean it's entirely possible that this doesn't work out, either because Rose disagrees with it, or because what Alister does will be terrible enough to warrant regret, but I like this note
okayIhavetogotodinnerlikerightnowbuti'lltrytofinishthistomorrowbye
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JayManiac 31-Jan-20 06:53 PM
Sorry for the weird breaks- that might just be how this happens from now on, as I try to squeeze in parts of chapters. It'll be faster than finding a spare three hours in a row, but also probably more annoying to experience from that end, so I apologize. Anyways, time to wrap up this chapter!
“I’ll see you later, Al,” I said. “We can pick up where we left off, maybe.” “I wouldn’t say that,” He answered. “I learned so much about you.”
See, Pact can recreate my favorite tropes (amicable enemies, perry-the-platypus-style antics, barbed we-have-to-get-along-for-the-next-five-minutes exchanges) in a way completely cohesive with world! I can't wait to see what Alister devises to handle Blake next, what tactics he employs. Man, having a protagonist who just kinda flies by the seat of his pants, building on things in the moment, is really really fun. It's almost like the guy writing him relates personally to that method of problem solving, or something.
lol 1
I saw Tiff, reading. “Tiff-” She dropped her book, uttering something inarticulate that was made up entirely of vowels.
Sometimes Blake just describes things so delightfully. I can hear this perfectly.
ahyperlul 1
“It’s done. It was resolved… amicably,” I said. “I wasn’t able to slow him down.” “Okay,” she said. “Thank you for keeping me in the loop. Though I’m not happy you delayed my minions from arriving.”
This seems like progress! I was really worried Blake would go to all the trouble of not thoroughly kicking Alister's ass, and then Rose would continue to be Rose and he'd learn that doing things in the interest of cooperation doesn't work out. This is frustrating, but not as frustrating as that would've been
“Just don’t fucking try to bind me again,” I said. “We’ll see,” she said. “I won’t unless you give me a reason to. Which you probably will.”
I hate how right she is here, but I don't disagree.
lol 1
“You gotta answer some questions, Rose,” I said. She folded her arms. “I don’t have to do anything.” I was pretty ready to break some more windows at that point. “But I can invite you in,” she said. “No mischief, no harm intended. Just… get inside.”
sharkhi
Awww
that's not a horrible ending
practically warm-fuzzy-inducing, I'd say
This was one of my favorite chapters- I don't know how the weird pace with which I read it affected my impression, but I love Alister as an antagonist, I got super excited about tarot and all the ways he used his implement, the fight was one of the most dynamic and exciting in the book so far- or really maybe any book i've read? I don't know, I tend to lose track of fight scenes pretty easily so moving slower through the chapter might've helped. And Pact fights in general are usually more my ace of cups, y'know? Because the dialogue is so explicitly part of the push and pull of action that it slows down enough for me to follow and understand.
bulba 2
Ilovethis 2
Blake's solutions were super satisfying, figuring out how Alister worked was fun, Blake had an important choice to make and seemed to choose the right one, and Sandra's intervention was perfectly infuriating. I loved this chapter so much, and I eagerly await the chance to read the next one!
agree 2
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JayManiac 19-Feb-20 10:51 PM
I've really enjoyed getting your thoughts on all of this, scott!
even if I'll have to stop checking the liveread channel in approximately negative 3 hours because I'm not caught up and I read very very very slowly
Speaking of that, I have two hours, so maybe it's time to get through a quarter of a chapter! Whadya say?
agree 4
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Wildbow 19-Feb-20 10:53 PM
Woo
sharkhi 5
CharmanderHi 1
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JayManiac 19-Feb-20 10:55 PM
When we last left off, Blake had technically tied with the newest Behaim to rumple his feathers, but won the sweet and important victory of friendship family sisterly love grudging compliance! And isn't that kind of what we were fighting for the whole time?
I stepped back into the house, though there weren’t many surfaces to work with. Too many windows, glass panes and mirrors had broken in the course of the priest’s raid.
Ah yes, certainly an inconveniance that those reflective surfaces were broken, if only we could find the ones responsible- oh, obviously that was the priest, okay. Excellent use of the passive voice, Blake. While we're at it, it's a shame that Laird died during all that stuff in toronto, you know, just happened to find a stick in his throat while everything was happening- maybe this is why it takes me 4 hours to read chapters also I feel like I say that every time
“We’re not friends,” Rose said. She didn’t turn around as she knelt to pick up a piece of glass she’d spotted at the foot of a bookshelf. “This isn’t us cooperating. This is me admitting that I’d rather have your cooperation and Evan than not have either.”
You know what Rose? Fair. I relate to your struggle. Not the whole being-uncooperative-in-the-first-place dealio, that's still a toss up for me. But making a strategically bad decision with the reason: 'because Evan'? That's so relatable it's downright admirable. Godspeed. Or devilspeed...drainsspeed? See these don't have the same ring to em
“Mission was a failure,” I answered. “But things aren’t any worse off, and I do have information.”
I think Blake is downplaying how almost he kicked the crap out of Alister and I'm not sure why
“All signs point to Alister being made head of the Behaim family. Very soon. With the appointment, presumably, comes a gift. Some kind of weapon. Evan and I met him, he forced our hands with his cards.” “The implement,” Rose said. “There are weak points, but they’re hard to target. He tends to take the initiative and hold it. You don’t surprise a guy who’s as good at reading events as he is.”
Unless you're Blake Thorburn. I'm still so proud of him for that. Also Elliot, I don't see our seemingly contrary views of the cards as being a disagreement per-se. You talked a lot in DiP about their versatility, which I think serves the point I was trying to make about how he can use them to tune the universe to a set of values he knows how to interpret and command. Because they're very applicable, the universe rarely if ever calls him on his bullshit, and thus he remains in control.
Also "forced our hands with his cards" is just a good line. I don't know if that was intentional, but I liked it.
“I have. Five of coins is poverty,” Alexis said. “Loss. In practitioner circles, one’s ‘wealth’ is usually measured in terms of power, so a loss of powers. Might be being forsworn, might be a loss of something else that’s vital.”
Interesting; does Alexis mean she noticed Alister's aversion to the card specifically, or has she just been doing lots of tarot research? I'm guessing it's the later. Speaking of Implements, tattoo gun when?
“Right?” I asked. “Sandra stepped in. She’s got this, I dunno, web, or net, connecting everything in Jacob’s Bell. If any big guns are deployed, she knows about it, and can respond accordingly.” “Something like that would need anchor points,” Rose said. “You can’t suspend a web without attaching it to something. Odds are good that she had her people draw symbols at key points or landmarks around the city. Okay.”
I'm so excited for this to come into play; I still don't know where our characters stand with regard to Sandra- she's more neutral than someone like Alister, but this is a good set of limitations, especially if it works like a web in the sense that destroying one key point could topple wide sections of her influence
“Wouldn’t hurt,” Rose admitted, sounding more than a little reluctant. “Maybe we can station you elsewhere in the house, or we could set up mirrors in places the rest of us can’t easily cover.” “I prefer the second idea to the first,” I told her. “Feels less like something you’re doing to me to keep me out of the way and more like I’m genuinely helping. ” “Good,” she said. “Second idea it is. Since you still seem to maintain a degree of connection, I’ll put Evan on the same duty. If there’s a problem you can’t handle, send him, we’ll figure it out.”
See, this feels like growth in their relationship, small steps to a healthier balance, maybe if Blake just does his best at this and doesn't start whining about power when Rose is clearly at her leniency limit, we'll get to a nice-
“If I was better equipped to act, I’d be able to handle more problems, which would help,” I said.
dammmit
lol 3
“I can’t tell you the details about the switch,” Rose said. I hit the nearest shelf before I realized what I was doing. A book toppled on the far side, falling to the floor.
Blake is actively worse than Zuko at this whole "i'm gonna join this team and it's gonna be great" thing. Maybe it's just where I'm at in my mindset right now, but he's reading more and more childish, not knowing when to stop pushing, hitting things and throwing tantrums when he's angry, completely not cognizant of how he's being perceived and where the lines are. He wasn't always like this, I'm pretty sure...
“Then why are you hiding things from me?” I asked. “Do you think I’ll go out of control? Am I supposed to turn evil?” “No,” Rose said. “Nothing’s confirmed in that department. It’s possible, if the human in you loses out to the Other, but nothing’s confirmed. That’s not the concern.” “Then what is the concern?” I asked, barely controlling the tone of my voice.
I say this relating to his frustration, as this is a really fucking cryptic thing to say to someone. "so we're really worried about something, and it's not the thing you're worried about, and we can't tell you what it is" would be just infuriating, but dude...chill
I'm trying to think about what it might be, if it's not the whole Blake turning evil
the only thing I can come up with is that it's somehow related to their original crisis: that Blake will do something that sets off Armageddon without consulting her first, because he'd totally do that.
I could feel notes of fear from the others. Even Rose. I liked the clarity it gave me, even as I hated the idea of it on a cognitive level.
Yep. That feels gross
all icky and slimy and sewer-y, you could imagine
“Okay,” I said. “Keep me in the dark. Fine. Your choice. But remember, grandmother had me put together for a reason. I’d like to think she picked traits that would complement me as a vestige, and traits that would keep me fighting. Tenacity, strength. What did Isadora call me? ‘Little warrior’?” “Yeah,” Rose said. “You do have a streak of tenacity in you. That‘s obvious.”
Ahahahahhahahahahahahha
Blake, trying to convince them to give him power for the 374th time: hey, but did you know I'm really stubborn and don't know when to quit? Rose, Isadora, the Cabal, the readers of Pact: wow we hadnt noticed
“And yeah,” she said. “You’re more right than you know. I’m almost positive you’re right, as a matter of fact. You were set up to be a scrapper. If I’ve put the missing pieces of memory back right, you made a good show of it. But you’re not complete, Blake. You’re a hammer in search of a nail. What happens when everything is nailed down? When things were quiet after Toronto settled down, what happened? You went after the demon in the factory.” “There were reasons I did it,” I said. “I believe that,” she said. “There will always be reasons. But you’re made to follow a certain trajectory. Everything was arranged so you would naturally self destruct. The ‘little warrior’ in you would move from one conflict to the next, removing my enemies so my way was clear, until there were no enemies left or you perished while fighting a critical enemy. If you died in a fight, I’d have the chance to take advantage of the confusion. Except the enemy who did get you didn’t get confused. I didn’t get to take advantage of any confusion. I was the confused one. But we managed.”
On one hand, she's right in her characterization of Blake here, and his new bogeyman status is the epitome of a lot of those more volatile tendencies.
But also:
leave it to Rose to blame a vestige for not dying correctly, sweet fucking scion she can be an asshole sometimes.
I didn’t move a hair. She was telling me stuff. I wasn’t going to break the spell. “Now you’re back, and you’re not supposed to be. Just like you weren’t supposed to kill Laird. You’re following a different course, but you’re still a hammer looking for nails. You’re still itching for a fight. You’re not something I can manage.” “Except I just proved I can be managed, that I can be sort of respectful. Even in this damn conversation, the fact that I haven’t completely flipped out should be telling.”
Yeah, but you just said you wouldn't break the spell, Rose said one more thing and you had to interject. Blake is pretty friggin unmanagable and wild, and Rose is seeming unempathetic and cruel, even if she does have good intentions, which is questionable at this point. He was built to be a tragic hero. But like seriously, when the fuck is it okay to tell someone "your existence is wrong and it's fucking up the world"? I don't mean when is it right, I mean when is it okay? When can you say that and not feel like absolute shit?
“It is,” she said. “Part of that was intentional. I had to push, to see how much you pushed back.”
These two are such a mess
“I’d really like everyone to be together,” I said, “without hostility.” “Me too! Yes. Er, aren’t we? If you’re inside-” “Rose and I aren’t getting along,” I said.
hhhhhhh, that certainly is a way to put that
“Company,” Evan said. “Company?” Rose asked. “It’s your family.”
oh yeah, I forgot that Sandra set that up and then Molly made it worse and then everything went to absolute shit....
Tiff spoke up, “When I tried to figure out what they were doing last night, all signs pointed to them splitting up.”
I know there's not a lot of time to get into it, which I'm kind of disappointed about, but every time we get to see a little bit of what the cabal seems to be specializing in I get kind of excited. Tiff getting into some kind of clairvoyance tying in with her want to become reliable and useful, Alexis studying a bit of symbology and trying to understand problems through their artistic representations, Ty doing everything because Ty does everything.
Alexis added, “If you need us to back you up when they arrive, we could hang here, or-” “Please clean,” Rose said. “And then stay out of the way. You being here would be ammunition.” “Can do,” Alexis said.
I know the feeling of having to enter a conversation that feels like it has 'ammunition'. Not fun. Also Rose is probably characterizing things in terms of war and battle for Reasons. Great. But also also it seems like the cabal is offering their help, seeing Rose as a friend, all the Good Things...
“I’m sure. You’re going to need to tap Conquest for this, aren’t you? Better to be a proper Lady of status than Lady Macbeth.” “I’d really rather not tap him.” “We knew you’d probably have to,” Ty said, moving a box. “It was a conscious decision we made when we decided we didn’t have the time to focus on the issue of your family. It wasn’t said aloud, but I think we all agreed. I’m suspicious you knew it too.”
Ouch, that there's the Reason. Seeing Ty as the one to push for this really throws all of what I just said into a different light- things are not as we, and Blake, have assumed with regard to the dynamic here, and I don't know that he necessarily sees that, because he's busy being pissed the fuck off.
“This arrival feels too convenient,” I said. “A push from Sandra?” Alexis asked. “It would fit.”
Or karma honestly, or Molly, and probably some combination of the three.
When I glanced back her way to see if she was cleaning, I found her less than a foot from me. I didn’t startle, but my heart did something funny in my chest.
did it flutter, perhaps? Or maybe start beating?
“My work, becoming something warped. It’s all how I’d ink the branches, the spatter pattern, the watercolor in the space beyond is maybe a little pale, but if I was dealing with someone who didn’t give a damn about the fading…”
I never even thought about this, how an artist would see their own work reflected back twofold like this: first because she doesn't remember doing it, next because the drains are spreading it, painting with your hands to work their magic.
“I know you don’t remember it. I know it might not have even happened, but to me, you saved me, Alexis.” She didn’t move. “I was cursed with an inability to create,” I said. “Maybe that’s part of being built as a warrior, with only the necessary parts. But I could never draw. Tried a bunch of things, but I never found that talent. I don’t… I’m trying to sum up this one thought, but I feel like I’ll keep getting off track if I try to explain it. I don’t really know, but if there’s any ability for an artist to be able to tell this sort of thing through their work, I really want you to be able to look at this and see it as it was supposed to be, and know that you saved me. That-” Again, I couldn’t find the words.
Ilovethis
I wasn’t choked up, but I wasn’t sure I could be choked up in the normal way anymore.
But you know who can? (hint: it's me)
“…But I want you to know that you did help me. You helped me to my feet, helped me be a real live boy again. And maybe the demon took that away when he took away the connection, and maybe that’s why you took it harder when I left. Maybe it’s not real, maybe it didn’t really happen, I don’t really know. But if you were trying to prove to yourself that you were capable of something… I think you proved it.”
Fuck.
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spinagon 01-Mar-20 07:32 AM
Blake makes himself wings
🤔
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Scott 01-Mar-20 09:59 AM
Things were climbing free of the bookcase, and among them was a massive worm made of a series of overly obese humans, most with their respective heads shoved into the nether regions of the humans ahead of them. (edited)
Wildbow.
ahyperlul 2
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Wildbow 01-Mar-20 10:00 AM
Oh, Squirmy!
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Elliot (Boy) 01-Mar-20 10:07 AM
^ is that a WOG on the name? 😛 (edited)
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JayManiac 02-Mar-20 12:29 AM
“That opens me up to a lot of forms of attack,” I said. “Being properly bound, being targeted by certain vectors…” “It protects you too,” Lola said. “Gives you a power source. You become a part of the greater scheme of things.”
I mean, making Blake a little less 'thing that really isn't supposed to be here doesn't seem like such a bad idea...until we realize that he's one of the last holdouts, the last wildcards in the system they're trying to change. Mags, the other one, had to tie herself in. She might still be trying to shift things from the inside, but she's so wrapped up in it there's barely anything she can do. In the ludicrously paraphrased half-sentiment of Hunter S. Thompson: you can't change the system if you're uncomfortable with anything that falls outside of it. And these guys aren't comfortable with Blake being outside the Seal.
The Seal is, buy and large, a good thing- just like the government is a good thing, just like laws are a good thing. But it's also supporting a flawed system- in terms of sentiment- so it might be good to have something on the outside of that. An unregistered bogeyman floating around, trying to make sure that when he does push, it's for justice, goodness, change- and not completely from anger.
“Hey, chickadee! Fellow bird!” Evan called out to Penelope’s familiar. “Come perch with me while we wait. We can trade stories about all of the places to avoid when you’re out for a flight. Like Sandra’s weasel thing, except you’re a Duchamp so you’re safe, but stuff like that! Bird tips! Wait, wing tips!” The chickadee looked at him. It spoke with a voice that was so high it might have sounded artificial, if the articulation wasn’t so perfect. “Do not presume that we’re equal, child.”
Fuck off, dude
this sounds like textbook fae
“Hi Blake.” “Hi Mags,” I said.
sharkhi
“Because you don’t want to lose the ability to lie,” Craig said. He looked the most unfriendly out of all of the Behaims, and none of the Behaims seemed friendly at all. “Or you’re afraid of being bound.” “Not quite,” I said. “My big concern is that we all share a common enemy, and somehow, a lot of us are missing it. It’s getting us one by one, and I can’t just give it more power.”
Maybe I should've waited for Blake to give half my spiel before I just came out and said it; ah well.
“History,” I said. “Your families, the Duchamps especially, are bound to it. Everyone’s doing things the way they’ve been done for ages, because they’ve been done that way for ages. It’s… it’s this corrupt, stupid force in all of our lives.”
Yes, but I'd push back against the notion that you're free from it purely because you're not bound by any Seal. Because the binding, the true corruption, comes from the spirit of what you're saying, the spirit of what you're doing, not the literal words or whether you're technically bound or not.
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Wildbow 02-Mar-20 12:37 AM
I like the mental picture of Evan fluffing up & sucking his head in, after getting rebuffed by the chickadee
☹️ 3
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JayManiac 02-Mar-20 12:39 AM
He just wants to be friends
“You’re gathering up a bunch of us Behaims and telling us that the big bad enemy is time?” Craig asked.
Blake is ruled by so much history; we see that he's as much of a Thorburn as the rest of them. And while he's right that this is a fucked up way of doing things, he's wrong in any implication that he's free of the background that built it up. Freer? Maybe, but there isn't any clean slate here for humanity, and especially not for Blake, whose history- in the form of the tattoos some version of him chose to put to ink- is slowly eating him alive.
Can he still change things? I'd like to think so, but not without the recognition that he's doing so with the convictions provided by the past.
And while we shouldn't rely on the laws, the codification of 'normal' and the concepts we use to shape our structure of morality as a society, the further you stray from them the easier it is to warp them in selfish directions. Abandon society and soon your commune becomes a cult...
I think you can see everything in the story through this lens, and Blake's trauma is no exception
I can't help but wonder who put that narrative together
was it Rosalyn?
Why would she choose a narrative that's seemingly a warning against breaking from the system, if it's what she always wanted Blake and Rose to do?
“History, not time. The past. I don’t think I can really convince Sandra or Alister or Johannes or any of the others to turn from their paths. They’re too secure in their power, comfortable in what tradition and history and expectations have given each of them. I’m really, honestly hoping I can convince you guys. Convince all of you guys, who are less in History’s grip. I’m banking on that, while the knowledge that my friends might be hurt or dying is slowly tearing me apart.”
Could the idea of Innocence have any connection to whether you're in history's grip? The innocent as the ones who can walk through the supposed laws of the world, see past the construction of the veil- is it because that construction, all of society's more complex constructions, aren't solid in their minds?
I don't know that we've talked about it, but the idea that Magic Isn't Real is another one of those constructions
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Elliot (Boy) 02-Mar-20 12:53 AM
sharkhi Jayreads!
CharmanderHi 3
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JayManiac 02-Mar-20 12:55 AM
Because obviously immaterial things influence us and the ways we behave all the time, but we fall so easily to backing our fragile convictions with a materialistic view of the world, the idea that our concepts are science-given or god-given (not equating religion and science, they're each technologies which perform vastly different functions, but here the point stands). Take gender, for instance. Rather than treat it as an immaterial thing that emanates throughout society and influences, so many people rely on the construction of materialism to justify the immaterial- accusing transgender biology majors of not having taken biology (sorry, that one's close to home). But as a kid, you have a much less constructed division between that which is 'real' according to society and that which is 'not real' by virtue of its intangibility.
Disclaimer: I critique the concept of science as it's used in argument, as a social ideology. The methods of science can be used to find nuance in the concept of gender, if they're pointed that way. No, critiquing the methods of science will have to wait.
“As far as I’ve been able to tell, you were misled,” I told him. “Just like your fathers and your fathers’ fathers were. You’re the equivalent of cows producing the milk, and it’s the Lairds and Alisters that get to decide what they do with that milk. The best you can do is hope they make good use of the power they milk from you.”
It's a joke, but also Blake not realizing the historical implications of what he's saying again
“I’m not trying to be your friend. I don’t think that’s about to happen given our history,” I answered.
Blake: The past is the past, can't we let it go? Craig: You killed my dad in the past. Blake: shhhhh
“I’m hoping that we can at least stand here, and agree that the status quo sucks, and it’s going to suck more for all of us if things continue down this course.”
A good starting point, but I'm still worried at the implications of who's flying this particular bird.
“It’s right. Right now,” Lola said. “I did everything I could to make myself unpresentable. Fought it every step of the way. Put metal in my face and ears, not just because I thought it was cool, but because I wanted to scare off the stodgy old mages and whatnots that paid visits and leered at us. It didn’t work. They found me someone who wanted someone distinctive. Guy ten years older than me I’ve met once, for an interview. Like I was applying for a job. Wedding’s set for a year from now. If it weren’t for the chaos here, the wedding day would’ve been the second day I saw him.”
I can't for the life of me imagine why you're arguing against Blake right now. Or, well, trying to say that the status quo isn't kind of terrible. This seems kind of terrible.
agree 2
“I think that’s illegal,” Evan whispered. “Not illegal. Lola’d be eighteen,” Penelope said. “Oh.”
and therein lies the friggin problem. Evan is here as a representative of the innocent, the genuine aims of laws like the ones he's talking about. It should be illegal, because it's bad. But now that we have the age of consent, people work within that system and feign the same morality that went into its construction.
“Things change, Blake. If the Duchamps come out on top, and we’re most definitely a contender, then the marriage thing can stop. Or they can at least slow down, make it volunteer-only. My fiancé is coming into town with his brothers. He’s helping. And so long as I play along, we’ve got that tiny bit of extra psychopomp firepower. We can help Sandra take over, and help the status quo change.”
Okay, but what this really means, is that once you have enough social power you can avoid most of the worst parts of the systems. And once you're there, it'll be hard to stomach changing the underlying foundation that all your power is built upon. Lola will stop the weddings for her family, but the freedom that's allowed by her ascent will have all these shitty parts of the system as prerequisites, and she'd have to really stick her neck out into uncomfortable territory in order to change them around.
Power within a system doesn't give you power over it. And though you're free from the suffering, you're just as caged as the rest of us.
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JayManiac 02-Mar-20 01:16 AM
“Or maybe,” I replied, “Things will keep going the way they’ve gone for generations. You might end up making peace with the fact that Penelope gets married off, because there wasn’t enough time. Then Penelope’s younger sister could end up getting married off. You can still convince yourself that it’s fine, that it takes time. What happens after? You end up having a kid with the psycho, and one day you could wind up using the same tricks on your daughter that your mother and aunts used to manipulate you?” I could see Lola’s expression harden, the muscles at the corners of her jaw standing out, any softness disappearing. I waited, inviting her to speak, but there was only hardness. “…Maybe you wind up convincing her that if she just plays along, she won’t have to do the same for her daughter?”
I mean, Blake is giving a harsher rebuttal than I was willing to give from outside the story, so I'll probably leave it up to him.
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Elliot (Boy) 02-Mar-20 01:17 AM
Also RE your strategies: - Try not to repeat things without noticing Is this some sort of personal attack?
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JayManiac 02-Mar-20 01:17 AM
Uh
yes
Against me
Did I intend to sweep you up in the fallout? No, but if you were standing right next to me when it happened...
lol 2
“I want people to look!” I said, and I raised my voice a little too much. I was anxious, in my odd, inhuman new way of being anxious, and having them fight me on this very preliminary front was only making it worse. “I want you to god-damn think! Why the hell would the Duchamps stop doing what they’re doing, just because they were a little more powerful? Power has to be secured. They’re not going to abandon the methods that got them status and power in the first place. They’re going to keep doing it, only they’ll escalate. Reach out to practitioners who are further away. Use their new position to build something.”
We kind of see something like what worm was about- Taylor's slow, retroactive justifications turning her into the worst parts of her personal trauma- expanded as the mechanism by which society keeps its gears turning. The escalation is the key- the sunk cost, the 'just one more and i'll never have to do everything exactly like this again' of it- you don't actually get to the point where you're satisfied with the power you have and can stop.
It's like what's happened with the U.S. Military- we're sinking so much into it just to keep it functional because of how supermassive it is, and there's always a cauldronesque argument for expanding it: "well if something does happen and we weren't powerful enough to stop it, we'll regret resting on our laurels."
“No,” Lola said. “I know Sandra. I know… some general stuff about her. I’m sure she wouldn’t escalate.”
I'd love to believe it too, I even like Sandra. But the mere fact of her willing perpetuation of this system is argument enough that she'd be capable of escalating it.
“Things change,” Lola said, with a note of certainty in her voice. Stubborn. I was a little surprised that a Duchamp would be like that, that someone from the subtle and creative enchantresses would be so blunt in attitude. I supposed it had to do with where she’d come from. She’d carved out a bit of individuality among a sea of cousins and sisters who all looked and acted very similar to one another.
And much like you, she didn't realize that that individuality wasn't tantamount to freedom- that in some ways it made her more subject to the system, and to history, because she'd defending it now.
“We’re the only ones who can change the course of all this,” I said. “You guys, as representatives or whatever you are to your families, you’re in a position to spread the word, make arguments. If you don’t like the current status quo, fight it.” “At the worst possible moment?” Craig asked. “We’d weaken our families just in time for Johannes to swoop in and seize the lordship.”
Oh boy do I have Things To Say about Johannes; we'll save them. But the fact remains that it's always gonna be a bad moment. It's always gonna seem like a good excuse to put off changing the way you do things for just one more day, because what you have to deal with here will be over soon and then you can put your full focus towards whatever you need to. And then you've got a week to read like half of this book because you couldn't read it last week, when you had that assignment, or the week before, when you were in acapella tech week for a competition, or the week before when your friend was freaking out about getting things done, or the week before because you were in a new relationship and needed all the time you could get, or....
The difference being that there's no deadline to fix the status quo (global warming excepted). You just kind of let Suffering Be A Thing until you do. Or until you don't. Forever.
I’d wanted them to realize just how much they were slaves to their bloodline’s traditions. But they were on the cusp of adulthood, already settling into their individual responsibilities. Craig, Ainsley and Gavin had been trusted to go to Toronto to help Laird and Duncan fight. Lola was getting married. Penelope had at least had enough leverage to call off the Duchamps when I’d returned Letita to her and her sister. She’d gotten in trouble, but she’d had a voice. Maybe, if I’d been able to reach the ones without a voice, I could have done something.
That's the paradox that lets this keep happening: those with enough power are granted that power by the system and thus less likely to change it. Those who can listen enough to want change for the system have no power to do it. And thus, it continues. It marches on.
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Fursuit Lightsaber 02-Mar-20 01:35 AM
God damn Jay, you're a powerhouse
This is what, hour 5?
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JayManiac 02-Mar-20 01:35 AM
Pretty much!
I'm on a roll! It's been less than two hours to a chapter so I think I might have a shot at this
sharkhi 1
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Fursuit Lightsaber 02-Mar-20 01:37 AM
Loving the liveread! March on and have fun!
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JayManiac 02-Mar-20 01:37 AM
I might have to revise my plan, roll through action much more quickly so I have time to focus on big thematic stuff like this, only piping up when I really see something important. I'm not great at recognizing that though, so I'll work on it
lol 1
Thanks!!
Fuck. The Briar Girl spoke.
Oh yeah! She's here too! And with only her own history to fuck with her, no less.
Side note, forgot that I started a stopwatch
“When the Thorburns fall,” I said, “The glades that give Hillsglade House its name will probably be cut down, the marshes will be drained. You’re… very similar to me, in a way.” “Similar?” “Swept up in the tide. More at the mercy of the individual families than any of the others, who have cabals or covens or circles to protect them. If and when the Thorburns lose, you lose, very probably.”
That is the other option, the sweet spot according to Marx. The people who are more fucked over by the system than benefitted by it, but who still might hold some modicum of power...hard to find.
“If the Thorburns win, I lose. After the priest left the house, we all heard about what Rose did. There’s a working with a demon, protecting her. We can’t touch her. Nobody wins when there are demons involved.”
Yeah, that's the other thing: the things that are outside of the system and able to change it are outside for reasons. Those reasons being they're fucking awful.
“I think,” I said, “That if things continue down this road, it’s not going to be one side winning, the rest of us losing. It might not even be one person winning, and everyone else losing. I think it’s going to turn out worse than that. Everyone in Jacob’s Bell loses.”
Agreed. Everyone's going to be boiled alive. Or flayed alive. OR be dead, but still suffering.
“Unless you want to be bound by the seal,” Gavin told me, “I don’t really see any other reason to keep talking.” I shook my head. It was against everything I was and everything I was striving for, right here.
They don't get it. But also, I don't know that Blake gets it. Maybe no one gets it. Except Evan, probably.
But even he doesn't know that he gets it
But they were caught up in the tide. Now I faced the idea of having to figure out what to do next, knowing that with every passing moment, things might be getting worse at Hillsglade. Damn me, damn them, damn it all.
Uh what the fuck is about to happen
Such a familiar feeling. Being angry, being unable to think straight. Wanting to do something that I knew was a bad idea.
No no no no no you don't get to just drop the opening words of the book like this what the fuck is about to happen!?
my guess is something that metaphorically approximates to calling his grandma a cunt but I can't be sure.
“Just tell me…” I spoke to their backs. I didn’t restrain my voice and even I was a little surprised at how different it sounded. There was a hollow quality to it. They stopped. Three of them turned around or partially turned to look at me. “…Do you care?” I asked. “About being used as cows, giving up your time to fuel the Behaim battery? Being married off? Seeing people you respect and care about being married off?”
Those were the perfect words to put me right the Hell on edge
Now I'm reading everything in anticipation of that thricedamned payoff
“So,” I said, before anyone could add anything. “If my words aren’t enough, you’re saying you want to see me act?”
Uhhhhhhh
“What, exactly, are you doing?” Gavin asked. “I couldn’t tell you, or someone might try to stop me,” I answered. “I’m taking action. Remember what I said. I don’t give a damn about money. I don’t care about the power, really. I’d give it all up and go with my friends back to normalcy if I could. When the subject comes up, and people start talking, I want you to remember that. Spread it around.”
Dammit, Blake!
or- no wait don't dammit, fuck!
“Fuck, that scared me,” Ellie said. Her voice was a little hoarse. “It’s just the dumb bird.” None of the others replied. “It’s not just the bird,” I said, as Evan set the mirror down.
My first thought when I read those words was 'oh, does it have something to do with his family?'
But I didn't actually think- oh this is gonna be a fucking mess
agree 2
“Who are you?” Ellie asked, looking around. “Look at the mirror,” I said. “And listen. We only get one shot at this.”
We spent so much of this arc on how sharp, how dangerous, how volatile these kids were- this is the perfect way to turn it around. Ironically, making use of Rosalyn's choices regarding her grandkids. By using their natural affinity as practitioners are you saying that she was justified in making them perfect for the job? Are you reaffirming that part of your family history? The part which you cited as the reason your grandma's a cunt in chapter one?
Alright, two more chapters, then a break before the interlude, another break, then as much of the next arc as we can get through.
11.10
But what good was my argument, if I told the members of other families to take a different path, to step away from the status quo, if I didn’t do the same?
But are you really stepping away from the status quo with this?
I suppose you're widening the scope of the Thorburn family, distributing power...but also feeding your grandma's conviction
It's a bit of both
“You’re not imagining this,” I said. “Which of you can move?” “Who are you?” Ellie asked. “If I had to come up with something serviceable,” I said, “I’d say I’m your cousin that was never born.”
That kind of works; doesn't make any fucking sense to people who don't believe in magic, but y'know
where the fuck is Peter? He's going to be the most useful in all this. Well, the most something anyhow
Peter nodded, too, but he didn’t speak. He was staring intently at me. That made me nervous.
There he is
“Cuffs back on,” I said, “Resume position.” Peter was quick to obey. Kathryn, however, resisted, starting to rise, then tilted and stopped. The two kids were frozen.
This only makes me more nervous. He'll obey until he thinks he knows enough to slip whatever power Blake holds over him via information. And then Rose is going to take an axe to her selfsibling
I ignored her, speaking calmly, my voice almost but not quite a whisper, “We need a good hiding spot for the others, or the witch hunters might take someone as a hostage.” “Let them,” she said. “I don’t give a shit about Kathy or Callan.”I ignored her, speaking calmly, my voice almost but not quite a whisper, “We need a good hiding spot for the others, or the witch hunters might take someone as a hostage.” “Let them,” she said. “I don’t give a shit about Kathy or Callan.”
Behold: our heroes
(edited)
“Ellie,” Kathryn whispered, checking Callan’s pulse. “Shut up. You’re smarter than that. Look at what Peter’s doing. Copy him.” “Peter? He’s not doing anything. He’s just sitting there.” “Emulate him,” Kathryn hissed, with an intensity that made me suspect she’d practiced it on a daily or weekly basis for a long time. “Shut the fuck up and sit still. Figure it out without asking stupid questions. Our concern is those two kids who just thrashed us and started talking about bombs.”
I love and hate that Peter has the most common sense here. It might just keep him alive long enough to be trouble.
How was he processing this? I’d once likened Ty’s art to the sort of musician that picked up every instrument for a while, gaining a general knowledge, rather than specializing in any one thing. Peter could be said to be the same, but with an emphasis on people. He got how people worked, he found weaknesses, he preyed on them, and he coasted through life. I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if I learned one day that he’d conned an old woman out of her retirement savings, or started a shady company, collected the money and disappeared.
Hmmmmm, reminds me of someone devastating
Can't devastating put devastating my devastating finger devastating on it
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JayManiac 02-Mar-20 02:11 AM
Probably. They're certainly different in behavior, attitude, and general goal, but I don't know how that influences the way they read people. I probably just don't know enough about Peter
“I’ll get trouble for introducing myself to you,” I said. “I know you aren’t the types to thank me for any of this. But you were raised to be horrible people, and I was too, in a small way. Right here, right now, you need to be your own particular sort of horrible to them. If you’re willing to work together to do it, all the better.”
This is a more understandable- if still terrible plan
“Mirror, mirror, on the wall,” Peter murmured. “Who’s the fairest of them all?”
Ah shit
“You’re a wizard, Pete,” he said. “How does the line go?” “Great,” Ellie said. “It’s up to me and the kids.” “Blue pill, red pill? Tumbling, tumbling, down the rabbit hole, except instead of a grinning cat, it’s kids from film Tarantino,” Peter spoke, drawing out the ‘o’ of ‘hole’ and ‘Tarantino’.
Yeah, you just kind of gave him everything he needed to put it together, to see past that construction.
“Safest, smartest plan,” Peter said, looking up at his sister, sounding eerily lucid compared to his momentary wackiness a bit ago, “Would be to repurpose a bomb. It’s not the movies, you can probably pull out wires until it stops working.” “You want to fuck with a bomb?” Kathryn asked. “Fuck me, and fuck you.”
He's adapted to this situation startlingly quickly.
“Who are those kids?” Kathryn asked. “Bombs? Tripwires? They’re good.” “Hit men,” Roxanne mumbled, her head hanging as she shuffled around to a sitting position, one eye on the hallway. “I think I want to be them. Then I want to find them, and pay them back.”
Yeah, that explains the fruedian slip from earlier
headcanoning that as blake's freudian slip- still works
A part of me felt like Kathryn, Ellie and the kids were at the point where they could maybe explain away what had happened to date. Kathryn was sharper, but maybe less willing to let go of her grip on the real world. Ellie wasn’t as sharp, not in this respect. The kids were kids. But Peter… Fuck.
I'm so glad this guy is momentarily on Blake's side
“There’s a reason they spray painted and broke the mirrors and pictures in the house,” I said. “If you can find anything that’s been put on the ground or covered, prop it up, that helps.” “Uh huh. Just like the movies? The eyes in the pictures move to follow you. The house is rigged,” he said, smiling.
It's good to have someone to handle the more nonsensical side of the plan right now, even if that's going to be a big mistake once Peter's more in this world.
“So?” Peter asked me. “So what?” I asked, in response. He moved the couch cushions, then moved the coffee table back. “So… how does this work? What are the rules?”
You're right, very different from Sy. But still, he reacts like I hope Iwould, by getting straight to what the rules are. I find myself rooting for him until I remember his sense of empathy
or lack thereof
Peter looked my way. “The bird isn’t important. What is? I asked you what the rules were, here. What can you share?” Peter was a people person. I thought about that. “Andy is the trap and bomb guy.”
Can't slow down for all of this and don't have too much to say but I love it
“If I don’t have access to my friends upstairs, it’s probably over,” I said. “That’s all those two are doing up there. Just before the clock hits five or so, they’ll probably pack up and leave. Because those two pale in comparison to what’s coming.” “The machete wielder who stomps on a twelve year old and the kid with the bombs are pale?”
Oh, so he still has like...no idea what he's in for
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Elliot (Boy) 02-Mar-20 02:24 AM
No Jay (maybe?) If anything Peter's more of an interesting mirror of Blake - same natural talent, different focus on how he interacts with people
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JayManiac 02-Mar-20 02:25 AM
hhhhhhh
Fine
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Elliot (Boy) 02-Mar-20 02:25 AM
It's probably safe
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JayManiac 02-Mar-20 02:25 AM
I'm clicking
Interesting; I can see that angle, although I'd put more weight on the difference than the similarity
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Elliot (Boy) 02-Mar-20 02:26 AM
oh absolutely
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Project Waffler 02-Mar-20 02:27 AM
Holy-am I reading this correctly? You're gonna shoot for livereading the rest of the story in less than a week? 5-ish arcs?
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Elliot (Boy) 02-Mar-20 02:27 AM
(yeah sorry about that everyone)
(especially Jay)
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Scott 02-Mar-20 02:28 AM
Jay! I thought my schedule to finish was aggressive
lol 3
omg
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JayManiac 02-Mar-20 02:28 AM
And it takes me an average of two hours to read every chapter, yes
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Project Waffler 02-Mar-20 02:29 AM
Don't fry your brain Jay. I only do the one chapter a day and sometimes it wipes me out. Lotta chasing your own thoughts around, trying to pin down why you feel a certain way etc. But thanks for the content!
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Elliot (Boy) 02-Mar-20 02:30 AM
You know when Reuben and I decided on this livestream we only pictured stressing ourselves out. We really didn't consider the collateral stress it would put on others. And isn't that the most Pact thing of all. (edited)
ahyperlul 1
Ilovethis 1
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Project Waffler 02-Mar-20 02:31 AM
There's an incarnation/radiation joke to be made there Elliot, but I don't have the time to refine it at the moment. Just assume I said something clever and Pact-ey I guess.
lol 2
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Elliot (Boy) 02-Mar-20 02:33 AM
but yeah to backtrack a bit Jay that's what I find so interesting about Peter - he's similar to Blake in these few very important ways (people focused, is Thorburn), but they're still so different
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JayManiac 02-Mar-20 02:35 AM
1. Hey, the way I see it the more fried my brain is, the more batshit raving insane I am at the end of the week, the more interesting the podcast is! 2. Oh don't worry about me, I'm trying to be an Internet Content Creator and do college at the same time, this is securely on my shoulders and I relish the opportunity! Plus, it's great practice for further down the line, in terms of deadlines that I have to keep, efficiency in idea transmission, the medium of podcasting, collaboration in the very field I love to work within, etc. Plus it's an excuse to stay inside and read for a week, so I'm not complaining.
ahyperlul 1
He's also similar in that he has a twin who was slightly more eligible for the house than he was, and reacts badly to this
agree 1
“You’re really not going to share the real dirt?” Peter asked. “Because you, right here, not technology. If you could somehow bestow some of that on me? It’d help.” He smiled wide. It was more genuine emotion than I’d seen from him… ever. “It’s not technology,” I said. “I can’t give you it. Those guys up there? They’re witch hunters. You’re almost stronger against them like you are, than with anything I could bestow.”
Okay so you're just gonna come right out and say it huh. Alright. That's an interesting amount of the truth to reveal. Blake you'd better hope Peter doesn't make it out of this alive, because he's going to be more dangerous than half the schmucks you're facing if he has time to get a handle on this.
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Elliot (Boy) 02-Mar-20 02:36 AM
haha yeah the twin angle definitely factors in
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JayManiac 02-Mar-20 02:37 AM
“I’ll tell you more later, but it takes time, on a lot of levels.” “Uh huh,” he said. “That works.” “What works?” I asked. “The way you phrased it, and I’m pretty good at reading people. That sounded genuine. Which tells me a lot. I don’t know if you’re telling the truth or not, but I believe you when you say it takes time. And that tells me a lot more. Time… is really important, in a lot of ways.”
I love how he analyzes the situation, how quick he is on the uptake. Part of why I love reading urban fantasy- and why Pact is so interesting- is that it has the potential to show a wide variety of responces to the idea that the world isn't what you think it is.
“Need knives,” she said. “Not objecting,” Peter replied. When Roxanne was gone, he commented, “Man, dad wasted Roxy, using her like he did. Jessica’s fault, probably. All that time spent doing stupid shit? Horseback riding and dance classes and music?”
Putting use values to people? Sounds like a practitioner
“Andy!” Eva called out, not three feet from us, going by volume. “Throw me one of the fanny packs!” “Which one?” “Obviously not the one that’s going to set the house on fire!”
lol
“If you’d let me break their arms, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
Andy and Eva are delightful. Horrorlarious, even.
I moved to the pool of olive oil and broken glass, kneeling. She passed above me, my hand reached out of the pool, Hyena extended, slashing at the bottom of her foot.
Ilovethis
The sink, too, started to overflow. Clogged. Another reflection appeared and slowly expanded, creeping along the floor. I smiled, feeling a kind of relief. That brilliant asshole. He was flooding the house.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Like I said: so so very glad that Peter is on our side for the time being, because it'd really suck to be working against him.
For now, seeing he and Blake compliment and support each other is so much fun
Man, the Thorburns should really have to work together to fuck other people over more often, it seems to be what brings them together most effectively
11.11!! Make a wish!
disagree 1
“Clever, Bloody Marv,” I heard Eva speak. “Wasn’t quite my idea,” I said. “Also, Bloody Marv? Really?” “Gotta call you something.”
This is the dumb mid-battle conversation I've been waiting for.
If I went upstairs to help Peter deal with Andy, I risked letting Eva run rampant. Much as they’d done with us. If I stayed here with Eva, well, Andy wasn’t quite the threat Eva was in a fight, but I suspected he could deal with Peter rather easily. Neither was a fighter by nature, but Andy, I imagined, at least had practice. Armor, too.
I somehow doubt Peter's plan is to physically fight Andy. Also you have no fucking clue what manner of monstrosity could be lurking up there, giving him trouble.
Plus you barely have any jurisdiction up there, while you have a good amount of reflection down here.
“You’re a new bogeyman, aren’t you?” she asked. “Yeah,” I said. “Damn,” she said. “I always wanted to know if it sucked, being bound. Stuck inside some old antique until someone releases you.”
I'd assume so. I know a guy who could let you know, name's Bartimaeus...
ahyperlul 1
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Elliot (Boy) 02-Mar-20 02:52 AM
Man, the Thorburns should really have to work together to fuck other people over more often, it seems to be what brings them together most effectively
I can't remember where it is, but isn't there a moment not long ago where Blake looks at the paperwork his family made to get Rose commissioned and thinks "wow this is good work - these people can really do a lot when united by hate"
(edited)
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JayManiac 02-Mar-20 02:53 AM
Yeah, I noticed that part too
they're really just infuriating aren't they?
agree 2
They're like three year olds or...world leaders or something
lol 2
The most immature specimens of humanity
“Andy said it’s hard, being a bogeyman. You spend a while in the Abyss, or Limbo, or whatever name you want to slap onto the ground level of reality, and it chews you up and spits a monster out, right?” “Something like that. Haven’t heard it called the ground level before. Doesn’t seem much like reality.”
This is kind of new. I love that we get a bunch of different origin stories for the drains, it's so very quintessentially Pact.
The drains is built out of all of the stories, and whatever ones are truest, its here now and there's not a lot to be done about it
“Yeah, I bet,” she said. “You want Andy for that explanation. Mayans or someone thinking that all reality was basically chaos and void before the first gods set it straight. Humans following after, smoothing off the rough edges. I’m getting bits wrong already.” “Sure,” I said. The entire world was essentially like the Drains, in another time?
The lack of a canon perfectly encapsulates that multitude of worldviews that can be applied to and even define modern phonomena
She sounded like she was enjoying herself as she spoke, “How would you feel if I told you that while we were putting the bomb on her, I watched your other friends, safe inside their circle? Every time they moved, I gave her a little tap. Right at the collarbone. She bled. She screamed lots. If it was wood and not bone, I’d have left notches. Maybe I still did.” “If you’re trying to get me angry,” I said, my voice low, “That works.”
☹
“S.O.P. against any Others who are reliant on a certain environment. You deny them their environment of choice. In your case…”
Well if reflections are the environment I don't see a lot you can do besides getting a mop and, well
It was only smoke. With the kitchen light off, the light that currently reached the reflective surface of the water was the little light that came in from the living room, the overhead light in the center of the ceiling, and the slices of light that escaped around the edges of the plywood that had been boarded up over windows.
Ah, didn't think of that
Why was it that only the really crazy types enjoyed themselves in situations like this?
maybe because they're really really fucked up situations
She landed on her side, squeezing the trigger on the fire extinguisher, carpeting the water at the top of the stairs, and many of the stairs besides. I was forced downstairs.
See, this is such a clever set of variables to be working with
I wasn’t sure why it was downstairs, when the closest position would have been just behind where she’d landed. I didn’t have time to think about it.
that's because entropy is down.
“It was good,” I said. “Only a step in the right direction, but nice work.” “Uh huh,” he said. “Keep talking like that, and I’ll start thinking you’re not really some long-lost Thorburn cousin.”
Peter is very selective in what parts of 'magic is real' he's willing to believe immediately.
“The breaker box is probably in the basement. With the rest of the Thorburns and the tear gas.” “Fuck! And they rigged the stairs, covering it with oil. I’ll break a leg going down there.”
I love just watching the evidence of Thorburn Meddling pile up, it's delightful
“You can open doors. Can you… open a way for me?” “Huh?” “There’s crud from the fire extinguisher in the water. Can you get rid of it?”
I love that Blake takes the time to frame it in these terms, it probably honestly will help Evan deal with it. Also the language of opening doors...that sounds more than a little Familiar. Probably just on the Fays of it.
ahyperlul 1
“Hit the breaker switches,” I said. “Then turn everything back on in… five minutes.”
devastating
I had to trust my knowledge of who he was. Problem was, Peter was both an opportunist and a coward. Either way, he’d convince himself it would all work out in the end, whether he was avoiding a reality or taking a risk. I wasn’t sure which of the two ideas would win out. “You should get a chance to beat that guy’s face in,” I told the Opportunist.
The more in-depth we get with Peter's psychology the less he seems like anyone else we know, whether from this story or others. Assuming Blake's got a good read, which we will.
I wrapped my arms around Andy’s shoulders and throat, pulling him down. The Hyena, still in my hand, always in my hand at this point, in these circumstances, touched his neck.
The Hyena as implement makes me uncomfortable, but sweet scion what a move there.
I didn’t have long. My footing was destroyed. I could only cling to him, and hope to bide time until-
So as long as he's suspended in the air by some force, he doesn't have to reenter the mirrors and be shunted? Good to know
From the end of the hallway, by where Evan had perched on the windowsill, I saw Peter bring the end of the lid down on Andy’s head, Andy’s hands going up to stop it, but lacking the strength of leverage to accomplish anything. I could hear it. The sound of the impact. “You’re really making me doubt your family credentials, cousin,” he murmured, slumping against a wall for leverage as he got to his feet, not out of any weakness or disability, but because he didn’t have a hand free, and it was easier than letting go of the toilet top. I couldn’t appeal to his goodness, to mercy.
Every time I get close to liking him too much I have to remind myself of that. And of how he thinks of 'Thorburn', what meaning he ascribes it.
Ilovethis 1
Eva appeared at the end of the hall. I’d seen her angry, after Roxanne had tried to hurt her brother and failed.
Fuck. Maybe this one's more of a Thorburn than Blake, by Peter's measure.
I didn’t see it coming until it was too late. She levered herself around, leg still high, and used her other leg to sweep my arm, water spraying as it skidded in the water. A full-force kick right at my elbow. Wood splintered and snapped. Bone, if I had any, broke.
How do injuries work for bogeymen? Especially those on already-overtaken parts?
I bent down, catching her foot with one of my own, and pulled them out from under her. Stupid, to knock her over when she held the grenade, but what other option was there? We didn’t all go up in flame, which was nice.
Fire + tree dude = not good
Fire + Peter = pros and cons
Instead, I found myself shunted, no place to go but the nearest reflection, a live incendiary grenade in one hand and a body made largely of wood and feathers. I didn’t let myself experience paralyzing fear or panic. I hurled the grenade into the great expanse of darkness between patches of light. It found a patch of light far away from Hillsglade House, instead, skipping across darkness much as I might have.
Hell yes
I mean, I don't know what the fuck Blake just blew up or how in-the-real-world it was, but he's still alive and that's something
Her voice was low, almost menacing. “You can ask, I’m not saying. I’m going to give it back to the owner on my way to the hospital. I’m proposing an exchange of prisoners. I walk out with my brother, you look after your… numerous wounded.” I didn’t answer. “Right,” she said. “Taking that as a yes.”
Oh good, she's not just entirely crazy
“Isn’t a buddy. But if you go after him, I’ll fight you. We can continue to lock horns until the sun goes down.” “Ahhh. That’s your plan.”
Blake, on the other hand...
lol 1
“You don’t expect me to help.” “I expect you to try to survive the night,” I said. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but what’s coming is pretty damn indiscriminate, isn’t it?”
Hahahahahahhahahaha I kind of take it back this might actually work
“Nah,” she said. She smiled at me. “You’re pretty boned.” I stared at her, long and hard. I am a Thorburn, in one way or another. I know deceit when I see it.
We haven't seen a conscious recognition of that identity in a while, even as Peter was talking about it. Harkens back to the conversation with Rosalyn in the first chapter too, which is fun.
She scowled at me. “There’s no bomb on any of them. See how they’re doing. We have only a few minutes to prepare for sundown.”
Hehehhehehehehehehehe
that's the end of the arc! Well, interlude- presumbably a Histories of whatever's gonna be attacking them. Or Alister, that would be fun.
Hey, could be both!
Anyhow, I'm gonna take a bit of a break now, I don't know how long exactly but I do want to finish that Histories today if possible.
😪 2
I'll analyze the title and stuff then, and maybe listen to some DiP beforehand
Ideally I'd be caught up on that too, but if it comes down to it I just wanna finish the book by saturday
agree 1
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Scott 02-Mar-20 09:56 AM
Officially on the final arc!
14 chapters to go before Friday
sharkhi 5
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Jess Zendrex 02-Mar-20 10:08 AM
You're gonna love it
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Fursuit Lightsaber 02-Mar-20 10:08 AM
Heck yes!
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A bird 🐦 02-Mar-20 10:41 AM
God I absolutely adore what a clusterfuck arc 15 was
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JayManiac 02-Mar-20 11:54 PM
Okay, sorry about that, realized I was hungry and went on a lunch run- no idea why the rest of the chapter would've incentiveized me to ignore my hunger until it was physically hurting me or anything. Nothing deappatizing here, nope!
“The binding was imperfect,” another someone said. “We need strong, if we’re going to make it. Midge is strong.” Midge turned to look. The last voice… a boy in a mirror. His face crawled with branches, his hair was so grimy it didn’t move when his head did. When he blinked, six different beady eyes that peered between branches also blinked, slightly out of time.
This is a haunting description of Blake; I also had it in my head that we'd get the resolution to "Eva and Blake survive the night" next arc, but it looks like we're gonna get it right the fuck here and I'm so excited.
Ilovethis 1
“We need to focus on summoning more help, and I really don’t want to leave Andy alone. Even with his injuries.” “I’m getting her something anyway,” the girl said. “We agree on that,” A taller woman said, arms folded. She glared at the mirror. “If he dies, it’s on you.”
Okay, so this is Tiff, Alexis is helping Andy, the taller woman is Eva, where the fuck are the other Thorburns?
The girl emerged from the house, two fur pelts in her arms. No, not pelts. Coats.
Ilovethis
“That works. Midge? Stand guard,” the girl said, “You have free reign to kill and maim anything that isn’t human, unless they’re someone you see standing here before you, or they say the password, ‘birds and trees’.” Midge nodded her agreement.
HHhhhhhh, okay, here it is. I'm guessing we see the fight in this chapter since there's so much left to go
“I’m not so sure,” the boy in the mirror said. “We’ve had a lot of non-answers, a lot of Bogeymen were very recently summoned and put down by witch hunters, going back to the Abyss. I almost suspect that a few locals have summoned some things to deny us the chance to. None of the ghosts in Grandmother’s records are responding, and the goblins are Maggie’s schtick. Doesn’t leave a lot of options. We’re running low on convenient allies and especially low on time. That leaves us with the inconvenient ones.” “What’s more inconvenient than Midge?”
I see a section break and I'm beginning to think that this isn't a Midge Histories. That would explain why the chapter's so long. I might just get through this and arc 12 today, and that's if I'm quick.
A spark of flame, sweet grass burned. A voice sang, undulating, in time with a drum. Herbs were thrown onto the fire.
I love the opening to this section, it builds a really dreamy, rhythmic tone that works so well
A dozen minds within the house exploded with new sensory information, visions, hallucinations, thinking further, even as those thoughts meandered. The typical limits and defenses crumbled. The minds became truly innocent.
Innocence through drugs? Intoxication? Spiritual awakening through those 'other substances'?
The fire blazed. The spirits exulted, dancing among one another, into one another. They stuck, they bound to one another.
I love this imagery that we so rarely get in Wildbow stories, it's so powerful. Big Interlude 26 vibes here.
The singing grew more intense, until each sound sounded like it caused pain to utter. There was heartbreak in there, loss and pain. Anger, all the wilder and more dramatic for the herbs in the smoke.
it takes the performance aspect of the Practice and takes it to its extreme, shaping the power and...creating a being, perhaps?
They congealed. A greater spirit, the least of gods, the line was thin between the two.
Ilovethis
I wonder if this is something only true for the gods of this culture, or all gods? Leaning towards the former, but there's probably a way to read into the latter.
They opened their mouth to make their terrible piercing noise, a croak. Or a guttural cry. It depended on the listener. It opened its mouth, to croak, to cry.
I love the individual identity emerging here, the origin of the self.
The singer’s voice was hoarse as he spoke in Algonquin, “Cause them heartbreak. Do it until they have suffered what we have three times over.”
Explains how he might know Crone Mara- I was very wrong about the origin of Corvidae
It viewed the world through the eyes of a spirit. A web of connections. A tree was only a tree in the shade it gave to the ground below, to the relationship of wind to branch and air to leaf. A man was only a man in relation to those he knew, to the wife and children he supported, the house he owned and the job he worked.
spoop Ilovethis Ilovethis Ilovethis bulba
This is all the themes of identity and connection and world that I adore talking about, summed up in one paragraph and I love it. Relation, difference, influence, thought, emotion- in a million ways, seeing this world would be far more real than seeing it through our eyes. In a sense, this is the reality behind the veil, the absolute truth that we can only make guesses at. It's how the world really is, with all our constructions a part of it. All else is a pale imitation of this objective truth, built of all the truths. (edited)
The crow soared, and it saw things as greater or smaller by the good they did the people and things around them.
I'm still not even close to being over it.
One of the bright things was a governess, kind, looking after children that weren’t hers, because their parents had passed. The crow watched until they had gone to sleep. It undid the latch and let itself inside.
Oh fuck, yeah i forgot that this guy was a literal fucking monster who's going to do a bunch of things that make me feel really bad.
Huh.
Got distracted for a second, must've forgotten what the hell book I was reading.
ahyperlul 2
A medallion, a precious heirloom, was moved to a box owned by the governess’ favorite orphan boy. A collection of trinkets and funny stones, buttons and one mouse skull.
☹
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JayManiac 03-Mar-20 12:33 AM
This story is yanking me the fuck around; I get the most 'here is a worldview that this story is, and that you love' moment ever and it's uplifting and then holy shit he's just gonna ruin all these good people's lives because he was created to make colonists suffer
It wasn’t a dramatic incident. The hurt and confusion were profound and quiet. The man’s wife was too proper to speak of the subject, or to even confront her husband, but it hurt her as if she’d been stabbed. Her husband loved another woman? He did. His own doubt ate away at him. The bird watched him twist and turn.
This is just awful, but I love watching the world through corvidae's perspective, seeing things as they are, rather than as they appear, seeing the man's form twist and turn like that. I'm picturing all of this, imagining it spiraling from every object I look at and it's so very beautiful
With every act, the crow spent little and gained much. Every reaction was a form of worship. It grew.
Ilovethis
I love examining the relationship between gods and spirits, what counts as worship, etc.
In two year’s time, it was able to take the form of a child, in addition to the shape of the bird. It worked connections with more violence. A small boy, Algonquin in appearance, went largely unnoticed amid the playing children of a new town. When attention started to move in his direction, he sidestepped the forming connection.
This is the coolest thing in the universe, I would read a book just from Corvidae's perspective, I love this way of seeing things, I love everything here, this is the most explicit the magic system gets and it's wonderful.
A girl sat on a bench, watching the others kick a ball around. She glittered and glowed with connections. Everyone knew who she was, as she was the daughter of a community leader. She fit in well with the flow of things, the natural course of events. When she spoke, the spirits knew, she spoke true. She remained innocent. But the crow cared little for innocence. A boy, forced to stop playing by the nearby teacher, sat on the far end of the same bench. He was known to many, but not in a good way. He carried a weight, the imprints and echoes of other spirits and events. His father, in particular, radiated such negativity that the boy could only carry it. The boy was a liar.
Matchmaker matchmaker make me a match
The boy experienced a moment of electric shock, running straight down the core of his body. Ever restless, he froze, not daring to move. She noticed too, but she was striving to get along with the other girls who occupied the bench, and didn’t want to move away. She pretended not to notice.
Alternatively: he was a boy, she was a girl, can I make it any more obvious? He was a punk, and she did ballet, what more can I say?
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He looked back over his shoulder as he got up from the bench, and met the girl’s eye. The touch of pink on her cheeks… that was more than a beginning, to him.
d'aww
Had the crow wished, it could have let her heal the boy of that which ailed him. The abusive father, the propensity to drink, the anger and restlessness. The boy might even have found that peace, as well as the strength needed to prove himself in the small town and become someone respectable. The crow did not wish for this.
Sigh.
I do love that Corvidae is a very different Bogeyman, having nothing explicitly to do with the Abyss. Because, like any other bogeyman he gathers strength from feeding it, the entropy, the disorder- the difference is that he gets his kicks from the reactions to the disorder. Which is, I suppose, what Blake does too. So, not so different in function, different in method, and different in origin.
It did not do so unimpeded. Though his guess was off target, the girl’s father openly voiced his suspicion that something darker was at work. He spoke of devils working their way into his daughter’s heart.
We've never really seen non-secular unawakened in Pact before, there's sure to be a lot of interesting nuance in how various spiritualities and religions have impeded and strengthened Others of Corvidae's ilk throughout the ages.
A man of the cloth, who took an immediate dislike to the local minister. A stern, strict man, who knew things. He was wrong about what the crow was, but he still managed to capture and bind it.
I wonder when the Awakening was formalized?
it seems to me a modern creation, a drawing of a line between two planes which had far more nuance in older times- perhaps there is more than one way to awaken? In Pact, I would almost suspect no less. I suspect there are ways to agree to a set of rules like the Seal of Solomon without technically going through the same hoops that Blake and his kind have.
I mean, clearly there are ways to interact with the magic without being an explicit practitioner
The Seal of Solomon is the most confusing part to me. Which Others does it compel? Is its power uniform across cultures? When did it become so? I doubt that the native americans had some sort of great change in the way they interacted with Others as soon as Solomon Signed his Seal
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Elliot (Boy) 03-Mar-20 12:58 AM
when the Awakening was formalized This was created by Solomon too, right?
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JayManiac 03-Mar-20 12:59 AM
I suspect so, but there's a difference between when it was created and when it was uniform throughout the Practice
maybe they were the same, but somehow I doubt it
The fuck kinda power does Solomon have in the americas!? Those spirits are completely out of his purview? And yet obviously there were practitioners in the americas to pass down the same kind of arts that created corvidae...
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JayManiac 03-Mar-20 01:03 AM
I don't doubt that the Seal is a prevailing power in the modern day, but with the nuance Pact employs there have to be other ways to interact with Others. Maybe such people wouldn't be Practitioners- if the Practice is reliant on the Seal, but I think there are probably some powerful entities who never Awakened.
The Seal is the first codification of that system, the wheel that we keep talking about, and Awakening is the perfect microcosm of what I've been saying about it, actually.
You could theoretically be very involved with the practitioner world without Awakening, like a blackguard is. From there, you wouldn't be beholden to the system for your power, and you could change things for the better.
Problem: you wouldn't have any power because even the most crudely Awakened would have so many advantages you don't. They have the power to see the connections, whereas you'd have to intuit them. You'd have to strain your mind to see the forces you interact with for what they are, and you'd have to get them under control without binding them in the traditional sense. In other words, you'd be So Totally Boned.
But only because of the prevailing influence of the Seal, really. If all the Others didn't primarily interact with the Seal they'd be a lot more willing to meet you on whatever terms you have.
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Elliot (Boy) 03-Mar-20 01:08 AM
I think you might be assuming that the loss of innocence is the natural state of unawakened humans? I wouldn't be surprised if before the seal became widespread, most humans were the equivalent of where blackguards are today - since Others were working in the open without a care.
If anything, the concept of innocence in humans may be a side effect of the seal
Which says a lot about how these systems create complacency in people they're not actively oppressing (edited)
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JayManiac 03-Mar-20 01:09 AM
I think the idea of Others working in the open without a care is a western construction
which is to say it's true, if you're in the areas with those beliefs- but it's not how the world has to work.
To me it seems even a very Abrahamic way of looking at things: the idea that every indulgence is bad unless it's under a contract to be good, to be consistent, to be truthful in its language- language being the vehicle to God, the word of God.
I imagine that in many cultures the concept of Awakening wasn't as black and white as the west makes it out to be. Maybe Awakening is something you do through years of training, maybe it's something that anyone can do, but only on drugs as we see in the beginning of this section. There are probably a million possible relationships between awakened and unawakened, but the Seal represents one domineering one that's taken over the world.
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Elliot (Boy) 03-Mar-20 01:13 AM
Yeah I should choose my words more carefully - I guess when I say "the Seal" I mean "the Seal or any equivalent" - there's more than one way to skin a bird (edited)
suspicious 1
but I guess my point is that the concept of innocence could be a result of these systemic structures, and may not have existed before them
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JayManiac 03-Mar-20 01:14 AM
Yes, that I absolutely agree with.
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Elliot (Boy) 03-Mar-20 01:16 AM
but yeah obviously Corvidae's daddy and Mara stand as examples of ways to engage with magic beyond awakening
but would those societies have had innocents? Maybe, maybe not.
I would lean towards no in the examples above, because I view the concept of innocents as those who have used the safety of the system to blind themselves from the truth of the world. To just coast and be happy pretending things are all fine, ignoring the bad, and I dunno if tribal living could've supported that
agree 2
"that" being the metaphor and just... like on an in-universe mechanical level. Because both.
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JayManiac 03-Mar-20 01:22 AM
Because both!
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Elliot (Boy) 03-Mar-20 01:23 AM
anyway I should let you get back to the chapter and also save this for our live stream hour
disagree 1
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JayManiac 03-Mar-20 01:23 AM
I'm just kind of realizing that the Seal supposes all these things about what Awakening has to be that don't hold up as true. For example, the idea that a single individual is either Awakened or Unawakened. It's a construction of the Seal and its properties and presuppositions. For example: at the beginning of the chapter substances were thrown into the fire, and the people's minds were expanded by the high- they Awakened there, worked magic, and then Unawakened. The same person could be both, something that's not possible under a system like The Seal. Different levels in Awake-ness is also rendered unattainable- it's a switch you flip under the Seal, whereas prior it could've been any number of stages of interaction, reflecting concepts such as baptism- you're either in or you're out. It's all just one big construction that's ingrained enough that it's so very difficult to undo. Like gender, Or left/right politics, or Religious/nonreligious, etc.
agree 1
I mean I'm figuring this all out through our conversation, so the more I figure out here, the more I'll have the chance to figure out on stream. This is some good stuff, though, I'm taking lots of use-at-end-of-week notes in the margins here
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Elliot (Boy) 03-Mar-20 01:25 AM
but the trick to the power of something like the Seal (and other rituals like Familiars, Implements, Demesnes) is they gain power from being reinforced
the more history/convention are behind them, the easier you get power from them
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JayManiac 03-Mar-20 01:26 AM
Right, so once it's rolling it's a lot bigger than Blake or Rose or Lola or anyone
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Elliot (Boy) 03-Mar-20 01:26 AM
the Seal making things simple - like a switch - is probably part of why it found traction. The spirits (and us) prefer simple things to believe in
"you do magic or you do not. This is easy for me, a dumb spirit, to track"
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JayManiac 03-Mar-20 01:28 AM
Right! So it's a social entropy of a sort, everything tending towards more simplistic constructions and being less able to think outside of them and oh man this is getting depressing when you realize it's not just a hypothetical thing in a fictional world
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Elliot (Boy) 03-Mar-20 01:28 AM
Yeap
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JayManiac 03-Mar-20 01:29 AM
What was I doing?
Oh yeah, reading!
I wonder if I'll even get through this chapter today
Disclaimer: this is not your fault and I regret nothing
He sent it back at the ones who had created it, with a touch of added power, hostility, outrage, given freely, and the compact of the Invader’s ways of dealing with spirits. A seal, which made the crow both less of what it had been and more a part of things. A different manner of things.
But the very next lines make me want to repeat everything I just said in a slightly more succinct fashion, which I won't do because Time is a Thing (according to our western constructions) and I gots to read
“They’d have me harm you,” the crow responded. “Yes.” “Let me. You’re old. It won’t hurt many.” “No,” the old man said.
Oh fuck, this is going to be heartbreaking isn't it. This guy's just spent a chapter ruining everyone's lives and I'm about to feel really bad for him
The crow advanced a step. “If you don’t let me, then I’d have to hurt you indirectly. Your children and grandchildren, your home…” “If I let you kill me,” the old man said, “They have you. They’ll use you against us. Better to destroy you or turn you back against him.”
hhhhhhhhh
“A canoe crosses the same river, day in, day out. Back and forth,” the crow said. “Yes. But sooner or later, it has to stop. Each journey gets harder, more meaningful.”
I spent a minute thinking about these lines and I'm still not sure what they mean. I wonder how Wildbow does the research to know what cultures were like centuries ago, and how accurate it is? It's something I've been meaning to get into with Anthropology and History, but the two so very rarely coincide the way I want them to.
“I don’t think you have anything strong enough to send me back,” the crow said. “Even if you did, they have my name, they have sealed me. I could stop them, make them pay, but when I was done, the next one could call me, and I’d be bound to act.” The old man nodded.
This framing of the Seal as a colonial tool is so heart wrenching
“Then take what I give you, use it against them. Let the ones who bound you live, but never let them call you without paying a price.”
Well shit. This has implications for the present day. I understand each gesture of hatred that went into corvidae's nature, but I really wish it hadn't.
The crow drank of the power. All that the old man was capable of. Nine more years of a practitioner’s life, distilled into a kind of strength.
This took more power than the crow should have used. It took years to recover. Years where the crow studied the people and watched from the periphery. It was the sort of power that it couldn’t afford to use, and diminished it forever from that moment on. But it had almost come to resemble a person, in the bargain.
👀
The bogeymen go back to the Abyss, but Corvidae, when uncalled, seems to stay here, wreaking his havoc
I cannot help but wonder if he will set the final conflicts of this story in motion here.
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Elliot (Boy) 03-Mar-20 01:44 AM
Labels are dangerous
agree 2
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JayManiac 03-Mar-20 01:46 AM
He watched her, and he could see the connections between her and the area, between her and the stones, and the trees. She was brighter than any living soul the crow had met, and so set in her ways that she was almost a part of the grand scheme of it all. Here, at least.
And the brightest are merely the ones that are most subject to the system. The passage says it far better than I can.
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Elliot (Boy) 03-Mar-20 01:46 AM
lol
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JayManiac 03-Mar-20 01:47 AM
“When you have the time available to you,” she answered, “The moment becomes more important than the year.” “I’ll remember that piece of wisdom,” he replied.
As will I. It's important to know.
“How badly do you want them?” she asked. “What can you offer me?” “I suspect we’re both immortal. I can promise friendship, and a promise to visit now and again.”
So Crone Mara is one of Corvidae's people? I imagine, anyhow. This is her, right?
“You don’t travel. I have been told that any time one of them summons me, I am to take something they value. I’ll bring you one of these things as a gift, each time I visit, and show you the rest I have collected in the meantime. Each, shown or given, comes with a story.” She didn’t smile. But she looked at the fire and sighed. “Tell me it will hurt them.”
I mean, it sure seems like her, from what we know.
The pair were still for a moment. The little girl broke the old woman’s grip, backing away. The old woman, in turn, looked at the girl, then at the crow, eyes wide with fear.
I don't know how I never wondered how she lived so long- there are so many ways that I forgot how...specific this book likes to get sometimes.
ahyperlul 1
The old woman stared up at her, mute. “The dolls?” “You’ll join all the ones who came before,” the child assured her. “You’ll keep the children company until the bones that hold the body upright crumble and the hairs wither.”
So I was justified in being creeped out by all those dolls
agree 1
like pretty much the most justified someone can be about anything- exactly the worst thing I imagined is totally true, and in a way that I couldn't've begun to guess.
They're totally just the spirits of all the children whose lives she's stolen, singing and being creepy and oh my fucking gods this is just absolutely the worst I have never been good with dolls I heard a horror story when I was ten and couldn't be in a room alone for like five months without imagining the dolls coming to kill me- hhhh
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“Twenty-three times?” he asked. “You only have so many dolls.” “The years take them. I bury the remains around the house. The first four are at the cornerstones. Far more than twenty-three. I used rope before.”
hahahhahahahahhahahahhahaha i'm just gonna sit here going absolutely crazy with whatever batch of emotions this is
ahyperlul 1
“Where do the children come from?” “The question is where the men come from.” “I see.”
COOL, COOL. I MEAN IT'S WHAT I ASSUMED BUT WE JUST FUCKIN HAD TO SPELL IT OUT DIDN'T WE? UH HUH, COULDN'T HAVE THAT BLISSFUL IGNORACNE FOR A GODSDAMNED SECOND
lol 4
She didn’t elaborate, and she didn’t ask what would become of the pair settling in the nearest town. They’d see, given time.
Please tell me these aren't the Thorburns.
I feel like they're the Thorburns.
I feel like this whole fucked up family is one big mini-simurgh plot by this asshole gods damnit why are the shittiest situations orchestrated by weird bird gods in these books!?
ahyperlul 1
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Elliot (Boy) 03-Mar-20 02:01 AM
Thorburns was my first thought too
But idk if it adds up
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JayManiac 03-Mar-20 02:03 AM
I'm gonna headcanon that; maybe you guys can ask Wildbow and give me a suitably cryptic answer by the time my slot rolls around
“I see,” Corvidae said, smiling. “What am I doing, then?” “I don’t trust you in the house, but we still need help. I’m betting that someone will want to see how things play out. They’ll probably assume we’re busy and they’re too tough to take out, and venture out of safer territory. Find them, distract them. Don’t hurt innocents or civilians. Only the local powers, and only those hostile to us.” Corvidae managed a bow.
I wonder how many things Corvidae does that I could look back on and read as barely contained rage at the idea of serving the children of colonists. Probably more than one.
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But Corvidae was adept in altering the connection between the bomb mounted on the door and the surrounding environment. He opened the door and slammed it behind him.
Fuckin hell. I'm so very not looking forward to when that particular thing pops off.
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Much too enjoyable. Ups and downs, including a few trips to the Abyss, to learn the right details needed to send others to the Abyss, and to pick up a proper name. Now it was time.
Ah, so that's where he gets the label of bogeyman. Good to know. And he can just take scissors to all your connections if he wants, awesome.
He laughed, and it was a high croak of a laugh, a guttural cry.
not quite bookends, but excellent all the same
His thumb brushed the lock of black hair that was tied around his right ring finger, easily mistaken by the unwary for a ring. A certain mirror had gone missing, a tome in mirror form, with a denizen within. That one could wait a century or two. Better to leave it alone, let it work its effect on miss Rose, and in the end, if an opportunity arose and certain individuals got angry enough, perhaps one of his people could benefit. What would he get this time?
HHhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
lol 2
what a disturbing thought to end on. So this is Blake's glamour that went missing, and Conquest himself.
The water was warmest close to the lakebottom.
greeneyes
sharkhi
She could relax. The black fish didn’t chase her here. Happy, happy. She twisted around herself. letting her fins flare out to arrest her movement, then flicking her tail twice in rapid succession to launch herself forward.
I love her, she's the best boi who isn't evan, this is excellent, i really hope the story doesn't torment her pls
A light flashed. She didn’t wait for it to take form as a door or whatever. Blake!
D'awww, she's so happy to hear him!!
Ilovethis 1
“Jesus,” a boy she didn’t recognize said. He looked almost like Blake, but with finer features. And no branches or birds or any of that. Clean. She liked Blake more.
Suck it, Pete
ahyperlul 1
“I’m not sure if I should be wowed or disappointed she’s so unlike your standard mermaid,” a black-skinned boy in the hallway said. “Leaning toward wowed.”
Classic Ty
“Hi!” the bird-morsel said. “Hi,” Green Eyes replied.
Hold right the fuck up wait one dildly darn second if you take one more diddly darn step right there I might just have to diddly darn send you back to the abyss. Don't eat Evan. Fish are friends, not food. And by fish I mean birds.
greeneyes 4
“Stay out of the way of the innocents on the ground floor, and the one we’ve got in the bedroom across from you. They’re… complications for the enemy. Don’t eat humans, don’t eat Evan.”
damn straight
“You’ve got odd friends,” Blake’s relative said.
And they're all brilliant and beautiful and we love them.
“I remember when the family got together, I remember being-” The town bell tolled. Green Eyes liked the town bell. “Being?” A second toll. “Sorry, was going to say jealous, but…” “Of?” Third toll. “I don’t know,” Blake’s relative said said. “Paige, Molly, and-” Fourth toll. “Me?” Blake asked. With the fifth toll marking sundown, the house shuddered.
Holy fucking shit
what the actual who what where now?
Peter's an actual person who wants friends!? There's hope for him yet! Sound the fuckin alarms!
oh yeah and i guess there's also maybe the matter of WHAT THE FUCK PETER REMEMBERS HIM!?
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Elliot (Boy) 03-Mar-20 02:14 AM
That greeneyes pickme up at the end is so good
actually just 11.x is soooo good
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JayManiac 03-Mar-20 02:14 AM
Three different flavors of good!
Fuck, forget I said 'flavors' actually
hhhh
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Elliot (Boy) 03-Mar-20 02:15 AM
Corvo is so fun though
knowing he has the Conquest mirror is such a great way to stress us out about everything to do with him going forward
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JayManiac 03-Mar-20 02:16 AM
And that he thinks it's more damaging to leave it the fuck alone
with Rose
That was absolutely one of my favorite interludes, it's so excellent, it shows such variation within the label, Corvidae's just a powerhouse of a pov from a plot and theme perspective, Midge's passage is just emotionally gutting and confusing in the best ways, and that fucking ending sweet scion that was awesome
there are so many lines that I didn't pull out but wanted to talk about but didn't think I had time for- okay, I'm gonna take a break because that was A Lot
I think I spent a good 3 hours reading that chapter.
I've gotta refresh, relax, and come at the next arc with a resolve to blitz the fuck through it.
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Elliot (Boy) 03-Mar-20 02:23 AM
11.x is one of the biggest/bestest chapters so it makes sense
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JayManiac 03-Mar-20 02:23 AM
I'm so glad I didn't try to cover it last night, that would've been such a time
lol 2
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JayManiac 03-Mar-20 03:48 AM
Alrighty, time for arc 12; I'm short enough on time that it might be kind of hard to follow what's going on in the chapter. If that happens I apologize for the inconvenience. I know that can be a symptom of livereading.
12.1!
Entering the living room, the most obvious fact was that the Thorburns weren’t in great shape either. Roxanne, face swollen, hand black and blue, Kathryn with a bruise crawling across the side of her head, and Callan, who looked like he’d been to hell and back, but had been rolled out of the couch, alive and breathing, sitting up with his arms around Christoff, hair plastered to his head with sweat. Ellie looked okay, but was pacing.
So the cat is out of the bag, but currently Peter is the only one who can see it; I think we can all agree that the less corvidae billiard balls are awakened, the better.
“We’ve got her brother hostage,” Peter volunteered. “So we call the police now?” Kathryn asked. “Turn her in?”
Hahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahaha
“It can be over if we leave,” Ellie said. “You’ll die,” Alexis said, with a rough edge to her voice.
Now, is this strictly true? If all the innocents left the house, the nightmares might be more interested in the house itself, and the imminently edible practitioners within...
“Bombs aren’t the problem,” Alexis said, even though there was no need. “I think we’re due some answers,” Kathryn said, stern.
The fuck you are...okay maybe you are. But that doesn't mean it's a good idea to give 'em to you. And I'd hesitate to say that Bombs aren't the problem, given what corvidae just did.
I spoke, “I need each of you in different parts of the house. Thorburns, you’re spreading out. Don’t pick a fight-” “Ha,” Ellie said, agitated, “No chance of that.”
I cannot readily think of more inconvenient meat shields than the Thorburns; you pretty much picked the bottom of the barrel here
Peter pressed on, “Use your head, Ellie. I know you’ve got a brain, even if you don’t use it. Grandmother was into something big. Bigger than any of us want to realize. What we’re up against, they’re the sort of people who don’t want to be noticed. People who are very good at hurting other people without getting caught.” “Spies?” Ellie asked, her voice arch. “I’m supposed to believe that James fucking Bond or the S.K. are outside our house right now, trying to break in for some-” “Ellie,” he cut her off. “These are covert operatives who are nowhere near as polite as the spies you get from movies and books. When it’s all over, we’ll probably be in pieces in garbage bags, if we’re lucky. More likely, they’ll be really inventive in how they torture you, torture me, torture the kids…”
You can tell I've been reading too much Pact by how I ran through that sentence like three times trying to figure out if it was technically true or not before remembering that Peter can totally just lie his ass off with pretty minimal consequences.
ahyperlul 3
“I’m not spooked,” Roxanne said, with a note of awe. Ignoring the fact that one eye was so swollen it was a puffy line in her face, she looked fascinated. Not unafraid, but more terrified and interested both. She was as tense as a guitar string, attention rapt.
If this little lamb gets paired with Eva, the shit is hitting the fan. Maybe it won't matter in the grand scheme of shit that's flying off of all these fans, but I think it probably shouldn't happen anyways.
Ilovethis 2
“I can think of a lot of reasons,” Ellie said. “Don’t try to mom me, trying to derail me with bullshit. Let me think, spies have jobs? International jobs? This shithole doesn’t have anything resembling an airport.” “Fuck me,” Peter said, under his breath, “Why are you only smart when it helps you be wrong? Help me out, Blake?”
Hahahahahhahahahahahahahaha that's such a great line. I guess he didn't get the memo that Blake can't lie though, because this is a difficult story to back up without doing so. I have no doubt Peter would adapt pretty quickly to having to technically tell the truth, though.
ahyperlul 1
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Fursuit Lightsaber 03-Mar-20 04:05 AM
Oh in terms of discussion from ~3 hours ago. On Seal of Solomon and native Americans. We saw the native Canadian practitioners create Corvidae, and yet he was unbound by the seal. He only became bound by the seal once a coloniser priest bound him 🙂
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JayManiac 03-Mar-20 04:05 AM
Yep! and therefore, the seal isn't a necessity!
The plywood at the front window of the living room rattled as someone or something banged on it. I reacted instantly. “Back!” Kathryn was the only one who hadn’t connected to exactly why I’d given the instruction. The sound, the light, and the reverberation that knocked Alexis back were all out of sync by fractions of a second.
Speaking of Corvidae, dammit corvidae!
I was only able to stop and peer through when she found her footing and stood straight. There were more shadowy figures standing outside. A half-dozen ‘people’ and what looked to be four or five children, standing far enough away that the light from the living room ceiling didn’t reach them.
Fuuuuuuuuuck that
“Kathryn,” I said, in the quiet. “Take Roxanne upstairs. Bedroom across from the bathroom. Do not go in the bathroom. There’s a bag with knives in the closet. Stuff Ellie stole.” “What?” Ellie said. “No.”
Is now really the time, Ellie?
Sweet cheezits these kids are little monsters
You know, between (all wb spoilers)the lambs, the heartbroken/tenders, and the thorburns, every wb universe needs a lil gang of horribly fucked up kids
ahyperlul 1
“Then, fuck it, just stay on the third floor,” I said, exasperated. I wasn’t terribly in tune with my emotions and she was still pissing me off. “What about the tower room? That one room that sticks up?”
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuuuuck that
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Wildbow 03-Mar-20 04:10 AM
I can see why Poke 1
I'm curious what parallels you draw there.
(Aiming that at Elliot)
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JayManiac 03-Mar-20 04:12 AM
How was I supposed to convey to her that it would be the worst idea in the world to break into that room, when telling her would only make it more enticing to her warped brain? “Well?” she asked. “I’m kind of interested too,” Peter said.
These fucking kids are going to unleash nuclear devastation via scissors on the entire town
ahyperlul 1
“Come on, Pete,” I said, miming his tone from earlier. “What do you think? What’s the worst possible thing it could be?” “Worst possible-” he started. “I’ll give you a damn hint,” I said, before he spoke thoughtlessly aloud. “When Rose and I talked about it, we talked about it in terms of contamination.”
That's a suitably vague and yet very communicative way to scare them way the fuck away from it. I hope. I really hope.
ahyperlul 1
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Fursuit Lightsaber 03-Mar-20 04:14 AM
WB I think in terms of the research that Ben is focused on
agree 1
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JayManiac 03-Mar-20 04:15 AM
“No, Eva,” I intoned the words, like an adult might to a wayward child. “You want in? Go right ahead,” she said.
We really should've seen this coming, I have no idea how I didn't
She hesitated. But in the moment she turned to reply to me, she saw Peter coming out of the hallway, weapon in hand. He could see right through her, just like I could. She was betraying us, right here. He’d acted on it.
This line fleshes out the similarity between Peter and Blake that Elliot was talking about earlier; I see it now. Especially with how he fucking swings at her with a fire poker immediately instead of listening to his mirror companion.
agree 2
The Others were adroit, hopping up the two or three feet to the window itself. The faceless woman was the first I noticed. She stayed on the bench beneath the window, the curtain blocking the full view of her face. Her cigarette glowed.
You know, since we just spent a whole lot of time learning about how bogeymen work, I'm not too surprised to see them here. Especially since it harkens back to arc one when she was lingering just outside the property line.
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Fursuit Lightsaber 03-Mar-20 04:20 AM
Also that Midge section of the book is one of those scenes that has stuck with me super well. I love it, it's so horrible
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JayManiac 03-Mar-20 04:20 AM
“Blake,” I heard a voice. The third Other to enter through the window. The unassuming, boring Pizza Man. The Revenant. His eyes glittered dark, his smile was like he was in on some grand joke, wry, as if he was about to burst into excited laughter at any moment. “Didn’t know you were here.”
Remember when Blake was making friends with them? I guess they're still "im gonna kill all your companions and we'll laugh about it someday" kinda friends. that seems on brand.
SpoopyKnife 1
ahyperlul 1
I saw the clock man back away a step. Peter was slumped against the closet door in the front hallway. With shaking hands, Peter pushed his upper body away from the door, as if it took some effort. The doorknob had shattered on impact with his body. The resulting piece of the doorknob was a prong of metal, now crimson. The blood that dripped off it in strings was thick, as if it wasn’t just blood, but other bits clumped in there too.
I didn't actually mean that Peter should die in order to protect the world from his immense potential for the Practice and lack of general morality....well maybe I did. For the best?
fine 1
Well he's not dead yet anyhow
“Fuck,” Peter said, slumping to the ground beneath the door with a light splash. “And now my pants are drenched. That’s going to bug me all night.”
Dammit, this kid is definitely my favorite thorburn
ahyperlul 2
y'know i have no idea how old he is
he's probably like...my age
older, actually
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A bird 🐦 03-Mar-20 04:25 AM
Twenty-ish, I believe
If that
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JayManiac 03-Mar-20 04:25 AM
So a bit older
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Fursuit Lightsaber 03-Mar-20 04:25 AM
Same age as Paige, who is early-mid university
iirc
So yeah, like a year or maybe 2 older than you Jay
👍 1
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A bird 🐦 03-Mar-20 04:25 AM
She could be a first year
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JayManiac 03-Mar-20 04:26 AM
He headed for Callan, the clock man headed back for Peter, shard of glass in hand. I could deal with one, but not both
I mean, I'd say shard of glass is prime stab-through-the-hand-with-hyena time, so the choice seems clear...and not just because I want Peter to live and cause chaos
“Eva!” I shouted. The warning tone was enough to stir her into action. A part of me suspected it didn’t take much. She wanted to participate.
sharkhi
Get the psychos on your side!
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A bird 🐦 03-Mar-20 04:28 AM
Eva: Fuck these people! Also Eva: Fuck these monsters!
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JayManiac 03-Mar-20 04:28 AM
Actively fucking people up > Passively fucking people up
"people"
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A bird 🐦 03-Mar-20 04:29 AM
Jay, you're a machine! I'm sinking serious time just into keeping up
agree 1
Also I love that even on a ridiculous schedule, you just can't help but pull apart ideas as they come up
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JayManiac 03-Mar-20 04:30 AM
Wouldn't wanna give up what made this so much fun in the first place, just to get it done!
Eva kicked the revenant bodily in the chest, shoving him into the hallway and out of Callan and Christoff’s sight. Then she really went to town.
I'm just picturing Pizza Guy as the most normal looking guy you could imagine, kind of a round face, maybe in his early thirties, not especially menacing. Just to imagine how Callan might be reacting to this situation.
I looked upstairs. I could sense the distortions in reflections. Peter had gone straight for the third floor.
I love how abstract the idea of Blake's body is at this point; he's practically half Genius Loci in terms of being able to sense the environment and influence it.
Three dead things that might have been gargoyles or winged goblins lay beside him. He was unaware of me as he swung his hammer to finish crucifying one, affixing it to a picture frame by slamming a nail through its wrist and wing. He rose, pressing the picture frame against the window, gargoyle sticking out- I didn’t ask. My focus was on the clock man, who was still falling down the stairs, hamstrings cut.
Holy shit, Ty, go fuckin crazy
all that carpentry sure as hell wasn't for nothing
But it didn’t belong here. The Hyena did, it was mine, claimed and reclaimed. The timepiece disintegrated like my footing did when the reflections shattered. I found it back in the real world and stabbed it with the Hyena.
second beat of the Hyena destroying a bogeyman's primary motif
“Eva,” I said, “What do you need?” “I kill unnatural motherfuckers like you with nature. Fire usually works.” “Wooden house.” “Blade, then. I’ll do it the old fashioned way.”
Hahahahahahahaha
counteract with opposites
alternatively: counteract by stabbing it a lot
“Or it’s… that doesn’t make sense,” Callan said, suddenly confused. “That mask-” She slowly shook her head. “Not a mask,” the revenant shared. “Well, looks like we’re all-in.”
Ah shit. Well that's inconvenient.
Michael cera! that's who im picturing as the pizza guy! Like a scruffy, older looking michael cera
ahyperlul 1
“If… I’m thinking maybe since I’m not at my best, I’m all hollowed out inside, you can take me for a ride?” “I don’t think I can wear the Alexis suit,” I said. “I’m too solid. Doesn’t feel like I can.” “Oh.” “But that’s not a bad idea,” I said.
Holy shit what no that's a fucking terrible idea!?
agree 3
But also why can't Blake do it?
But also also how the fuck would that be more useful than what he's doing right now?
This is a bad plan, I'm very glad it doesn't seem like it's gonna work.
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A bird 🐦 03-Mar-20 04:41 AM
Hahaha
Ilovethis
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JayManiac 03-Mar-20 04:43 AM
He was an asshole, stubborn, absolutely brutal in how he dealt with others. It was like the younger siblings had learned from what the older ones had gone through, and had gotten more clever. The older ones, they were simpler. Kathryn was a bulldog, tenacious. She attacked and she didn’t let up. Callan… he wasn’t equipped with status. He didn’t fight so much as he blindsided. He was half again my age, and he hit people where it hurt, picking and choosing when and where he did it.
If the cat is out of the bag, best point it in the direction of people who are in dire need of lacerations
Reaching through the water, I pushed out, and I pushed the spirit into her. She gasped like I’d thrown cold water on her. In an instant, she was paler, her eyes black from corner to corner. The edges of the shadows on her face and body darker and rougher.
Oh yeah, bogeyfy Alexis, that's a phenomenal idea, what the fuck could go wrong!?
agree 1
“Empty. Cold. Broken. Distant. Like… the worst night of waking up on the streets, when nothing’s right and you’re shivering and hurt and dirty and hungry, and you know it’s going to be a long time before you can do anything about any of it, and you get this feeling in the pit of your stomach.” I lowered my head. My feet were almost in line with hers. I looked down at her, and she looked down at me, keeping only a partial eye on the ongoing brawl. “I do. But it’s my natural state,” I said. I thought of what Peter had mentioned. “Something-” “Incomplete,” she said. I could hear the resonation of her voice, so clear. So closely linked to me, thanks to the spirits I’d given. Alexis was using a marker to draw on the arm of the couch.
Ilovethis
That word felt important.
cups hands over mouth: Rose, it's Rose you're thinking about Rose
(edited)
ahyperlul 1
A dozen bogeymen, goblins, and other assorted monsters were in the house. We had to give ground. Ground floor lost. Not even forty minutes had passed. Fourteen hours until the crack of dawn, give or take.
Oh fucking hell, what a way to end the chapter.
Rolling right along: 12.2
ahyperlul 1
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A bird 🐦 03-Mar-20 04:49 AM
Wobbles has a way with knocking socks
agree 1
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JayManiac 03-Mar-20 04:50 AM
The first arrivals had already showed up at the landing on the staircase where I’d dispatched the clock man. Too uniform in appearance to be goblins, they were half the size of an ordinary person, pale, hairless and spindly, with fingers like a spider’s legs and no noses or ears to speak of. Their mouths were wide and crowded with teeth. Their teeth and fingernails looked like they’d been collected from people who’d lost theirs. Diseased, cavity-ridden to the point I could see through some, torn, splintered, crusted with plaque or fungus… The rest of them were so featureless that it almost suggested there was nothing to them but tooth and nail. They seemed fairly craven, shying away as Eva’s eye fell on them. Mustering up the courage as more crawled up from downstairs.
Aahhhhhahaaaaaaa noooooo
I wasn’t sure what the story was with the little guys, but they weren’t fighters. I plunged into and through the water, to appear in their midst. Four seconds of action, not with any style, but raw brute strength, both hands on the Hyena, slashing at center mass. Six to eight of them, reduced to twitching bits of gore and blood in the water.
I'm not sure which side is scarier here. Probably the one we're up against. Does Blake get the same power from taking care of Others as he does from aggravating humans?
Various Others were left to back away as I continued attacking. I didn’t get tired. The incidental scratches caught wood, and very little flesh. I didn’t feel much fear, and the fear I did experience was a disconnected kind. Distant and buried. I didn’t feel much pain.
fine
It was easy. Except easy was the wrong word. I was riding a wave, nourished by the reaction I was getting from the Others, using that to push forward.
Oh look, an answer to my question. Excellent
Ah. Not the floor. There was enough blood on the one wall of the hallway to reflect me. Useful.
I feel like this part of the chapter is just one big
fine
It cocked its head the other way. “You know I’m your best bet,” I said. “You want to be big? You want to grow up to be a badass spirit? Hitch a ride.” One by one, they found the openings. The parts of me where the branches stuck out and there was no more flesh beneath. They wormed their way inside. My body returned to normal piece by piece. Three fingers, then the forearm, then the shoulder, and finally the rest of my arm. All of me, coming back bit by bit. The wood grew back, the tattoos finding purchase on my skin.
Yep, and here's a little bit more of that
ahyperlul 1
The Drains are reminding me that they can take me back. Or something else? Outside interference?
can't help but wonder if Rose is being shored up by Conquest in the same way that Blake is being shored up by spirits? they were cut in half, and each half had to fill itself up with something.
Still holding the toothy motherfucker, I slammed it mouth-first into the space where the mountain man’s thigh met his buttock. Teeth sank into muscle that stood out like steel cable, and the force of the hit dislocated the little guy’s jaw.
Blake is just an absolute badass here
agree 1
It's horrible, but so much fun to read
“I put a diagram on the window,” Ty said. “There’s stuff out there.” “Of course there is,” Eva said. “But maybe that stuff is easier to deal with than this stuff.” “The diagram, that the crucified bat thing?” I asked. “Yeah. I figured like repels like, so… what better to scare off the gargoyle-bats than a dead gargoyle bat? I was improvising.”
Ah yes, the "diagram" you put on the window. That is an interesting way to put it.
“He was supposed to slip,” Eva said. “S.O.P. against giants and brutes, take away their footing. But nooo, fuck physics, he gets to break the rules.”
I love Eva. She probably shouldn't be like...free, and roaming around, and not dealing with any of her problems, and being armed to the fucking teeth 24/7 but she has her moments.
The robot stood behind them. A man, prim and proper, with ken-doll hair all in one solid piece. Gears turned visibly at his joints. I could see Eva open and close her fist.
Somehow a robot makes perfect sense; I'd love to know the story on that one, but actually maybe I'd be fine without it.
I scanned the area. Green Eyes. The door was ajar. Was she observing? “Green, on three,” I said.
We still don't know what the hell she can do except....well, eat things presumably
The female twin looked my way. The male was focused on Green Eyes, who was on her belly, emerging from the bathroom, elbows bent, hands planted on the ground. The mountain man was tall enough to obscure the light, and the hallway was gloomy. Her eyes glowed faintly in the dimmer light. Green Eyes lunged. Pouncing by virtue of her forearm strength alone, mouth yawning wider than it had a right to. I followed suit going after the female of the twins.
This is just 'everyone you're rooting for is now terrifying: the chapter'
how are they going to survive this for another fourteen hours? Does it ever stop? Does it get worse? it probably just gets worse.
Their arms limbs crossed one another like it was the most natural thing in the world. The two of them smiled in unison. Their heads both tilted as they met each other’s eyes, two siblings that shared a secret.
I hate creepy twins in wildbow books....(ward+twig)Lara, Nora, Tristan, and Byron excepted, of course. The last two aren't even creepy. Unless you're matt. I'm talking about the Twins
Ilovethis 1
They’d heard something, because they both turned, then flung themselves to either side of the hallway. But the drawer hadn’t sailed down the middle of the hallway. The brother moved to the left, the sister to the right, but the hurled drawer struck the brother in the shoulder.
CharmanderHi
There were an awful lot of Others at the end of the hall. The automaton, one skeleton with what looked like praying mantis arms made of bone, swaddled in cloth, and one very large, very fat goblin. Some were still migrating upstairs. Others were hanging back, focused on us. “Upstairs,” I said. “They got upstairs.”
Fucking how upstairs!?
Her and her brother. The twins I’d just dealt with… Why couldn’t I have that kind of relationship with Rose? I mused. Then I thought about how the twins had gone down together. How the witch hunter so willing to go down fighting if it meant helping Andy.
I don't blame blake for seeming batshit insane right now, given what he's going through, but we are going to recognize some of that batshit insanity.
ahyperlul 1
“Uh, no,” Ty said, behind me. “If you write fire, and fire takes the path of least resistance in a wooden house with wooden walls, what’s going to happen?” “Right.” “You sure like fire,” Tiff said. “Fire works,” Alexis said. “Gotta love fire,” Eva said.
A great bonding experience, now let's Not Do That
ahyperlul 1
I love Ty's little experiments, though.
We had no leverage on the witch hunters, now. Maybe we could have managed it if we could threaten her with all of our concerted efforts, but we couldn’t. The witch hunters were the least of our problems, with the Thorburns gathered in the diabolist library, and monsters at the gates.
That was such a chapter, I'm sorry I didn't pull as much. I'm gonna take a quick break, then try to knock out a few more before I hit the sack.
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JayManiac 03-Mar-20 10:00 PM
Okay apparently if I say I'm gonna take a break and don't specify a time or activity I just Collapse From Exhaustion so we're gonna get right into it and we're not gonna stop till at least the middle of arc 13
“Keep your eyes closed,” Alexis told the Thorburns, uselessly. Silly. The Thorburns that hadn’t yet collectively opened their eyes and looked around.
We're starting on a good note here. Side note: imagine The Goonies but instead of the goonies who are just moderately assholish sometimes it's just the Thorburns. They all try to double cross each other for the treasure, they kill everyone else who's after it, etc.
Green Eyes got the second, pouncing on it. The first crawled up and around to the railing, then onto the second floor, lurking, before it made eye contact with Eva, kneeling at her brother’s side. Ellie was a short distance away, having crawled back from Andy. “Get them,” Eva said, “I’m not going to stop you.”
Well that teamup was fun while they could force her to abide by it. Ah well
There was refuge in simplicity, it seemed. “Shit,” Callan said, watching the various measures fail, “Shit, shit, shit.”
I'm thinking about it and if I were Callan I wonder if it'd be hard to keep track of which terrible monstrosities are trying to protect you, and which are trying to tear you to giblets....wonder if he has to remind himself that the skeletal mermaid thing is on his side or not?
Callan’s throat opened up, blood welling. He clasped one hand to his throat, eyes going wide.
Hint: if they slice your throat, probably not working in your best interest.
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JayManiac 03-Mar-20 10:15 PM
Christoff was just at the cusp of being a teenager and being a child. In that cry, he was a little boy again. Callan was his role model, old enough to be his father figure. Maybe ignoble of me to think so, not so different from thinking ill of the dead, but he really could have done with better.
Blake what the actual shit Callan is Literally Dying, you can be slightly more charitable. Plus, Callan's just been on Molly's side for most of this, and while he hasn't gone about it in the best way possible (he punches a lot) out of all the Shitty Thorburns (as E&R have dubbed them) he's far from the worst in terms of what we've seen from each of them in the story. Peter, Roxy, and Ellie in particular have had moments of 'oh they're just fuckin psycho'- I'm still hoping that Peter gets some sort of redemption but that's besides the point and maybe just because I've started really liking him- but Callan so far has shown nothing but protectiveness towards his siblings. In some terrible ways, again, but it's a more admirable motive than "everyone for themselves I'm gonna nab power and valuable items as long as I can get away with it"
The black veins of poison, venom, or magic-induced necrosis were reaching Callan’s face now. As the skin cracked, blood fell out in spurts or trickles, before the necrosis turned it black. The skin between the dark tracks in his flesh was turning gray.
Dammit why the hell did I just spend an entire paragraph liking this guy right as soon as he's about to die that's not fair in the slightest
These don't seem like the kinds of wounds you get up from, especially not with the kind of resources our heroes(?) have on hand
He half-coughed, half-spat blood, as if he could somehow clear his throat enough to say something, and failed. Bowed over, face pointed at the ground, he charged. He barreled right past Green Eyes and the reaper-thing. “Callan!” Christoff shouted, louder than before, a little more desperate.
Oh hells, he's going for the hero's death, isn't he? Devilspeed, Callan- why are the Walkers always getting the short end of the Thorburn Consequences?
This is also a good reminder that none of the Thorburns are safe- despite all that they're going through I didn't actually expect them to start dying
I wonder how the rest of them will react? Will they start taking this more seriously? Will they mourn? Is there enough left in them to care?
She’d dressed business casual, and it seemed to accentuate how very out of place she was. She might have wanted to look more like a lawyer, more imposing than her two hundred pound build would suggest. She was tall, her dirty blonde hair dyed brown and tied back into a severe ponytail, and her suit jacket made her broad shoulders look broader, while masking her stomach. In a courtroom or business meeting, she would have been a tyrant. Now she was the second tallest person in the room next to Callan, who was in the process of losing a few feet of height to tooth and claw, and probably the heaviest.
I love how the description frames her before looping back to the stakes of the situation, it's a really seamless and oddly humorous transition
But Kathryn looked at me. She could see all of me, not just a face with lines across it. A body that was more branch than flesh, with only skin and bone and muscle down the center of my face, the sides of the neck, and down the center of my torso. My sweatshirt hung open, so I could reach into the side of my chest, and the shirt beneath was tattered enough to show the damage. There was more flesh at the legs and buttocks, out of sight, and I hadn’t yet seen my groin turn to wood and bird, but I assumed it was a matter of time. I still had a gaping hole in the middle of my chest. It had narrowly missed my ‘heart’.
I don't know that we get a description of Blake every time we get a description of one of the Thorburns, but it would make sense to have him reflect each of them in turn- I know we did it with Rose, and I think we might've done it with Peter. This might just be the second beat of it, but it's an excellent recurring motif. And a good way to check back with Blake, since this fight has taken so much out of him.
I think she got it. She took the lead, grabbing the chair by the desk. Holding it by the backrest, she swung it at a homonculus, killing the thing.
Normies fight monsters with household objects is one of my favorite aesthetics in the world. Aliens in the Attic was definitely one of my favorite movies when I was ten.
She had, I suspected, spent the entirety of her life with someone else available and ready to take the fall for her or cover for her. Where others might have gotten spoiled or indolent, Kathryn had flourished under the combination of Uncle Paul and Aunt Steph and found some ambition. She had a desire to be something more from Uncle Paul, knowledge on how to game the system from Aunt Steph, and unlike Callan, Kathryn hadn’t suffered the crushing disappointment of realizing she might never inherit the house. She’d found her own path. A path with a lot of victims and scapegoats left in her wake, but a path nonetheless. This, right here, was Kathryn in a situation that was utterly alien to her. The murder-reaper-thing, the clockwork man, the homonculi, a hallway drenched in blood and a long-lost cousin in a mirror weren’t the things she was having a hard time dealing with. I suspected it had more to do with the fact that she was, for maybe the first time in her life, the only one truly accountable for her actions and their consequences.
Ilovethis
the Thorburns are such a fascinating cast of characters
and I love that Blake is the one to cast them, the angle we get to see them from
What she was saying didn’t matter so much as why. Why was she demanding help? Because she just couldn’t compute that this was on her. Damn it, I hated my family.
Because Blake is so eager to have everything be on him, he wants to take responsibility, he doesn't like to feel like he's using other people or being...well, being like the rest of his family. So his internal takedown of these people is just brutal
I wonder: if Rose and Blake were the same person at some point, what if Rose was the part of that person that took more readily to the Thorburn MO, and Blake was the part that roiled against it, that ran away, that intentionally distanced himself. People are complicated, and you can't turn your back on your family without feeling conflicted, even if you have very good reasons to. So what if that conflict was 'resolved' a little by cutting the conflicting parts in two? They could never really commit to being a Thorburn or being a homeless runaway, so they were cut into two people who could commit to each of those paths.
It could be part of why Blake is so mad at the junior council for refusing to abandon that security and safety in the system, the familial loyalty. Because he literally can't relate to it, the part of him that would've been able to went with Rose.
anyhow, just a thought
Where Kathryn’s strategy differed from Callan’s however, was that she wasn’t aiming to just hit the thing. The chair remained where it was. Gears and moving parts at the joints caught on the cross-shaped piece of wood that the individual wheels were attached to. Something hitched, and the metal man’s leg jerked. It took a step back with the one leg, repositioning.
sharkhi
When you don't have a wrench, a fuckin chair will do the job
Trust your instincts, I thought. If nothing else, we Thorburns had a streak of stubbornness running through us.
You don't say
It said a lot about just how shitty the homonculi were in a fight that Ty, Alexis and Tiff were fending them off pretty damn well with periodic kicks, while still holding the bookcase-doors in place. So long as they kept their weight against the shelves, the automaton was frozen, unable to reposition itself.
I love that they're still dealing with these wave one fighters and it's just kind of an annoying battle-droid-level inconvenience
Callan’s hand gripped the heel, keeping it from moving forward. He couldn’t possibly be alive. Not for much longer, anyway. He’d grabbed it earlier, and held it even now.
The defenses weren’t just physical, though. I couldn’t enter, and the doors had held up to even the smiting of a god, when the defenses across the rest of the house had failed to. But that was a sword that cut two ways. The things battering on the door took any number of forms, and some, invariably, could be forms that could break into the library. If the library was a section of folded space, there were attackers that didn’t care about space to begin with. It was only a matter of time before they made their way into the library.
I'm interested to see more about how the library actually works, and what it might be vulnerable to. Plus, how big is it? I mean, like, on the inside
“My brother,” Christoff said, focus on the closed door, and not on the reaper. He didn’t cry, his face didn’t crumple. I would have thought he looked stunned, but his eyes were too alert, albeit moist. “Was dead already,” Peter commented. “He tried to sacrifice himself heroically and he fucked it up.”
Dude what the actual fuck? I mean, I don't know what I expected from Peter, but...still. That's not something you say, fuckass
“If you want to make shit up for the kid, that’s cool, but trust me, Callan’s not worth it,” Peter said. “I can’t lie,” I told him. “Pretty damn sure I can’t lie. One of the rules. So if I say I saw Callan hold that thing back enough for us to close the door-”
This is probably something Peter should've known when they were trying to hide stuff from people. And a good thing for Peter to know in general. Or a bad thing, if Peter accumulating more knowledge is bad? I feel like it could be bad
The mortals ringed it, while I watched from the mirror. Now and again, I moved to the mirror Alexis wore, trying to get a better view of the reaper.
I love Blake referring to the rest of Team Thorburn as 'the mortals'
I wonder how long Alexis stays on that side of the line?
I also wonder at the role Peter, Ellie, Roxy, and Kathryn might play here, as a part of this world that hasn't agreed to the powers and protections of the Seal.
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JayManiac 03-Mar-20 11:00 PM
If I couldn’t get in while the doors were shut, what did that say about my ability to get out? What happened if the mirror broke? There was only one place that would take me.
✴️
I broke into a run, heading for the shelves, climbing the ladder to the second floor. I found the bookshelf on types of Other.
I'm gonna read those fuckers to death
or I'm gonna read death to....nonexistence
something like that
The Bane is form’d of one with a blight of body, already within the grasp of Death, they yet hold a breath of life. The Dark Necromagus must be at the bedside of the deceased as they cross over, to catch the breath in a prepared vessel. Thrice must the blighted man be bestowed that foul breath that escapes the mouth of the long dead, as airs and humors bloat the corpse, the soul released at death introduced between each to accept and accommodate those airs most foul. During these times the body will be well restrained, as the soul will be in the worst of agonies and the body will not be limited to their normal strength. “Tell me how to kill it,” I said. “Come on…” Those Magi who practise with the dead in ways most profane take some time to prepare the Bane, according to the nature of the blights that claimed them. For a blight of bone, the skeleton will be stripped, softened and re-hardened by alchemic admixtures. For a blight of the lower stomach, the intestines will be dragged out and repurposed–
This is just delightful- maybe I'm not supposed to find it funny, but reading textbooks on how to make and interact with horrible monstrosities will never not be funny to me
As such, consider the same methods that function on the Nosferatu. A length of green wood will serve as a conduit for the living energies to vacate the dead prison that confine them. Natural energies, too, will suffice, with daylight, running water from a natural source, lightning strikes, clean fire if the Bane is not pre-treated, a spike of crystal, or a stalagmite with a history of attachment to the ground serving to provide this conduit of natural forces. Like the Nosferatu, the Bane is a wretched thing, and death should be seen as a mercy.
Well that's just real useful at the moment. Makes sense, with life opposing death, but I don't think they have any of that on hand. I also love that the book prescribes emotional responses to killing things; it's so hilariously awful. Especially when the first half of the book was how to create one by doing a bunch of horrible things
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Elliot (Boy) 03-Mar-20 11:07 PM
Like the Nosferatu, the Bane is a wretched thing, and death should be seen as a mercy.
Pact always dunking on vamps is so fun too
(edited)
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Wildbow 03-Mar-20 11:07 PM
(It's also a backwards justification of sorts for why staking a vampire would work)
Ilovethis 2
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JayManiac 03-Mar-20 11:09 PM
I always love when stories do that; take something from whatever source material is on hand that doesn't make a lick of sense, and then justify it in the trappings of the magic system. It's one of my favorite things....if you couldn't tell from all my videos on it.
Eva had a stake in her hand. She was leaning on the railing, and tossed the stake in the air, catching it. One mistake away from dropping it and letting it fall to the floor below. “Green wood?” I asked. “Cut earlier tonight.” “Give it here!” Ty called out. “You can go fuck yourselves,” Eva said. “This is my insurance against that thing, but I don’t have any reason to save you.”
Speaking of stakes and such, here's our regular vanhelsing....being a bitch, as peter so eloquently put it. I somehow forgot that Andy and Eva are still trapped in here too, that's bound to be interesting. I'm cheating a little bit in knowing that the Library is an environment we'll be spending a bit of time in- though to be fair I didn't have to go outside of this channel to do so- and if they're here it's just another layer of fascinating. Plus then maybe we get to see Eva and Roxanne interact more, which is always a thing that I enjoy, regardless of whether it's good or bad or anything.
Evan was a soul in a different form, just like the Bane was. I wasn’t entirely sure the method of soul extraction wouldn’t work on him too. “Evan,” I said. “No.” “Dang,” he said, before settling on the railing opposite Eva, the furthest point in the room from her.
Sometimes I forget that Evan still totally counts as undead, in addition to being a bird. I don't know if it's soul in the exact form as the Bane, or if Life Shit even really counteracts him, but Blake's probably right in not wanting to find out.
Plus if Evan's neck snaps now without a ready connection to a living practitioner...probably Bad Things.
“What else did the book say?” Eva asked. “There’s one obvious option, but it doesn’t get mentioned that often.” One obvious option? “Daylight?” I asked. The only thing I hadn’t mentioned.
Ah yes, we'll just throw back the curtain, Behold the giver of all- oh wait it's night time that's not sunlight that's a gargoyle bat close the window close it close it fuck holy shit
I felt like it was on the tip of my tongue. I’d read something not so dissimilar, once upon a time. “She wants us to do it,” Peter commented.
I love all the beats we get of Peter being able to read people. It's so much fun. He's got like a charisma of eight, a wisdom of five, but like a +13 to insight
“Bone,” I said. “Like a green stake is living wood, a fresh bone…” “Exactly,” Eva said.
Oh you fucker
This is just straight up evil, considering she could resolve this whole situation very quickly. I mean, I think Andy would very readily just jump down there and stab the fucker- hell, if Sandra Duchamp was in this situation I'd be shocked if she didn't lend a hand. And no, not like the bones of her actual hand, which is what you guys are gonna have to do in a second here, I meant more- you get the picture
“Why me?” Peter asked. “Third fucking time. The fuck?” “Karma,” I said. “Apparently you’ve racked up more bad karma than any of us, except maybe me, and I’m inside a mirror.”
Ahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahaaha
“Lies,” I said. “Lies are one. Even if you’re not a part of all this, it adds up. Wronging people, breaking your word…” “I’m fuuuuucked,” Peter said, backing away from the Bane. “Fuck me. Kicking myself for ever thinking this stuff was cool. Even with the scary stuff… if there’s karma, I’m so completely and utterly fucked.”
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha i'm just gonna keep going this is awesome
I've always been on the 'magic makes all your problems worse' train, and that's especially true when you're Peter
But hey maybe someday he'll catch on to the fact that you can totally be a terrible person and wrack up all the good karma you need
“Chop off your arm,” Eva taunted. “Stab it through the heart or face. You seem resourceful. I give you one in four chances you’ll manage it. One in ten you’ll survive the attempt. It’s delicious.”
🖕
“Ellie,” Peter said. “I… wish I had something clever or meaningful to say.” Ellie moved to the railing, gripping it and peering over. “You’re an asshole, Peter. Don’t you dare die.”
This is a pitiful attempt at sentimentality or trying to be a good family guys, let's step it up a notch. You don't have all that long anyways, might as well let the walls start fallin
“It’s gonna be a bad one. Um. If you make it out of this, you can have my stuff.” “Fuck you, I don’t want your stuff,” Ellie said. “Alright,” he said. There was a note of finality in his voice. “Right. Cool.”
Dude, you can do better than that. Hhhhhh
Ellie scrambled to the side. Charging Eva. She took the kick hard, crashing into the railing.
I love how little doubt in my mind there is about who was kicked- it's just a logical progression
Now, crawling forward, taking more hits, distracting, taking advantage of the fact that the witch hunter was watching out for the sparrow that might try to steal the wooden stake, she managed to throw herself forward four or five feet, taking another hard kick in the process. She held a hypodermic syringe to Andy’s throat. I could see the expression on her face. Taut, like every muscle was drawn tight. One momentary look, a meeting of eyes, eyes glittering with righteous anger, and she slammed the plunger down.
Oh Shit this is awesome
this book is really making me like the Thorburns. Damnit.
“You’re going to help for the next few hours,” Ellie said, gripping the bars of the railing, her face pressed between them, glaring down. “You’re going to have to trust us.” “Trust you?” Eva asked, looking around. “You’re some of the saddest, most disgusting excuses for humans I’ve ever met.”
Hey! Stop talking about Alexis, Ty, and Tiff like that!
Fuck, we were sad. We were disgusting. But Callan’s dying action, and Ellie stepping in to save her brother… “Thanks,” Peter said, looking up at his sister. “Don’t,” she spat the word. “Don’t you dare. When this is done, I’m going to hit you five times for every time she’s hit me.” “Sure, Ellie,” Peter said, smiling.
❤️
“If this continues, we’ll have only one place to go,” I said. “The fourth floor, maybe.” “That’s the worst idea I’ve heard out of your mouth,” Alexis said. “I know,” I said. “But I’m about to trump it.”
Blake holy shit whatever you're gonna say how bout no
I was thinking of the number of times that fire had been referenced since we’d come inside. Eva and her incendiary grenade, Alexis and her Ofuda. The trick was figuring out how to phrase the plan so I didn’t sound like a complete lunatic. A good minute passed, while I turned the words over in my head. No good way to phrase it. Leaving me no choice but to tell them, knowing I sounded utterly insane. Last Chapter Next Chapter
Hahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
okay yeah that's a terrible plan let's keep reading
I love how he realizes there's no good way to say 'let's burn the house down'
“No,” I said. “The flames would need to cover at least a section of the house. But we won’t be… the location isn’t important. We can work out the details.”
yeah let's set shit on fire, we'll wing it
“No? Because… they’re in on it. They’re a part of it,” Peter voiced his thoughts aloud. “There you go,” Ty said. “How much a part of it?” Kathryn asked. “On a level,” I said, “They’re a bigger part of this than Rose or I. They made this possible, and they’re perpetuating it.”
Law firm bad. Lawyers demons. Try to keep up.
“They’re worried that, your jokes aside, you’re legitimately insane,” Peter said. “You’ve known them for all of one and a half hours, give or take, and you feel qualified to judge what my friends are thinking?” I asked. “He’s… not wrong,” Ty said. I didn’t have a response for that.
More insightful, less empathetic. A strange and scary combination.
“Blake isn’t crazy,” Evan said. “He’s as sane as I am.”
Hahahahhahahahaha, you tell em phoenix king
“Sucks to be them,” Evan said, “What I was saying, before I was rudely interrupted, is since I’m very level headed and very sane, and I’ve done so much, saved the day a few times, I’m pretty sure…” “You can’t set yourself on fire, Evan,” I said. “No,” he said, exasperated. “I want you guys to set me on fire. Or turn me into fire. Duh. I’m too young to play with matches"
Of course Evan is down with the set everything on fire plan.
“The… bird,” Green Eyes said, “wants to go out in a blaze of glory, I think.” “As a blaze of glory,” Evan corrected. “I want to go out there as a blaze of glory. Flaming bird, wings spread, trail of smoke behind me, all my enemies fleeing at the sight of me.” “Sorry,” she said. “As a blaze of glory. That does sound pretty cool.”
I love to watch Green Eyes and Evan getting along, it's the most wholesome thing in the world. They probably shouldn't execute this plan, but maybe they're gonna be best buds instead of fast food.
"Ghostboysparrows are friends, not food. I am better than my instincts"
“I know, right?” If Evan could have smiled, he’d have been beaming at Green Eyes at that point. She was propped up, leaning over him, half-sitting on the desk, now, with Evan on the corner beneath her.
greeneyes
bulba
why do we not have an adorable Evan emoji yet this feels like Blasphemy
Green Eyes raised her head to look at me, “If we’re going to stay here, we’ll need food at some point.” “Holy shit, you didn’t eat enough?” Peter asked.
Every time Peter interacts with Green Eyes it's fantastic, I'm living for it. I love seeing the asshole try to deal with magical reality and not always hit the mark.
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spinagon 03-Mar-20 11:40 PM
🐦
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JayManiac 03-Mar-20 11:40 PM
Insufficient; we can do better
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spinagon 03-Mar-20 11:40 PM
🐤 🍣 🌲
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JayManiac 03-Mar-20 11:41 PM
Why the sushi- is that green eyes?
if so: adorable
“Please,” I said, as I glanced at Christoff. “We’ve already lost Callan. Some of you nearly died out there. Things are bad. Focus. Let’s take thirty seconds to think. Silence. Then, when those thirty seconds are up, we’re going to go around the group. Each person can say one thing, or ask one question for, let’s say, one answer. Think about what you need to say and what doesn’t matter.” There were a few nods. Some reluctant. “If you’re all going to be silent,” Eva said, “I might as well say-” “Shut the fuck up,” Ellie said, glaring. She was still bleeding here and there from the kicks she’d taken. “I’ll forget what poison it was, and your brother can die, if you don’t shut the fuck up and play the good doggie.” “Doggie?” Eva asked, eyebrows going up.
I love how almost that worked
“My name is Blake, I’m, as far as I can tell, a fakery that grandmother Thorburn put in place to take the hits while Rose figured out how all of this works. Because our family has enemies. As you’ve all seen. Things have hit a climax, all of those enemies have mustered forces, and now that Jacob’s Bell is starting to grow, they want to fight to decide who gets to be in charge. Just about the only thing they can all agree on is that they hate the Thorburns.”
Good intro! Also we never resolved the fact that Peter kind of maybe thinks he remembers Blake for a second, accessing memories he couldn't've known about if the blakening was airtight
I held up a hand. “Hold on. Hear me out. There’s more to it. Look at the big picture. We’re holed up in here, and the monsters and friends of the major groups in the area are hounding us, pounding on the door. Meanwhile, the others should be holed up in their individual homes and demesnes, watching, waiting, and keeping their metaphorical doors locked.” “Ahh,” Peter said. “I like this kind of thinking.” “I thought you would,” I answered.
Psychological warfare against the council. Got it. Good plan. Except for the whole setting everything on fire thing, that's a bad plan
“What’s going to happen if we lose this game of chicken?” Peter asked. “What’s my enemy planning right this second? Are we ready to make the next move? Am I safe? We’re fighting for our lives, but they’re tense. They’re… are they singular or plural? The powers?” “Mostly families,” I said. “One mostly-singular guy with a talking angel-dog and a lot of favors he’s just called in.” “Yeah. So they’ve got their own drama to handle, then. Tension in the ranks?” “Yeah,” I said.
Hahahahahahahaha that sure was a string of words right there. I love how Peter glosses over the talking angel dog. But he's catching on pretty quick- I don't know if I love or hate that he and Blake think in a lot of the same directions.
“I have concerns,” she said, her voice still a little odd, “and by their nature, they’re concerns I can’t share.” “That’s bullshit,” Ellie said, still upstairs, watching us through the railing. “No, it’s not,” Tiff said, “Seconding that statement.” “I’ll back it too,” Ty said.
HHHHHHHHhhhhhhh that's so fucking frustrating, what the hell do they know about Blake that's such an issue!?
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A bird 🐦 03-Mar-20 11:49 PM
okay yeah that's a terrible plan let's keep reading
Pact.txt
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JayManiac 03-Mar-20 11:50 PM
I don't usually laugh out loud, even if I'm grinning like a maniac™️ when I write 'Hahahahahha' or something, but that right there just made me collapse in a fit of actual real life laughter and I don't know why
Ilovethis 1
“I’m not,” I said. “Just… I can’t stand here and let her keep saying what she wants to say without full disclosure. The spirit I gave you, it’s giving me an in. A way to see what you’re saying or feeling. I don’t know.” I managed to meet Alexis’ eyes. “If you keep talking, I might be able to figure out something I shouldn’t. I may already have an inkling from what you just said. I don’t… I can’t convey how badly I want to figure out what’s going on. I feel like it’s a matter of life or death, a question of my existence. But I want to play fair with you more.”
Wow. That's actually....I'm not sure how to parse that, but it's a helluva move from Blake
“You were sent to the Abyss, and that’s why Rose was able to take your place. You were supposed to die, but you didn’t. You came back…” “You don’t have to be nice, Tiff,” I said. “Dirty. Darker. I- I-” She stuttered, obviously uncomfortable with the number of eyes on her. She made a conscious effort to get her thoughts in order. “-don’t know how you were before, but you’re a little twisted now. Your arms bend funny inside the sleeves of your sweatshirt, and there are places I can see through the branches that are covering you, and I just see…” “Darkness,” Ty said. Tiff nodded. “You brought a bit of that place with you. And maybe that place wants you to burn the house because it’s a place that chews things up and it wants to chew up this world too.”
Ilovethis fine
“More importantly,” Ty said, “how do we put it out?” “We could decide on the plan and then work out the details,” I said.
bLAKE NO
“We could,” he said, “But should we? I’ve had moments where I had to wonder whether I should move forward with a project or abandon it.” “Shitty tags that didn’t do anything are a clue you should abandon more shit,” Eva commented.
Fuck off, Eva. I don't know how many times I've felt that sentiment, but actually just fuck off
“There’s not a lot,” Ty said. “But it beats the alternative.” “What’s the alternative?” Peter asked. Ty shook his head, “Ask if you’ve gotta ask, but ask on your turn.
😈
Wonder if they still have Pauz's number
“Technically,” the witch hunter said, “I’m the most senior one here. I’ve known about how fucked up the Thorburns were since I was four.” Alexis spoke in a low voice. “Technically, I don’t expect you to have anything to add. You’re just a problem, until there’s something to be killed.”
Ouch. I mean, I don't blame her. But ouch
“Okay,” Evan said. “Right. Ahem. So.” “So,” I said, echoing him for the benefit of those who couldn’t hear him. “Fire. Awesome.”
I love Evan so much
“Is it worth a brownie point?” “Sure,” I said. “Because I’m saving up my brownie points, to call in a favor,” he said. “I want-” “I know,” I said. “I know.”
I'm just going to be repeating the thing I just said and I don't know how many times I can say that so I'm just gonna pull the quote and move on
“Before, you mentioned an alternative. You implied it was bad.” “Demons,” I said. His eyebrows went up. “Not nearly as good an idea as you’re imagining,” I said. “Actually, I’m thinking that’s probably bad,” he said.
Oh thank fuck he caught on
“A not-major demon turned you into a monster. What does a major one do?” “You’re asking too many questions,” Kathryn said. “If this goes south,” I said, “and they enter the room on the fourth floor and look at the occupant wrong, we may well find out,” I said.
✂️
“The lying thing,” Roxanne said. “That’s for real? He can’t lie?” “I can’t either. Ty can’t either.” “Uh huh. If I became like you, I wouldn’t be able to?” “No.” “Uh huh. Alright. That’s all I needed to know.”
You little shit. She really is aiming for scary witch hunter then?
“If you became a practitioner, maybe,” she said. “Can I, now?” “Not now,” she answered. “We don’t have the things needed to do the ritual.”
Oh good. Probably.
I looked at Green Eyes. The thought sparked an idea. “Ty,” I said.
I love it when Blake gets those
“Can we go the other way?” I asked. “Visit… there?” “Another exit,” Peter said. “While they think we’re here…” “Where do you want to visit?” Ty asked. “Anywhere but here,” I said. “But I’m thinking the most obvious, familiar territory for two of us…” “No,” Green Eyes said. “Aw, no.”
Oh okay no nevermind fuck this
Also: my friend has thoughts
“You’d know better than us how bad these ‘Drains’ are,” he said. “They’re bad,” I stated. “Better or worse than what’s out in that hallway, making their way in?” Something wispy was starting to creep into the library. Tiff stepped forward to banish it with a dash of salt. “Can I get back to you on that?” I asked.
Drains bad
Drains really fuckin bad
Also now I'm wondering if there's a Library Abyss that people were talking about...
12.5! Let's find out!
“I’m starting to hate this whole thing,” Peter said. “Karma, which apparently means you can’t lie, but when you want details, you can’t get a damn straight answer either.” “You’ve basically summed up the last few weeks of my life,” I said. “That’s reality,” Ellie said. “Everyone tells you to do this, do that, there are rules and they fuck you in the ass if you obey them, and if you don’t obey them, then they fuck you in the ass.” “There’s a lot of ass-fucking going on in your worldview, huh?” Peter asked. “Fuck you,” she said.
Putting a pin in this for future reference, whether for Ellie or just the world at large
📌
“I can speak for myself, Alexis. Ellie, I’m not interested in discussing it,” Tiff said, her voice tense, “because I think you’re wrong. You guys don’t have a monopoly on shitty families, and you don’t have a monopoly on shitty circumstances. My family’s personalities were worse, I’m pretty sure my upbringing sucked more than yours, and I still believe what I believe. Keep your chin up and persevere and there is a way through all this.”
Maybe I should be giving the Thorburns way the fuck less slack for their shitty circumstance than I have been....
Maybe believing that everyone's actually a good person doesn't give enough credit to the actual good people? Who knows.
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JayManiac 04-Mar-20 12:14 AM
She recognized it too. Not the Drains. But not the house either. Some other part of the Abyss.
Yessssss
Every iteration of the Abyss is so interesting, so uniquely horrible, I'm so excited
A steep vertical surface, air thick with choking dust, fog, and darkness. As far left as I could see, vertical surface. As far right as I could see… more vertical surface. Up and down… the same. Disappearing into darkness and fog, a good kilometer or five. There was far more light than there had been in the drains, but it was almost more hostile. Red and orange, flickering violently. The nooks and crannies that dotted the surface, irregular, were windows. Spaced too far apart, or clustered, they took different forms. As if sections of building had fallen and somehow jammed together, like a game of Tetris. Several hundred feet away, running parallel, there was another building of the same composition. As the lights in one building died, the lights in the other made up for it, or happened to go out at similar times. A fluorescent light hung half-off the ceiling in the room opposite me, and it made the shadows of handholds dance deceptively. In other places, dirty and burned lightbulbs cast a mottled, dappled light onto the wall, suggesting handholds where there were none. Apartments. The surface Alexis had aimed for had been something like a flimsy fire escape or a window washer’s platform. Or, more accurately, it was a trap, rigged by some local resident or another.
Ilovethis
Did not dissappoint
My arm strained, creaked and popped as I raised Alexis up, lifting her. She huffed out a small breath, halfway between a gasp and a whimper, as her hands found purchase in a gap where brick became wooden slats. Her arm jerked as silverfish came boiling out. “Got it?” I asked. “Not really that good,” she said, her voice strained. “You won’t find good here,” I said.
My gods I hate the Abyss
I mean I love it as an element in the story but dear Lords is it just the worst
Roxanne, a short distance away, had wrapped herself around a section of wall. The part of her that was more indoors was serving as a platform for innumerable earwigs to flow over her and through her hair. She shook her head, and made small sounds, digging her longer fingernails into her ear, speared and dead bugs scooped out in the curve of her nail, along with blood. I wasn’t sure if it was the bugs making her bleed, or if the panic of having bugs crawling beneath her clothes and into her hair, eyes, and ears was driving her to dig into her own flesh.
Fuck that fuck that fuck that fuck that nope nope nope nope uh uh I can fucking feel it in my hair every little peice of fabric tickling me is a bug now I hate reading this so much
I felt an almost genuine fear for the welfare of my friends, watching as they climbed. The building was so pitted and worn that there were spaces to hold on or stand on, but they were treacherous.
Why almost genuine?
“They’re under my skin,” Roxanne said, almost like it was the least reassuring mantra in the world. “They’re under my skin, they’re under my skin, they’re under my skin.”
HHHHhhhhHHHhhhHhHHhhHHhhh
fine
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Wildbow 04-Mar-20 12:23 AM
They're under her skin, Jay.
lol 3
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JayManiac 04-Mar-20 12:24 AM
When I looked, I could see the red lines tracing maze-like paths across her body. Here and there, something popped out, a tiny black wriggling form, traveled an inch or two over the outside of her skin, then burrowed again, blood welling at the entry and exit sites. “There’s nothing there,” Peter said, flat out lying to her face. “Whatever you think you’re feeling, there’s nothing there.”
AAAAAHHAHA NOOOOOO!!!
Why do you always pick the most utterly disturbing parts of your book to chime in on!?
lol 2
“I don’t know what to do,” Evan said, before pecking at one bug that had emerged, spitting it out. “She can’t hear me.” “I can hear you,” Roxanne said, in a small voice.
You know what, I wonder if I'd press this particular button. On one hand, bugs under your skin. On the other, you get to hear the talking bird. Instead of contemplating this, I'm going to keep reading and try not to let this scar me.
“Oh. Hi, Roxanne!” She made a sound, whimpering. She shook her head, and bugs flew free, but her hand very nearly slipped. “I said hi! I’ve been grabbing bugs off you, least you can do is-” “Hi,” she said, her voice tiny. “Please stop talking.” “It’s like Tiff said,” Evan told her. “Chin up, persevere, and you can make it through.”
Evan is the only thing keeping this scene from psychologically ruining me
“Uncle Paul.” “He’d say… I don’t know.” “Then I’ll take a stab at it,” I said. “He might tell you that all the others are coping. They’re dealing.”
Why the hell would you ever want to say what Uncle Paul would say!? He's a fucking asshole
I saw one Other emerge, then another, poking their heads out of windows three floors above Kathryn. Clowns, female, their paint smeared on so thick that it made their flesh look like paper mache. The colored-in parts looked half-done, like it was smeared on in crayon, pastels, or charcoal.
Writing the Abyss must just be an exercise in what kind of horrible shit you can come up with on short notice today
and then a series of "now how can I make that just a little bit worse" piled onto it
Ah. “Focus on Roxanne,” she said, “And when you’re done getting her to safety, go to fucking hell. Bringing us here?”
Now I kind of get why the arc is called duress
“Don’t,” Kathryn said. “I just saved your life!” “Save it better!” she snapped.
look, it's the Abyss, I get my laughs where I can
■ Rose let the book drop onto the coffee table. She stood there, staring down at it, another two books stuck under one arm.
????
“The benefits of doing research,” Rose commented. “I found him.” “Him?” “Our recent visitor,” Rose said. “Blake.”
is the Abyss giving him another vision? Ah shit. And it wouldn't do that unless whatever he sees in here makes everything worse...
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Wildbow 04-Mar-20 12:39 AM
Any predictions?
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JayManiac 04-Mar-20 12:45 AM
Well I already think he's got a predisposition to usurp Rose for some reason, likely a combination of 'there can be only one' and the Drains influence- I guess if they were the same person he'd be a threat to Rose's continued power over the world, which might explain why Peter's memories are being confused....I don't know if the Barber would have any Corvidaesque part to play in it but I wouldn't be surprised- if he did, however, I don't know how Rose wouldn't assume his influence extends to her, too...I think a part of what he's about to find out is that she's not the original any more than he is....but I don't know what I can guess about the rest of the context.
“Is he for real?” Alexis asked. “He thinks he’s telling the truth. For the most part, he is,” Rose said.
But this is already setting off loads of alarms
“A power the Barber has. Blake is a vestige. It’s a question of how it was made. And why. The Barber is a demon of ruin. It ruins by way of reflections.”
Uh oh. That's uh....well, let's just see
“Cut right down the middle. Or, more likely, cut out a quarter. Let them get filled in and shored up as vestiges are prone to do. One gets the friends. One gets memories of school. Another gets the ability to study. Another gets the ability to fight. Trauma to one, repressed memories to another, and all down the line. Where there’s overlap, there’s enough memories to spare, or the spirits are filling it in. Things get exaggerated in vacuum, expanding to fill the empty spaces.”
YESSS!!! HAHA! I WAS PARTIALLY RIGHT!
now let's see all the reasons I was so very wrong
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Wildbow 04-Mar-20 12:48 AM
Would you say you were... half right? ✂️
😉?
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JayManiac 04-Mar-20 12:50 AM
I'm so mad I didn't think of that- but if I'm half Right, then let's just see what's Left....
“I’m pretty sure we aren’t,” Rose said. “We’re both more vulnerable to possession, but that’s not the point. The bigger part gets to be real, the smaller part is the vestige. But the way it’s done, there’s always conflict. Which is the point. The Barber makes his victim destroy themselves. Fight tooth and nail for everything. If one side survives, well, there’s nothing saying the Barber can’t cut away more of them. Do it again, until all you’ve got is a ruined, mad, pathetic husk.” “But Blake wasn’t-“ “The hostility was raw,” Rose said. “It’s supposed to be subtle, but… coming from where he did, I’m betting the subtleties have been ground away. The way this works, one of us is destined to destroy the other. Believe me, I definitely want to get rid of him, especially now that I know. If he finds out about this…”
Oh fuck, that's probably the absolute worst possibility that was on anyone's mind
but if they're the same person....I don't know, I've always been on the train of Blake and Rose should get along, because hating even an alienated part of yourself is still self-destructive, still self-hatred....I don't know if we'll ever get to see whether this destiny is something that's only true because they believe it or not...because Rose very clearly believes it, so maybe we'll never know.
“He was telling the truth, when he said you were his friends. If he finds out,” Rose said, speaking very carefully, “that he could get you back, get all of his old life back, simply by defeating me, that he could make headway by diminishing me, even, that we’re in a tug of war for every aspect of the existence, that we’re being driven to the point where one kills the other…”
Ahhhhhhhhhh Noooooooooo
“He’s not real,” Rose said, “The diary says as much. When a man is cut in twain by the shears, the part that retains the heart and soul is female. He’s… I’m going to need your help. I’m going to need promises, because we can’t fly blind here.”
Also: fuck you, Rose
I mean I know I want them to get along, but this is the most heartless thing she's said. Soul maybe. Heart, that's all Blake.
“Because she wanted a tailor-made heir. Cut away all the bits she doesn’t like… like my having friends and ties to another city, or interests. Retain the parts she does. Then, when all’s said and done, if I can’t beat my reflection, maybe I don’t deserve to be her heir.”
And Fuck Rosalyn most of all...I think what I said about Blake being the anti-thorburn part of the heir had some merit to it, though
It was only after the others had fallen that Evan finally relented to the pressure and promised to stay silent.
Yeah, because he's not Deckard yet, assholes
■ I felt the birdlike flutter in my chest jerk, twitch, then splinter, as if it were multiplying. My entire body shuddered with the ensuing vibrations, as if I had a flock of birds within me.
fine
Last Chapter Next Chapter “I feel like I aged ten years, going through that,” Peter commented.
Bet Blake feels like he aged twenty
“Eva’s gone,” Ty commented. “Moment I opened the portal, she just charged through, her brother over her shoulders.”
I'm gonna count that as a good thing.
“That’s not reassuring,” Peter replied. “But hey, since we don’t have a place to go, and we don’t have any winter clothes, we can start a fire and maybe stand around warming our hands until the monsters get us and tear us to pieces. I’ve heard being torn to pieces by ghosts and goblins is one of the better ways to go. Or, maybe if they decide to make the ‘killing us’ part take a while, the cold will get us. Maybe not a quick death, but a medium-length death, at least. That’s something.”
I guess I should've been wondering when one of the Thorburns was going to snap under the pressure- I'm surprised it was Peter. Well, I guess Roxy also, but she had....other factors.
I couldn’t look at Alexis without feeling that ugly stirring inside me. I kept my attention on the shoulder.
Sorry for the lack of commentary, I'm just kind of watching this all unfold with a growing horror
I wanted to blame the Tenements, the Drains, the Abyss, but I couldn’t. Damn me, damn them, damn it all. I shut my eyes. I didn’t want to be that person. That angry, wounded person.
sharkhi
Third beat? Third beat good?
“Alexis,” I cut her off. Talking was easier than listening. If I listened, I might start thinking about the validity of her words. “What I was saying before. I don’t know what I’m doing… it isn’t just the short term. It’s the long term, above all else, really.” “You don’t need to dwell on the long term,” she said. Oh man, that word choice. From someone who could well be conspiring to put me down the moment I stopped being useful.
Am I gonna cry?
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David Hunt 04-Mar-20 01:10 AM
Third beat? Third beat good?
I think it tends to be Third Beat Defining. So you get to ask yourself: Is it good?
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JayManiac 04-Mar-20 01:10 AM
And I can't tell yet.
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David Hunt 04-Mar-20 01:10 AM
Insert evil laugh.
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JayManiac 04-Mar-20 01:11 AM
I could remember what Rose had said. The sooner you realize that there’s no such thing as a true ally… My friends were still my friends, but they were the furthest thing from true allies right now. “You’ve got us,” Evan said. I opened my eyes.
But maybe he's realizing that there are still people to fight for, still reasons to fight for himself...that's what I hope anyways
At least there's Evan.
“Then how? We don’t have a mirror.” “I’m hoping,” I said, “That I don’t need a mirror.”
Hehehehhehehehehehe
Me too
I shook my head, “But clothes might be a good start. The real trick, I think, will be the body.” “The body?” Ty asked. “Dead branches,” I said, “Ideally. I wouldn’t mind bones, too.” “I think I’m starting to get a mental picture of what you’re wanting to do.”
Yessssssssss
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JayManiac 04-Mar-20 01:29 AM
“Fine, fine. But I wouldn’t jump on the first out you’re given, just because real life hasn’t been kind. I thought being an adult, or almost an adult, would be my way out. Away from the pettiness, away from the idiocy, constantly feeling like I was clawing my way out of some quicksand made of stupidity. But no. That’s reality. Think seriously before you make a call one way or the other, because I don’t think you’re going to get what you want.” Was that almost a pep talk? Advice?
Let's talk about this for a second, because while I don't think Peter is totally right about what reality is, I think it's true that some fundamental force of reality doesn't change because you're looking at a new world. You don't get what you want by thinking of adulthood, a career, a romantic relationship, or the Practice as a way to escape it all. Because 'it all' follows you. The way to change your experience of the world isn't always about changing the factors of existence- whether you have a car or not, whether you're living with your parents, whether you can draw a symbol and engulf your enemies in flames- none of that is the really important stuff.
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JayManiac 04-Mar-20 01:36 AM
“Molly told me, once, that you were picked on at school?” “Yeah.” “Here, in Jacob’s Bell.” “Yeah.” “Were any of them Behaims or Duchamps?” “Um. A Behaim.” “The clockwork man who tried to pry the doors open back at the library? Pretty sure that was a gift from the Behaims.” I saw his eyes widen. “It’s more of the same, Chris,” I said, turning my eyes back out the window.
You're just going to find yourself in the same trappings that rule your life now, except it's Pact, so it's going to be worse. The only way you can change your experience of any world is by changing yourself. Peter's not going to see a world that's not stupid and petty and idiotic until he learns to stop seeing those things. The world isn't inherently anything, there is no objective truth of it, it's all what you see. And circumstance matters, the factors around you matter, but not as how you're thinking of them. College has been wonderful for me. It's my first year, and I'm honestly having the time of my life, I'm in an environment that plays to my best interests- to me that's the magic. But all the problems I have right now are just iterations of the ones I had before. They've shifted to fit the context, but I never escaped them. None of my overarching issues were solved by changing my circumstance, and I'd say some of them have been worsened. I mean, now I have a lot more people around me who know me well and can look out for me, encourage me to address the problems- but even that's because of a conscious effort to introduce that into the relationship; I could've just as easily let people distract me from my problems- and to an extent I'm also doing that- look I have no idea if any of this makes sense, but it's a conversation I have a lot with regards to fantasy and I'm very adamant about it.
A handful of minutes passed. Then the lights started going out. I thought it was an isolated incident at first, looking up as the lightbulb almost popped in its hurry to go black. Not a flickering death, like it was struggling to stay lit, but sudden blackness.
Sorry, rant over, we're reading a book here
“Give her space, this place is getting to her!” I raised my voice, but the noise and the shouts and the voices of others almost drowned me out. Some heard me, looking at me, but Alexis wasn’t one of them. Or, more likely, Alexis was the type to look after the wounded birds. Like she’d looked after me, or looked after Tiff.
Ilovethis
“I’m never going to be okay again,” Roxanne said. Almost mournful. “Shhh,” Alexis said. “Relax.” “If it’s any consolation,” Peter commented, “You’re a Thorburn. You were never going to be okay in the first place.” The look that Tiff shot him was one of utter appalment. Not an oft-used word, but it wasn’t an expression that was often seen, either. “Oh,” Roxanne said. “Yeah.”
Fuck
Peter, ever think that this might be where all the problems come from? I mean look at Tiff- I can't imagine she's pleased with you constantly leaning into the family identity, constantly displacing responsibility for the way your shitty life is going, all of it!
I want him to be a decent person so badly and it's pissing me off
“That, right there, is the biggest faggot I’ve ever seen,” Peter commented. Ellie sniggered. “Faggot as in bundle of sticks, I get it,” Ty said, not even cracking a smile as he deposited the sticks outside the gate. “I bet you think you’re brilliant. You know, there was a time when I wondered what the Thorburns actually did that made people hate them so much.”
thistbh
Sometimes Peter's actually clever. But when he's stupid, I'm glad Ty is there to call him on it
“Should you be willing to accept and bound to the strictures of the proposed agreement, you’re free to leave and make use of our gate,” Tiff said. “Behaims, Duchamps, or the North End Sorcerer only, and only if they practice, only if they’re twenty or older.” The man in the ill-fitting suit nodded, stood, took a tentative step toward the edge of the circle, then broke into full stride.
That's probably good. yep. Just. Release more bogeymen, pointed in the direction of your enemies. What could go wrong?
“Where did you get human bone?” Alexis asked. “The Briar Girl,” Ty said. “We ran into her, I asked permission and gave a gift to get permission to keep exploring, collecting branches. We chatted, and, well, the way she phrased it, she was getting annoyed with the Others that were attacking the house traipsing through her territory. On a completely unrelated note-” “She was making dolls with bird skulls, and there was one that she couldn’t be bothered to finish making,”
I love some good Natural Necromancy
“Feel like an art project?” I asked. It was the hardest thing in the world to do, to act normal. To make this leap of faith. “Do you need me to strike a pose, to get you inspired?” I saw them exchange looks, and it killed me. Checking with one another. I knew, now. The Tenements might have been showing me the worst possible thing, but the vision hadn’t been lying.
Blake is falling for it, he's been Tattletale'd and now he can't see anything else, even if he's aware of it
Somewhere distant, a resident of the Tenements screamed, a feral sound. Out in the real world, there was a distant crash, and a cheer taken up by dozens.
I feel like doing this in either place would be safer than doing it in both...i suppose Blake's gotta cross that threshold in style, but sweet cheezits
“I’m fucking done with mirrors,” I said. I tore off a section of branch-entwined rib, and stuck it through the thing, to where the ribcage was missing some.
Maybe it could mean he's starting to grow past the reflective destiny? to forge a new body, with the help of friends?
Now all that stuff about how it's you and your mindset that's the real problem is coming back to bite me.
Tearing, loose bones, branches and feathers from my gut. My stomach was empty inside, the wood plentiful. I hadn’t nourished that human side of me in a long, long time. “I’m moving forward for my friends,” I said.
When I tore more away from my chest, slashing at myself with the knife when the branches and bones snagged, it was maybe more violent than it had been before. “I’m doing this for Evan, because I believe in the promise I made him,” I said. “I’m going to kill the monsters.”
I grabbed at spirits, and shoved them into the effigy. I couldn’t speak, too weak, lacking energy. There was only the innumerable, violent, chaotic noises of the Tenements and Hillsglade house, in the silence, as I grabbed spirits that no longer had body cavities to hide within.
Ilovethis 😔 🌲
Last of all, I found my heart, struggling to evade my grip. Larger than any spirit yet.
♥
I knew his heart was his own
Rose may have taken the soul, but Blake's heart...well, it's a bit of a giant spirit, but it's his.
I curled new fingers, and I felt the wood crawl. Flesh, too, sought purchase on the new body. Not much, but it was some. I felt my face grow in. I wound the loose wire around the looser parts of my body as it consolidated. “Thank you,” I spoke, as my tongue emerged. I stood, wobbling on limbs that were a little weaker. Without looking back at the humans, I headed in the direction of the house, Evan flying alongisde me, Green Eyes crawling through the snow.
What a chapter.
Blake has a body all his own
For what? To have them turn around and plot behind my back. It made sense. I didn’t agree with it, I didn’t like it, but it made sense. Deciding what they decided. Doing what they did. Yet there was a small, tiny, diminished part of me that craved for them to do something that didn’t make sense. To come after me.
☹
I started to zip my sweatshirt up partway, found what remained of the zipper so ruined as to be useless, and tore away the zipper instead, leaving only the cloth, my chest and stomach exposed to the cold. The fabric of the sweatshirt had been wool, but stuff of the Drains and the Abyss and the blood of a number of homunculi and other creatures caked it, long since dried and frozen. A part of me suspected it could have withstood a knife thrust without giving way.
The legacy of the bogeyshirt lives on
We were halfway up the hill to the back of the house when Green Eyes handed me the Hyena.
Ah. Cool. Yay. So glad to have that back.
“I can see right now,” he said. “Birds have great eyes, for reals. We’re outnumbered. A lot outnumbered.” “Very outnumbered,” Green Eyes said. I wasn’t sure if she was agreeing or correcting him. “A lot outnumbered,” he said, apparently deciding that she was correcting him. “Outnumbered enough that you gotta be grammatically wrong to say how bad it is. Like holy angel poop we so dead outnumbered.”
agree
Evan is the best
And I'm a big fan of antigramatical emphasis
Not strong, by the look of them. Strong Others would have plowed through it. Yet something about them told me they weren’t practitioners. It was as if their breath didn’t fog in the cold winter air, except their breath did. As if there was a clue I was missing.
This is such an effective creepy description. I feel like it shouldn't work as well as it does, but I'm sure as hell not complaining
“Great! See, Blake? So cheer up. I need you and you need us and we need each other and we’re good. But we gotta get through this okay. And I’m saying okay only because I’m not sure how alive some of us are anymore. But we gotta get through this.”
bulba
Ilovethis
“Long-term plan?” “When we’re done?” “Oh. Like you were saying back there.” “Yeah.” “I’ve got some video games to finish with Ty, and I obviously want to work with the others and get myself fixed so I’m not falling apart anymore, and I want to have a moment of ultimate power so I can shove it in people’s faces when they groaned and moaned at me for bringing it up. Besides, you and me are supposed to go monster hunting, right?”
“Everything you just mentioned, you need others around. What if some of us don’t make it?” I asked. “Then that sucks monkey beans. Ruins my plans. We’ve all got to make it. Which was my whole point, before. We’ve got to make it, and that means you, too.”
agree agree agree
Does Blake still have any birds with him?
Has he lost all the internal spirits of freedom?
Fly, ride motorcycles, everyone lives. “Hey Green Eyes.” “Yeah?” “I’m really lucky I met this bird, here.”
bulba
“The headlong rush is easy,” I said, and raw violence would go a long way towards settling the unease I feel deep inside. Or distract from it, anyway. “…If we’re all going to prioritize survival, that’s hard.”
Yessss
this is exactly what I'm talking about: having the courage to live, to eschew distractions and ease in favor of change, in favor of surviving, in favor of you.
“I became what I am, right here, because I didn’t want to do what others told me,” I said. “I have to walk my own path. Right now, you’re standing on that path.”
I do love to see some classic Blake
“I wanted to be an artist, once. But I guess I wasn’t made to have it. I was made to be resourceful, to be strong.” And maybe a bit desperate. “Rather than be the artist, I was content to be a canvas, to make art happen.” “I’m not sure I understand.” “Fire… it’s dramatic,” I said. “It’s me, and it’s everything here, and it’s an ideal capstone to the evening. It’s going to make people look.”
🔥
A man in a stainless steel mask, with heavy-duty handcuffs at his wrists. He wore nice clothes, all things considered. His hands were bloody, holding a tattered mass of flesh and fat. “May you…?” “Use your fire, please? We must be civilized, and a civilized person cooks their meat.”
I really like this random bogeyman for some reason. He's got a very nice affably evil aesthetic going for him
“You have a mark on your cheek,” Green Eyes said. “Hm?” “Where I kissed you. The birds are all close together, three tiny eyes, at the corner of your real eye.”
Aww, they're not all gone after all
“I don’t know,” I said. “But if you have the sense to stand down, to back away from a fight that hurts both of us, and probably ends one of us, I can leave you alone for the time being.” “Oh,” she said. She flashed me a winning smile. “I don’t have that much sense.” She reached behind her back, drawing a beater of a Tommy-gun. But I was faster. Lighter than lightweight. The Hyena speared her heart.
I mean, it's kind of horrible to witness, but I really love seeing Blake unleashed from the mirrors, free to wreak all kinds of havoc in the real world
this entire section just feels awesome
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JayManiac 04-Mar-20 02:24 AM
That's so cool! I love the variation within chronomancy, all the historical connections, the clockwork- it's a really diverse field, and I love the idea of practitioners specializing in stuff like this. I mean, with Pact's focus on stories, something like that would make sense
Virtually every Other that counted was at the House. These were Practitioners. Worried, watching, eminently distracted. I held the Hyena in a firm grip. Easy pickings. Killing more monsters.
This is such a creative section, I love the thought put into all the various characters blake is currently mowing down. The world feels so alive....so that Blake can kill it, monster by monster, practitioner by practitioner.
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A bird 🐦 04-Mar-20 02:34 AM
Haha Jesus, Jay
What a quote
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JayManiac 04-Mar-20 03:01 AM
Alright, 12.8; I'm not gonna push myself too hard today, just planning to wrap up the arc. I assume histories is going to be a Time
depending on if the next histories is a behaim what I just said could be really funny.
Guess we'll find out next chapter!
Time to be the monster from the monster movies, I thought. Dozens of practitioners, each and every one capable of binding me, or calling in help.
This is more than mildly disturbing!
“I’m suspicious it was the Behaims. Every time the topic of demons has come up, the Behaim leadership are so blasé. You don’t act that way around demons unless you’re very confident you’re safe or you’re stupid,” another woman suggested. A man spoke, “Couldn’t it be stupidity? The stories I’ve heard of their misadventures here and in Toronto… I’m not sure how to put it politely.”
Because you haven't been told the stories by anyone who remembers what the fuck happened in Toronto, perhaps? 👀
“If the Thorburns have dropped out of the running-” “Rose is at the hospital, she might not have heirs, but we have to kill her to end the line.” “We should get our bearings first. The moment she dies, we have no reason to play nice with the Behaims or Johannes.”
I don't know that Blake thought this whole thing through...what's more disturbing is if he did.
The other member of the group was a distance away, talking on the phone. I could hear her, too. “-inside. I already talked to her about the snowballs she put in the freezer last night. She went to get them after dark, and if the lecture- yes. Snowballs. I don’t know why. Either she wants them to become ice balls or she’s saving them until spring. Yes. No, I don’t care what the reasons are. I don’t want your cousin going out tonight, for any reason. It’s dangerous.”
Oh good, we get a reminder that these are people, with kids who are little rascals and are going to get themselves killed- she's going to be the one Blake goes for, isn't she?
I pressed the Hyena to her throat. I heard her breath catch.
Monster movies indeed
“I want to help more.” “Please believe me, Lola, it’s better you’re not out here right now.” “Mom, I’m not some kid anymore, and if things are serious enough, I should be there. I’m engaged, which you okayed.”
Ah. Lola's mom. But I like Lola. This is a mess
“Mom. I’m not picking a fight. I’m saying if you think I’m mature enough to get married, I’m mature enough to participate. You might need my eyes…”
👀
“Your thread looks wonky.” “You shouldn’t be able to see my thread from the house, sweetie.” “Your voice sounds funny too. Tight.”
I don't think she's in the house
“It’s…” her voice cracked a little. “…Not looking like it’s going to be a good night. That’s all. Don’t worry. I don’t think you’re in any danger?” I shook my head slowly. The woman watched me out of the corner of her eye. After a moment, she nodded. “You sound different, mom.” “I love you, Lola. Whatever our differences have been, I love you.” I pressed the Hyena against her throat, with just a little more force.
This doesn't feel nearly as awesome as taking apart Others...
“I-” she started. “What are you planning?” “Shh,” I interrupted. “I’m disposing of the rot. Culling.”
AhaAAHHH I do not like that phrasing
“I, Joyce Anne Duchamp, swear… I will return straight home, I will sit on my hands and refrain from practicing until sunrise. I will not intentionally communicate with anyone until sunrise, unless I would be unquestionably assisting you, or if the words, sentence and intent are neutral. I- I swear I will not act or interfere against you or yours in any way from here on out. I hereby pronounce myself removed as a threat to you and your allies.”
Well that's a relatively peaceful way to resolve this situation. Maybe Blake can just threaten all his enemies away until sunrise?
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A bird 🐦 04-Mar-20 03:19 AM
Any predictions?
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JayManiac 04-Mar-20 03:20 AM
Apart from doubting that's going to work?
I saw his implement. A crystal ball with a skull in the center, tucked in the crook of his arm. Looking at it, I was immediately reminded of the Bane. The undead thing with scythe-arms. A tormented soul. Gail’s husband. Joyce had separated wife from husband. She’d done it very deliberately.
Oh shit, did she just point him in the direction of someone she wants gone, whatever it'll do to the family?
“Sandra said the Apple of Discord would concentrate attention on the house.”
That what Andy and Eva brought in? Wasn't gold, but maybe I wasn't too far off with my Maleficent comment
There was a term for what happened next. Working as a handyman, learning my trade, I’d heard the stories. Wear a ring while operating a lathe, or wear a watch when you miss a step on a ladder and get it hooked on a surface, well, sometimes you wound up degloving yourself. The angle and hardness of the ring or the watch trumped the tensile strength of skin, and the skin just… slid right off. I’d never, however, heard of someone having most of their midsection degloved. The tail was strong, the hooked scales barbed, and Jan simply fell over, like she couldn’t process what had happened.
Aaaaaaahahhh okay we're going to kill people now!? That's uh....I mean, she isn't dead yet, but escalations
My new opponent shouted something guttural, almost musical in single syllables, bringing his hand back as if he was going to swing a punch. “Moc, zlo, bru!” I stepped back, expecting him to fling something my way. I didn’t expect an actual punch. His fist accelerated, and he covered far more ground than I would have expected, slamming his hand into the middle of my chest.
Every time we get to see a new aspect of the Practice it's fantastic
Back into the well, now with visions and sensations to go with all the fleeting images. A small village, desolate, in the midst of a dense forest, with a screen door attached by only one hinge, caught by the wind so it slammed incessantly against the doorframe. Every sensation was raw, as if the place laid every last nerve bare. Something, I was pretty sure, lurked in the woods. A festival. A crowd of Others and lost souls, bumping and jostling, leering, cheering, screaming. Here and there, the screams were real, as someone failed to keep up, lost strength and showed vulnerability near the wrong partygoer. The buildings that framed the narrow street had no windows, entrances or exits, more like tombstones than any place people lived. I fought my way free.
This is a great glimpse of the Festival Abyss, appriciated
I was just a little more adroit than he was. The Hyena went into his chin, stabbing upward, through the bottom of his mouth.
fine
That damned beard guy. He was chaining effects, there was a rhythm there. Something like something-fist, fist-fire, fire-something, something-fling. I didn’t know the language, and I didn’t know the rules. There were particulars, but I didn’t know how to exploit them or combat it. Almost like a dance, one step leading to the next. I could imagine that practice and care were making each word act like a rune, invoking spirits. Speaking a private language they shared with spirits, utilizing momentum.
Ilovethis
They’d known I was weak to fire. Or they’d guessed. I suppose it was a pretty easy conclusion to draw.
I love this moment of "how did you know my weakness!?" "you....uh...you look like a tree, dude.
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Wildbow 04-Mar-20 03:30 AM
I forgot I did the festival in-story before WoGGing it.
Or maybe I WoGGed it first. Hm.
Was a "What does your personal spot in hell look like?" post.
fine 1
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JayManiac 04-Mar-20 03:33 AM
I found the one person at my college who's read Pact- his name is Josh, he's awesome by the way, he's read all of your books, we get lunch and talk about them when our schedules line up- and he tells me about various WoG things that won't spoil the story. I told him I made up an Abyss for a DiP discussion question, and he explained the Festival, which is why I recognize it
“Tell me,” I said. “Would an impartial observer call you monsters?” “Fuck you!” the one said, clawing Evan away from his face. He flung the sparrow to one side. Not quite a confirmation. Mr. Rogers might have been a little flustered, in such circumstances.
This is its own form of horrorlarious and horrawesome, the kinds of questions Blake is asking, the consideration he's giving to whether these guys are bad enough to count as monsters.
“Tell me, first. Would I see you as monsters, if I got to know the two of you? By standard Canadian values?” “We follow traditions and practices handed down through our family. Given to us by the ogre shamans of the cold mountains.” “That’s not a no,” I said. “All you have to do is say no, and I’ll leave you be, with apologies.”
I love how he's trying to do this, but it's also just disturbing
Very gently, I pulled the doll from his grip. The ribbon came undone again. Weak hands reached for and failed to grab the doll. “Be free, soul,” I said, before cracking the doll down the middle. The agonized face separated, and a moment later, the doll’s face was only two depressions for eyes, a bump for the nose, and a line for the mouth.
I wonder how this is related to what Crone Mara does?
And also I bet this gives Blake full justification in his mind to kill them.
Using the available blood, I drew a circle around the four bodies. Hopefully breaking connections. I left the Necromancer behind, bleeding out in the circle, and hoped there was karma in that.
my gods, this feels awful
They’d called back their Others. Clockwork men, children and old men shrouded in rags that hid their faces. A giant surrounded by sand. A bogeyman that aged with every step, before giving birth to herself in about two seconds flat, her placenta becoming a red dress by then time she’d aged to five. I saw another technicolor Other, too.
See I was just talking about all the various things one could do with Time!
I’d heard the abrasive voiced guy before. He was one of the ones who had argued on behalf of Alister. Against peace. Good enough.
What counts as an excuse for killing them now?
A suit of armor, clockwork. A knight, about eight feet tall. But unlike any of the other things, it was inlaid with gold. It vibrated with power, as if an immense heat came off it. I felt a little bit like I had around the djinn. “Blake,” Alister said, behind me. I turned. I saw Alister. “Meet my new weapon,” he said.
Ahahahahahhahahaha that's incredible, I can't wait to see what this thing can do
Rose. Holding his hand. They almost matched in height and sheer pretentiousness, standing side by side. Rose wearing grandmother’s old clothes, Alister being just a little too stylish and fashionably dressed for a guy in his late teens or early twenties, hanging around Jacob’s Bell. She’d had a plan, apparently. Obvious enough. She’d wanted an opportunity to chat with certain people. The plan, as it turned out, involved an engagement ring on her finger.
!!!!!!!!!
What the actual Fuck was That!?
Rose you absolute madman
I don't know whether to be proud or horrified or pissed the fuck off- probably all of the above!?
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Wildbow 04-Mar-20 03:44 AM
It's a hell of a moment.
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JayManiac 04-Mar-20 03:45 AM
It does seem like the universe itself is making sure that everything Blake and Rose do is the perfect thing to piss off the other one, sometimes.
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Elliot (Boy) 04-Mar-20 03:59 AM
Blake: I don't think I could hate Rose more than I do right now Rose: btw I'm engaged so soon I'll technically be a Behaim Blake: Well, when you're wrong, you're wrong
lol 3
Also Jay I think I made the exact same comment about the dude with the abrasive voice in my live read. After 12.8 I was like "well for all I know that probably counts as 'monstrous' right now"
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Elliot (Boy) 04-Mar-20 04:11 AM
The opening to this episode of DiP is a fun one from memory
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JayManiac 04-Mar-20 04:11 AM
I'm still working my way through arc 11 in my listen-through
Okay, I glanced at the first few lines of the next Histories and 1. that thing I said was funny, haha 2. I have made the executive decision that I want to be more awake than I currently am for Alister's interlude, I've been waiting too long and I want to say things that sound competently put together as opposed to the things I am currently capable of saying right now. 3. Before you ask, I have no idea how I'm gonna finish the book at this pace either, we'll make like Evan and wing it.
lol 3
I mean hey, if I wasn't falling behind, having everything interrupt me, working at a stupidly exhausting pace and piling up trouble ahead of me would it even really be Pact?
lol 3
agree 3
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Elliot (Boy) 04-Mar-20 04:15 AM
oh I was just suggesting the first minute of 12.8 - the rest doesn't need to be kept up with.
made the executive decision getting ready for arc 13 I see
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JayManiac 04-Mar-20 04:15 AM
Ha! I actually had no idea it was called that but I'm gonna retroactively intend that pun.
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JayManiac 04-Mar-20 05:09 AM
Thanks so much, guys! I hope you're all still enjoying the reads, and I'll see you tomorrow morning!
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JayManiac 04-Mar-20 08:59 PM
I have a couple hours to read the interlude, a planned break for lunch with a former teacher/good friend, and then the rest of the day to knock out arc 13; let's Do This
When the teacher had progressed far enough down the aisle, Alister reached into a pocket. The pocketwatch was old, chipped, and the clasp sometimes took a few tries to work. Some of the damage was his fault.
Of all the characters in this book, Alister is the closest to me in age interestingly enough. With his status as a chronomancer, I imagine that at least a part of the interlude's focus will be on examining the very part of life I find myself in: the transition to adulthood- by society's standards, of course. Alister seems to be riding his family's coattails to cheat his way there, so far, but we'll see. I'm interested to see how this chapter will reflect the other themes we have going here; the rest of the arc has been somewhat focused on the Thorburns, and their own relationships with their family, and I wonder if we'll get any similar beats regarding the Behaims, showing how they operate in contrast?
Now people were staring at him. Lola Duchamp was among them, craning her neck from her spot at the very front of the classroom. Attention made the next part harder, which was probably intentional on Ainsley’s part. She was such a pain.
So they clearly have a far stronger sense of familial loyalty than the Thorburns...
The moment the teacher’s back was turned, he pressed the button at the top of the pocketwatch. The door came away, revealing the face and hands below. The only peculiarity was the existence of two hour hands and two minute hands. One set in black, one set in red. It wasn’t fancy, it wasn’t well made. But it kept time. In more ways than one.
Alister's voice is so perfectly pretentious and self assured, he's got that petty takedown of Ainsley for messing with his plans- it's all just very Him. I didn't really think it was all a front, but to me this narration suggests that at least some of it isn't.
The diagram, in turn, housed a lesser zeitgeist, the smallest form of time spirit that could be tracked and bound. The hour and minute hands moved, an almost instantaneous shift to where the red hands were.
You know, if I had the opportunity to fast forward through classes in high school....well I liked most of my classes, but if I could've done it in middle school I would've. It's one of the superpowers I imagined for myself, just being able to space out and ⏩
The test papers were gone. His books were open, and his own handwriting was in the notebook. The last section had a list of homework questions.
Oh fuck, he even gets to have done the work!? Lucky bastard. I didn't even get to that part without magic powers.
He watched Molly Walker exit the classroom. She glanced at him, then glanced away. Lola Duchamp stepped back to get out of Molly’s way, though Molly wasn’t walking that fast.
Ah, timelines! So Alister was always kind of the Behaim's Chosen One, if he had access to this kind of thing. I wonder if we'll get to see laird? I won't say I've missed him exactly, but he was...certainly a part of the story.
“Oh? Really?” Alister asked. “What sort of thing would I be chicken about?” “He was joking around and saying it was something gay like ballet or cheerleading.” Alister’s smile was cold and humorless. It clearly made Dick uncomfortable. “What do you think?”
Ah, these people. I never interacted with them much in high school, but they were around. Interested to see how Alister fits in with them, how he plays it. Depending on how it goes, it might show just how bound he is by the trappings and ideas of history, as free as might be from those of his ancestors.
Part of the problem with Aimon's plan to break the wheel is that- since the Practice has made codifications and oaths so important- he's forgotten that the real wheel is in the ideologies, in the practices and perceptions, not the promises.
Which might seem ludicrous to a practitioner- or, to an extent, a member of today's society, with its focus on words and codifications and specific language...
Wouldn’t be the first time. Lola had awakened a full year younger than he had. It didn’t sound like much, but she had twice the experience with all this that he did.
Interesting. I was under the impression that the Awakening was a bit of a formality to those really within the Behaim circle. I mean, we saw the mom who's teaching her kid not to lie, and teaching him about magic in small ways- I wonder how Alister's childhood played into it? Why wouldn't he be Awakened sooner? Why would he be the Behaim's Chosen? Why wouldn't it be one of Laird's kids?
“What are you doing?” Ainsley nagged him, the moment they were out of earshot of anyone. “I’m going to go get lunch.” “With the timekeep,” she said.
I love practitioner speak. "What? This is what I'm doing!"
“You’re going to get hurt, you jackass.” “Keep saying it,” he replied, annoyed, “and you’ll probably make it true.”
I wonder if Alister ascribes a little too much to the spirits? He does seem quite adept with them, but who knows?
“How many times do I have to say it before I get it through your thick skull? You can’t be reckless about this.” “Can too,” he said.
see why he gets along with Rose, then
“I am. Look at this. Where are we?” “School?” “A training ground,” he said. “Lola’s messing with me, I think.”
And here we see someone who doesn't suffer from the system, who actually benefits from it. He wants to be as much a part of it as possible, get his licks in with the junior council so he can keep right at it when he's older. It's kind of scary how enthusiastic he is about it.
“They don’t- what are you doing, Alister? We avoid giving up too much time. Every single Behaim in the family gives up only what they have to, and you’re… what? Giving up twice as much time?”
And he's contributing to the family- possibly because he doesn't value what he's giving up
He's kind of impatient, intent on never learning to wait for things- maybe never learning a bunch of other things too because hey, he can give up the time, it benefits the family, win win for everything but his wisdom score
More than five times, he thought, but he didn’t volunteer that. Tim accepted more if he gave more.
Holy shit
He's skipping more than class
“Tell me why,” Laird said. Alister seethed. Ainsley stood a bit behind Laird, and their moms and dads. She looked a little spooked.
Ah! Laird!
Uncle Laird continued, “We haven’t detected anything. But until you give us answers, we may have to take countermeasures. No more lessons, no more practicing, no access to the well, to give or take.” “That’s not-“ “-Fair?” Laird finished. “Nothing is fair.”
Yeowch
That's him alright
Dangerous words, for a man that couldn’t lie.
especially since the spirits are the ones who decide, and the spirits generally like fairness
“It is, which is why I’m doing this. I want to be a good practitioner.” “You need to know how to study if you’re ever going to get a grasp on chronomancy.” “I am,” Alister said, feeling more in control. “I’m studying harder than anyone. But I don’t want to ever have a desk job. I want to be a full time chronomancer. Hours upon hours of time in class is… it’s not what I want.”
Hey, me too, but....I dunno. You never know what you might miss, right? It can seem like a good idea to rob yourself of experience, to take the shortcut- and hey, we all know the public school system has its flaws- but it's maybe an important part of life?
“You picked the time you started this… operation, and you did it very deliberately, it seems. You knew when you’d finish. Putting nearly thirty hours a week into the well. Almost fifteen hundred hours, by the year’s end.” “Yeah.” “I’m going to need you to tell me why.”
👀
“Your family member, your cousin, just did what she did out of genuine worry for your well being. For the family’s sake, because she feared something very similar to the poisoning of the well I described earlier.” Alister shrugged. “Sure.” “I refuse to let you hold a grudge against her. Forgive her.”
Oh fuck, that's a tall order. And you can't exactly okay your way past it like all the other kids can
Ainsley was taller than him, her shoulders broader. She looked so silly, dressed up like a kid from ten or fifteen years ago. Overalls. But… she’d always had his back, before. Most of the cousins had. Ainsley was just closest to him in age. “I’ll try to look past this,” he said. “I don’t want this to end our friendship.”
I love how he genuinely has to get himself to this emotional place in order to not lie- so the Seal has its perks. He gives himself actual reason, and I think this was a...good moment? As a result of Laird? And the Practice? Woah, maybe I'm off my game today...
“Control,” Alister said. “Control?” “Of… the well. Kind of. I’m thinking, for all the generations before, you couldn’t get to be head of the family or member of the council without being here. Without paying your fair share. The guys in Ottawa and Montreal and Toronto, they don’t really have a shot at being head of the family, right? I don’t think it’s ever happened.”
It seems like such a shaky plan, but we know it works, which is the funny part. We know that he gets away with it.
“What I take from them, I can give back,” Alister said. More serious, he said, “If I become great, I will give back. I believe that. But I’m also taking from the Duchamps. I can see it. Chipping away at them. I become a little more Other, giving something as precious as time away, and they… have to adjust. They’re adjusting because of me, and that gives me a certain kind of power, doesn’t it?” “You imagine that you’re influencing things in a subtle way, doing what you’re doing. Incremental advantages for you, disadvantages for your enemies.” “Yes.” “You’re probably right,” Laird said. “You’re sacrificing your childhood for something else. Investing more.”
Oh yeah, he gets away with it because Laird is the kind of person who would respect that kind of horrible decision, when it came down to it.
“Pretty cocky, for a boy who isn’t even in high school yet.”
Oh shit! I thought those insults sounded more middle-school-y!
I almost said it, too
that was so well done, I'd just assumed that Alister had to have been older. So I guess they were all Awakened at around twelve or so? That makes more sense.
“I’m smart,” Alister said. “I’m good. Better than Ainsley or Owen or Gavin. And Owen and Gavin-” “Are older,” Laird said. “Yeah.” “Yes. They aren’t half as good as you. It seems the cards don’t lie.”
♠👀 ♦🥤 ⚔🥢
Alister opened the box, lifting off the lid. Cards were stacked within. “Keep those. You’re going to want to study the subject material, and study it fast. Given what you’ve talked about, I think it’ll be a natural fit.”
Ahahahahahaha this is fantastic, we see him get his implement in the same play!
“Things are moving towards a crisis point,” Laird said. “The question of who leads the Behaim family is secondary to the question of who leads Jacob’s Bell. We’re anticipating conflict, Aimon anticipated conflict, and we can’t have every member of the family fettered by rules. A select few have been vetted, cleared to tap into the well and use that power as they see fit. I was one, you’re another.” Alister’s eyes went wider.
You fucking madman
You know what the fuck you don't do?
I think I've made it exceedingly clear at some point in my reads: almost everyone is a terrible human being at some point between sixth and eighth grade. It's a stage of development where you're a self centered, entitled prick with an overinflated sense of how good you are at interacting with people- just, for like a good 60% of people, they're at their worst in those years. Sometimes it's more apparent as an adult if they never moved past a lot of those problems, but eighth graders are the worst. They all deserve our love and support and they're going through a lot right now, but they're also assholes.
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JayManiac 04-Mar-20 09:56 PM
So you know what the fuck you don't do to an eighth grader who already has an ego? *Tell them that they're the most special of their special magical compatriots, that the rules literally don't fucking apply to them, and that their stupid plan to waste away their years of social development for power was a great idea!*
You know, I sometimes ask myself: why is this character the way they are?
Well this is the fuck why!
I mean, I know E&R wondered if he wasn't just some 13 year old in an 18 year old's body, and while that's not exactly the case, from a mental development standpoint it just might be close. If he keeps doing this, trying to skip to the part where he has power, what the fuck will he have learned about life and people and not being a dick in all that time!? Not as much as if he'd cooled it on the time sinking.
“I know you have a lot of questions, but try to save them. You’ll have most of the answers soon enough, and you might find yourself wishing you hadn’t wasted all your questions on the simpler things.” “I have limited questions?” “You’re proud, Alister, and a proud person can only ask so many questions before they exhaust that pride. We’re very different people, but I think we’re similar in that.”
And if anyone was the perfect person to make such a fucking boneheaded move, it's probably Laird. Because fuck learning to ask questions and learning to have actual self-esteem that isn't easily shaken by a moment or two of 'looking dumb', right? Hhhhhhh
Can you tell that I'm frustrated because I can see a world where people gave me way more slack, rewarded me for all my egotistic assholery, where I stopped being curious because of pride, where I limited the questions I could ask and it's just so, so...ahjdfhjdsf, I don't want to be that person, because I can see it so clearly.
Hell, I have a lot of those problems now. It's through a constant process of keeping myself in check, a developed sense of appreciation for the accomplishments of others, a desire to see the good in everything instead of just me, that I'm not that person today. I mean, they're not problems that can go unaddressed if you want to be a content creator- you have to have a pretty strong sense of pride to go for it. No offence to anyone here, of course. I think I've tried to cultivate a sense of pride in my work, in my writing, in my art and analysis, that doesn't have a limit, that can take a bit of a beating, that's open to critique without opening up to self doubt. That really just embraces and looks for things to appreciate and admire in everyone else, and can turn that same energy inwards. Content creators rely on external validation, and I know I'm not immune to that, but I'd like to think I have enough internal faith in myself that I can work on self-improvement, ask questions when I'm curious, etc.
I wouldn't be going on this rant if I didn't relate so hard to Alister.
And you can't really blame people for who they are- or at least I try not to, Matt doesn't like to- it's more like seeing all the dominos fall down knowing exactly who they'll crush. It's just sort of tragic and hhhhh to watch, because we know the general destination. And we know more about what that destination might look like, now that we've seen a bit of the beginning.
“He’s getting rewarded?” Alister’s father asked.
Right!? RIGHT!? Friggin Behaims, I swear
Alister picked his question carefully. “You keep saying we. But I don’t think you’re talking about the family.” “Not the Behaim circle, no.” “Who’s we, then?”
Oh holy shit he's gonna train in Diabolism
I thought that this couldn't get any worse
it can get worse.
Rose was intimidating, considering she was thin and old. Her clothes looked fragile too, starched, or lacey, or just old, though certainly not worn or threadbare. They were a statement. She was just a bit aristocratic.
Perhaps these guys didn't try to break the wheel through personal growth, but through tossing a bunch of wildcards with no concept of why the rules exist at the system until it's ashes. Which is...a choice
ahyperlul 1
“You need to know what you’re dealing with,” Laird said. “Dealing with? I’m not and never planning on-“ “Pay attention,” Laird said. “If you miss something, you’ll need to sit through this again. Take it from me, you don’t want to.”
So Laird clearly had one response to diabolism; I'm guessing it was genuine? I don't see how he got to be the Morgan Le Fay to Rosalyn's Merlin here, but he seemed to have it out for Diabolism in general, and didn't seem to take to it...I don't know how they got from whatever cooperation exists here to whatever the opposite of that was in the early arcs of the book, but clearly Alister is about to think something very different about what's going to happen here.
He's shown diabolism- he tried to say he's never planning on practicing it but didn't get the words out
Clearly Laird is more disturbed by what he sees, but my prediction is that Alister is more intrigued. He learns to want to get his hands on similar kinds of power, and so takes up Rose's offer when it's made, despite the fact that he doesn't know her and they're both tops.
ahyperlul 1
But how could this have gone so wrong!?
Maybe because you introduced a 13 year old to ludicrous amounts of power
“Why do I need to know how to defend myself?” “First choir. Darkness,” she said, not answering his question. Or maybe she was.
Hahahahahahahhahahanoplease
He saw the space within the circle turn black. A head, or a face, pale, rose from the pool of darkness. The silhouette was sleek, like a person with long black hair, plastered to their head with water, and a long black dress that covered the hands, clinging to their form. Genderless. Human shaped, but not humanoid.
So on a scale of 1 to Ur to Aͯ̏̾Aͩ̏ͤG̎̍ͦH̆̉̓Hͥ͊̄Gͪ͌ͩH͐ͮ́H̄͌͋H͊͗̀҉̢҉̼͖̯A̔̌͆҉̸҉̦͚͡H̎̉͊H̓̓̈A͑͌̃H͌͒̄҉̶͈̖H́ͩͥ what do we think this is?
“It’s a mnemonic tool,” she said. “You’ll see one member of each choir. You’ll remember until the day you die. It’s a good foundation to build from. After this, after I’ve instructed you in what they’re capable of, you’ll want to learn the necessary protections.”
I wonder if this does backfire....
But also I really wanna see all the other choirs so I'm game to keep going if everyone else is. Which they aren't but that's chill
The old woman was looking at Laird, too, as if they were sharing some unspoken communication. “You, Laird, or the both of you are likely to find yourself opposite my descendants. We face a unique situation.”
But why the hell would Rosalyn sabotage her descendants like this? Is her goal ultimately to tether the Diabolists, as Black Lamb's Blood would suggest? To provide checks for what she knows will be a volatile set of practitioners? Could she have mitigated that by Not Fucking Over Her Family or something?
In this sharply contrasted world of black and red, the old woman’s wrinkles were like scars on her face, jagged lines of black, too sharp. “The situation is that we’re looking to enact revolution. Aimon was on the same page as me. Laird is… less so.” “Yet I remain open minded,” Laird said. “Provided my family benefits.”
So when does that change? And why not tell Rose and Bla- and why not tell Blake abou- okay no I get it. Nevermind, ignore me.
“The problem with revolution is that it involves conflict, and the various sides in this conflict wield too much firepower. My side most of all.”
It certainly didn't seem like it for the first arc or two. Maybe you should've provided firepower that wasn't so....all or nothing. Some baby steps.
The man, in turn, had a high forehead, and at the corners of the forehead, the skin twisted into a gnarled sort of halo, like a crown of thorns that was embedded in the demon’s head. But the demon’s expression was placid, a light smile on his face. It might have been the forehead, but something about his appearance, somehow, evoked the idea of a scholar. A scholar, perhaps, that existed in an era long past, when scholars could have long hair, beards, bare genitals hanging free, and coarse hair on their chests.
I love what we get about each of the demons, it's such great flavor
“My heir, whichever I select, may call things like this to use against you and your family, Alister. Wheels have been turning for a long, long time, and try as I might, I’m not in a position to stop them. They have too much momentum. Go, Morax.” “Momentum,” Alister said, as the surroundings returned to normal colors, each color arriving in its own time.
Her plans don't entirely make sense to me, but maybe that's just a result of her Actual Insanity. I mean, I don't know how I'd go about this, but this doesn't seem like exactly the way. I love that we get as much about Rosalyn's plan as we're probably going to get within Alister's interlude. It really ties this arc of the story back.
“Avert your eyes. Third choir, ruin. Zapan.“ Alister looked away just in time. The demon manifested within the circle like a rolling thunderclap, a storm of images, each one demanding his attention, like a charging bull, a thrown object, all outlined and augmented by fire and lightning and other light shows. The assaults weren’t reserved for him, but at everything. Every mote of dust and book and person in the room.
Ilovethis
“My understanding of things is simple, Alister. Every Other is, if you trace things back far enough, the fault of demons. Every practitioner is the fault of Others, or, for a rare few, the fault of demons. All of these things, in their way, guide all of existence slowly toward its end. The unlucky few who get in too deep fall into their clutches.”
Oh this, this is fascinating
This is a new way of looking at the world of the Practice, but it makes so much sense- I mean, just like a lot of worldviews make sense, I'm not saying I agree with it.
Just that it's easy to draw that conclusion, and it's not exactly one that gets challenged more the deeper you look. It's a viscously entropic view of humanity, but entropic in the opposite direction that I think society is entropic
The worldview that I have that I hope I'm wrong about, is that with the increase in globalization and communication and spread of ideas, we'll eventually lose a lot of nuance, we'll start discussing things in the same terms, we'll succumb to ease again and again until there's far less diversity in thought, far less opportunity for thought to be challenged. We all succumb to the Seal, and think that's the way the world works just because we can't think of it any differently. But that's an entropic worldview within which the Others are necessary. The horrors they offer are the diversity of thought, the extremes which we must hold onto, the splendor and misery of life and all that
Within this one, it's all just iterations of demons, the Practice is all diabolism....
I don't know where I stand with it.
We've discussed how terrible The Practice is, how succumbing to Otherness has been horrific, no matter what path you go down...
But isn't it beautiful too?
“Virtually all practices, Alister. Call it a diabolist’s bias, but I would posit that the only difference between Laird and I is the level of self-delusion.” “For the record,” Laird said, “I don’t agree.”
And I can see exactly how we got to this conclusion.
“I’ll explain,” she said. “I believe that the ability to practice comes from demons. I believe the world’s attempts to balance itself are a response to this. A response to us. We practice, the spirits judge as a proxy for all of existence, and the spirits right the wrong. But much like a spinning top, the world is teetering out of balance, Alister. The jerks this way and that will get only more severe. Push, and the world pushes back.” “Or you topple it,” Alister said. “The top tips over, and goes flying across the table, and it stops spinning altogether.” The old woman nodded. “I can’t hope to fix things. The universe seeks to maintain its balance, but this makes it hard to change things. As I said, it pushes back. Sandra’s family has done what it has done for nearly five hundred years. The Behaims have done what they’ve done for three hundred. Crone Mara existed before the Algonquins. History has weight, and that much weight is difficult to move.”
But is that worldview just a result of how things currently are?
Magic, the stuff of Others- it's what makes life worth living.
There are other ways to interact with it than just the Practice, but the Practice is all there is. There were other formulations of what the world was and what forces wrought it before Christianity introduced its particular flavor of demon- I can't help but think that, as comprehensive as this view might be, in the end it's a bit short-sighted. You cannot take this demon-spawn idea as a given, this godless black with no white, it's an even more destructive form of moral objectivism! And I do agree that the status quo and the foundations need to change, but not because magic is bad, because the Practice is...well because it's so effectively constructed a way the world works, and it's taking it too far. Maybe that's the same as saying the world is out of balance, because there should be a balance of ideas and ways to interact with magic...but...I don't know, my lens seems different from Rosalyn's, even as our goals and assessments of the imminent problems with the system seem to align.
“I don’t think so,” Laird said. “The penchant of the Behaims, I’m sure you’ve heard, is to stubbornly pummel the opposition into submission, then while they’re off balance, hit them with the finishing blow. I do the pummeling…” He left the sentence unfinished. “Okay,” Alister said, clenching his fists. It helped – his hands were still shaking a bit from the visitors earlier. “Okay.”
Oh man, this is gonna be bad. Maybe a little good too, but super duper bad.
“And the nudge?” Alister asked. “What sort of nudge am I giving?”
💍
Her nervousness was contagious. He used his implement, sorting through the cards. Two of cups. Connection. Good enough.
But Rose wasn’t the old woman. The atmosphere was the same, the sense of power, even here, where she should have been powerless. But Rose was something and someone entirely different. All the same, he had no doubt that she was ready, able, and capable of speaking a word, using a gesture, and summoning something. The difference, a difference, was that she wouldn’t.
Maybe he likes her after all
He smirked a little. You could only be told so many times that you were brilliant, that everything rested on your shoulders, without getting a little bit full of oneself. It was a shield, a buffer. The alternative was to crumble. In this critical moment, he had to choose one or the other.
And there's the dominos, still falling, still crushing. There's that snowball, and it's much bigger at this part of the mountain.
“Getting things in position,” he said. “The junior council is on our side. The Behaims are backing me, even if they aren’t happy. Your people are… mostly okay.” He saw the relief in her.
And maybe she cares a bit too
“This is going to get far worse before it gets better,” he said. “It’s… pretty damn bad.” He held up the deck, fanning out cards. “Greek to you, I imagine, but believe me. It’s going to get a lot worse, very fast. We’ve got company.”
This is such a mess. Finished right on time, and I think I had a lot to say here! I'll see you guys soon
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JayManiac 05-Mar-20 01:38 AM
Rose and Alister, side by side. Behaims all around me, a clockwork knight of some sort barring my escape route. Now I could hear the bell. It tolled in sync with the pounding movement inside my chest, my arms, my legs.
Alright, arc 13 let's do this!!! When we last left off...was Blake screwed? I don't know, but he's pissed the fuck off at Rose and I'm not sure if she'll like the way he introduced everyone to magic, set things on fire, built himself a body, murdered some duchamps and duchamp-adjacents and then killed a Behaim right there just now.
Alister, though… I had little doubt he was independent. Did my own rules apply? Or, I thought, maybe I can stop thinking about Alister in terms of how easily I could kill him.
Yeah, no shit blake. I mean, Alister's trying to break the wheel in his own way, I'm not saying he's good news because he's actually a bit of an insufferable prick but maybe killing him right now is like the worst plan.
“You could greet Will, too. He’s the guy who you just tried to murder.” I nodded slowly, looking at the guy who I’d just cut. Time had rewound. Probably chronomancy trickery, messing with my perceptions, rather than an actual reversal of time. “Heya, Will,” I said. “Fuck you.” “Right,” I said. Couldn’t blame him.
Oh good, Blake didn't actually just kill a guy for arguing against his political views once, when he was nowhere near. That's. Probably less horrible than it could've been
Rose was studying me. Emotionally cold, detached, disconnected. Beneath the old fashioned coat, I could see her knee-length dress and the lace-patterned hose on her legs. Her boots had brassy buckles on the straps, with snow in some old scuff marks at the toe. She’d fixed her hair recently. My antithesis, in a way.
I love how we call attention to the clothing, specifically lace and brass and her recently-fixed hair. This is like the umpty ninth time we're doing this in this book, but I love every time it happens.
“If I tell you you can deal with him with extreme prejudice?” “Yeah. That.” She nodded. But she didn’t give the okay.
Cooool.....?
That's honestly a little better than I expected this to go?
“And my friends and family?” she asked. My, she’d said, not our. Not wrong, but misleading.
See, I almost think I'm on Rose's side for a fraction of a second before remembering that she doesn't think Blake is like an actual person despite being literally as much of a person as she is, and that's just so fucking annoying.
“Callan died,” I said. “Shit. I almost liked Callan.”
What a response, Rose Thorburn. I hate how almost funny it is, while being so fucking sad and frustrating.
“Would you believe I was actually arguing to keep you alive?” she asked. No, I thought, automatically, quietly furious. My survival was my call, not hers, and I didn’t believe her in the first place. It was unfair, maybe, and maybe it was fueled by the natural opposition to Rose, but when I heard something phrased as a question, my natural reaction was to assume it was a falsehood or misdirection.
I really want to believe this is true, because from a purely strategic standpoint leaving Blake alive is just like the worst decision ever if you believe what Rose believes about him. I really hope that she's empathetic and considerate enough to make that call, but that also doesn't sound like her...
“Even if that help is me?” I asked. “With all the mystery and stuff you won’t tell me about who and what I am?” “It’s complicated,” she said.
agree
“How about I make it very simple?” I asked. The bell tolled louder. I saw Alister glance skyward for a moment. “Maybe you should steer clear of phrases like that? In the movies and on TV, they tend to precede the big action hero moments where the big guy pulls a dumb stunt. There’s no guarantee you’ll be as lucky as the hero.”
That was the most overdramatic way to critique blake for being overdramatic you hypocritical bastard. I really do love having Alister in the story.
“Yeah. Me too,” Rose agreed. “There’s a more obscure principle at work, here, called validity. By saying it, you make it so.” “I’ve run into that one,” I said. “A prophecy gets more traction with those who are supposed to carry it out if it’s known. If it has more people who carry a piece of it with them.”
This is, admittedly, a pretty good reason to keep this from Blake. Rose handled it....badly, but I don't know what I expected honestly. I'm starting to see her side of things except for the whole 'oh yes we're split in half but i'm the real one'
“Not to mention,” she said, “That the big issue here, between you and me, is we aren’t static. With you in this… state, Blake, you’re nebulous. Evan went to me after you left us, but you reclaimed him, just like that. Dealing with the others, I can see my grip on them weakening. It’s going to get worse. More abstract concepts might start coming loose. Actually forming a master-familiar bond, that’s opening a conduit, letting things flow freely. There’s no damming that river when it starts flowing, one way or the other. It leads to a point where one of us destroys the other, to recoup maybe ninety percent of what we are, minus whatever was lost forever between the blades of the Barber’s shears.” “Okay,” I said. “And you’re afraid it’s going to flow to me?” “No,” Rose said. “I’m concerned about how you’ll react if the human parts of you flow to me, and all that’s left on your end is an apparently murderous bogeyman with a hate-on for me.”
The zero sum game is a construction, but one that they're constantly reinforcing, cementing it as reality
“Or you listen to me,” she said. “I’m the original. The heart, the soul, the core. The books were pretty unambiguous. I checked multiple texts. Go back to the basics, the raw stuff of humans and humankind, birth and death, and you’ll find it starts with the woman, ends with the woman. Cut away and you’ll wind up with a female at the heart of it.” “Maybe,” I said, remembering her saying something very similar in my vision in the Tenements. Her arrogance was grating, and it was making me feel agitated again. I had to be very deliberate as I spoke, to keep my tone under control, “But I’m not sure that means what you think it means.”
I mean we're in the very unique position of knowing that Rose is just kind of...wrong?
Blake's got his issues, but he reads as person-like as characters get in this book-- I don't think what Rose has is what she assumes she has.
“I don’t know who we were,” Rose said, “But she would have-” “He,” I cut in.
She kind of just assumes she's very close to being who this person was in a lot of ways, and I think that's pretty far from the truth.
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JayManiac 05-Mar-20 02:06 AM
“Common sense,” I told her. I plucked at the fabric of my sweatshirt. It had an importance, and I’d just realized what it was. It was even possible that the Drains had made sure to give it to me, because of that. “The guy had an apartment, a bike, clothes. You’re wearing grandmother’s hand-me-downs. What makes more sense? Girl gets cut in two, universe rearranges itself, and her clothes became a guy’s clothes, somehow-” “A demon or a spell could have done it.” “Add or remove demons as needed,” I said. “Or, second option, we were a guy in the first place. The simplest answer is often the correct one.” “Names,” Rose said. “Names hold more weight. Names are fucking important, when you look at what happened to Mags. Why would Ivy be called Ivy? If we were a guy, then she’d be Rose. For the same reason I-” “Ross,” I said, the moment the thought came to me.
And I love watching just this little bit of it unravel; even if Blake is wrong here, the fact that her idea of what's true, what parts of this person she holds onto isn't entirely true...I mean, I agree that a lot of the gender stuff doesn't line up. Blake is right about the way the universe seems to work, all the connections rearranging would just capitalize on the materials that are already there and make up memories and stories for the rest, like Rose's clothes being lost in the flood.
And I'm no Keira, but I'm going to suggest the idea that 'Ross' could've been transmasculine or nonbinary. They have masc clothing, but their parents didn't have a kid until after they ran away, indicating that they were potentially up for being heir....I dunno, just a thought. I don't think we'll ever actually get the answers to any of these questions (and maybe it's just me but I think we're all a little nonbinary, and more people would be out if it were more okay). What's important is that Rose is Not Entirely Correct
ThinkSpin 1
“We were a guy, and we were cut in half. And the feminine side, the heart, the soul, they went to you, whatever a heart and soul are without friends.
🔥
Sick burn, Blake
wait shit no you're still a tree, ease off the burn
“Blake…” she started. I waited for her to finish, but she didn’t. “I’m not denying that you might have the heart, the soul, the core, or whatever. I’m definitely not denying that you got the name, or something damn close to it. I don’t, however, think you’re a shoe-in to win any tug-of-wars. I’m not trying to be hostile as I say it, but I’ve got an awful lot of important memories. Unpleasant ones, but we were just talking about traction. Connections forming. Years of homelessness, intense emotional turmoil, being in a cult, Carl… Alexis. Our friends. That adds up to a lot of traction. I’m not sure what the barber left you, that weighs on your side of the scale.”
Putting it all out there, even though I knew it put me in a worse spot. Rose knew I knew, now, and that made her more frightened of me.
This isn't gonna end with a clean resolution to this issue, is it?
“I was thinking that sounded like a good thing, before. Getting to decide. Now it’s having to decide. Do I leave Blake alone, and risk having him come after me, or do I have you kill him, and risk that I might infect myself with whatever spirits or abyssal stuff flows through him?” “No intention of coming after you, unless you give me reason,” I said. “I’ll give you reason, in a manner of speaking,” she said, raising her chin a notch. “Whatever’s happening to you, the spirits in you, the degradation of your Self, the growth of the Abyss within you, your head will get twisted around, and you’ll convince yourself you have a reason.”
And I don't think Rose is wrong about this, either.
“I’ve tried to be genuine,” I said. “You have been,” Rose told me. “I respect that. I bet it even went somewhat against your nature.”
That's the most backhanded compliment....
“I’ll make you a deal,” I said. “A deal.” “Simplicity and ease, right? I’ll agree to be bound. It’s not simple or easy for me, but… it’s an answer.”
☹
“Yeah?” Alister said. “It’s… most definitely a compromise. Balance of some sort.” “Definitely a compromise,” Rose said. “Leaves both parties more or less equally unhappy. Unless we’re missing something.”
I wonder what card that is? Balance itself? Another equivilent?
I extended my hand for Alister to shake. He extended his own hand. The silence was broken. Where the bell had pealed and tolled before, this was a knell, a crashing of thunder, the noise a church bell might make as it came free, striking hard ground.
Dammit things were almost going well maybe!
Maggie Holt stood on the top of the slope, where the sidewalk reached over to the bridge. Her hair blew in a strong wind, and her hands were shoved into her pockets, for warmth and to shove her jacket down so her skirt wouldn’t blow up.
Okay wait this isn't real- unless Padraic just showed up, that is
Is Molly doing something?
But I could see the words on Maggie’s lips. A distant, primal, subconscious part of my mind processed the words. Laird told me to.
Ah fuck
In slow motion, almost, trying to get centered, and place myself in reality, I withdrew the Hyena from Alister’s outstretched right hand. Blood oozed from the hole in his palm.
NOOOOOO
Fuck
dammit
I wondered why we were starting with the bell motif, shiiiit
All of the Others who’d been at the house, and many of the Others that had been held in reserve, they were active. Reacting to the bell. I found the nearest dark spot, and let myself collapse.
Well that went......just awful
“Something’s going on with you. Guy extends his hand, and you shake it with a broken sword? Except you stabbed it, so that’s, I dunno, it’s like someone goes in for a fist bump and you shake it instead, but way, way worse. Even if he’s a bit of a jerk, that’s-”
Hahahahahahaha, Evan you are a lifesaver
Don't you hate it when your friend is going for a fist bump
and then you stab his hand with a blade steeped in the entropic energies by mistake?
I needed to read those diaries.
[Chanting]: Pages, Pages, Pages...
“In the interest of making it less complicated,” I said. “Our biggest enemy isn’t the Behaims, or Conquest, or the demons. It’s the status quo. I guess I didn’t realize how much reality wanted to hold onto it.”
agree
A tall Other strode into the middle of the street. He wore what appeared to be a black skirt that trailed from a heavy belt that was about a foot tall. His chest was bare, and what looked to be disconnected bike or chainsaw chains trailed from his waist, arms, and neck, each chain ending in something wickedly sharp. Sawblades or caltrops of welded-together nails. He had long hair and an almost feminine cast to his features, owing to a lack of body fat, but he still looked eminently masculine. The muscles and the scarred skin helped on that front.
That's pretty fuckin metal. I wonder what band this dude is from?
“What do you want them for?” I asked. “I have a quota. Souls to be cast down into the workings of the Machine. You are clearly black with the Machine’s oils. You would be redundant.”
I have such a sense of what this guy's voice sounds like, I love the idea that there are other parts of the Abyss that demand an absolute quota- it'd make sense that that's someone's version of the worst thing ever. Hell, it just might be mine. I'm not sure what the voice is I just started reading his lines aloud and it worked really well. Strange phenomenon
The woman shot me a pleading look as she scrambled to keep up on frozen hands and feet. She managed to find her feet, and for a second I thought she might walk after him, but she took a fraction of a second too long. He took one lurching step forward, and she was tugged, sent sprawling. From there, it was all she could do to keep up. “Are we going to help her?” Evan asked.
👀
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Elliot (Boy) 05-Mar-20 02:32 AM
“Would you believe I was actually arguing to keep you alive?” she asked. No, I thought, automatically, quietly furious. My survival was my call, not hers
This might be one of the funniest moments in Pact for me. "Fuck off Rose how dare you try to keep me alive, only I keep me alive!". The ultimate in their petty contradiction-ness
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JayManiac 05-Mar-20 02:32 AM
Yeah, that was among the more ridiculous thoughts blake has had with regard to Rose, I think
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Elliot (Boy) 05-Mar-20 02:33 AM
Also god dammit Molly we were so close
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JayManiac 05-Mar-20 02:33 AM
Right!?
I mean, it's also kind of Alister's fault
I guess I can't blame him since he kinda got stabbed
but he knows exactly what the fuck happened and just won't back down and re-agree to the deal because there were people watching and he's a prideful prick
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Elliot (Boy) 05-Mar-20 02:34 AM
Honestly he was pretty cordial for a dude who's fresh out of a stabbing
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JayManiac 05-Mar-20 02:35 AM
Like, yes, if his reason was 'dude you stabbed me' that would be more than acceptable
but it seemed to be 'no, I don't wanna look like a guy who can just get stabbed, imma kill you now'
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Elliot (Boy) 05-Mar-20 02:36 AM
I read it more like he knew he could very likely lose access to a lot of his power base by still taking the deal - since the Behaims would try to undermine his position as head of the family
which, is more understandable
it sucks because it's playing straight back into the hands of the system, but I can get why he wouldn't really have a choice (edited)
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JayManiac 05-Mar-20 02:37 AM
Yeah, I think you might be right. Maybe I just tended to attribute more to personal pride because of the Giant Ass Rant I did on it.
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Elliot (Boy) 05-Mar-20 02:38 AM
yeah diving into Alister is so fun. 12.x was our longest episode I think.
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JayManiac 05-Mar-20 02:38 AM
When in fact the part of the book I was ranting about could also have been interpreted as 'here is the problem with how the behaims think about things' which makes Alister's read of them more justified
Interesting
I really loved 12.x, but I'd've thought with the multiple perspectives there'd be more to dive into with 11.x
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Elliot (Boy) 05-Mar-20 02:39 AM
that's the second longest one I think
yeah idk what it was but 12.x really set us off on a lot of tangents relating to the people in the world of Pact and our actual situation here
Ilovethis 1
anyway sorry I should let you get back to Blake's fun times
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JayManiac 05-Mar-20 02:45 AM
I'm so excited to listen to that part; I really hope I get the chance to catch up; I'm almost at 11.x in my listening
“What makes her different from Will, back there?” I asked. “I’m not saying we won’t or that we can’t… but a lot of people will need help. Enemies who sent monsters to kill Callan, or condoned it. She’s out here, a representative for the Duchamps. She didn’t decide to sit this whole thing out.” “If that’s your only rule to decide who dies, an awful lot of people oughtta die tonight,” Evan said. ”It’s up to you. I promised I’d help stop the monsters… I’m just not sure who the monsters are, here.” “Guy with chains talking about throwing people into a big machine is a good bet,” Evan said.
So Blake's gone full on psycho here, but I'm so glad Evan is here to balance it out. He's got a simple concept of morality with a lot of theoretical flaws to it, but when Blake's systemized version is so obviously steering him in disturbing directions Evan really shines in terms of bringing him on board. Because if Blake were sure he was right here, Evan would probably relent. If Blake understood it as a systematic flaw in Evan's worldview and could explain that, then things would proceed, but when Blake's just going way the fuck off course Evan's here to be somewhat sane.
“It’s up to you,” I said, again. “I want to. I itch to step in and stop him. But I’m not sure I trust my instincts, and I know it doesn’t make sense. The monsters are picking off our enemies for us. Or occupying them.”
Blake's instincts when it comes to Rose have been off, but he's just starting to ignore instincts that are like....normal compassionate reactions to things. Maybe Alexis should've been more careful- or actually maybe Blake should've just actually listened to her- or maybe he can't trust anything and he's just in a really bad situation and I can't fault him all that much.
I was mixed up, and the bell was disturbing my thoughts, twisting them around. I wasn’t sure I could trust myself in a fight against a genuine enemy, if I’d start thinking about how they had a family, or a history, how they might be okay. I wasn’t sure I could trust myself to spare someone who needed sparing.
Yeah I'm not gonna deny it, this would drive me batshit insane.
“She’s old. She’s supported the Duchamps through at least two generations,” I said. “Marrying off daughters and sisters and cousins. Forced marriages, denying them freedom. Perpetuating an ugly cycle. She’s here. She’s…” I was having trouble convincing myself. “Yeah,” Evan said. “But the other guy has hooks and chains and stuff, and he flings people into the Abyss.”
I really really love this, because Evan's just saying the most reasonable, human things ever and Blake isn't responding super duper well and it's really tragic and it's such a great moment of moral struggle and this is why I love fantasy, because it can juxtapose these two things and show you how certain things can warp your worldview so thoroughly. I think having Evan here is really important, especially in light of the response to Worm. We all love Evan, we watch him call people out on their bullshit, we trust him, we know his heart's in the right place and it's never really in the wrong one, so when the pov is going batshit crazy and saying fuck it to empathy and committing all these attrocities we have a voice we trust by his side, making sure we stay grounded in something outside the first person. I get why worm couldn't do that- everyone in Taylor's life was an enabler, and she was able to very quickly shut down anyone who wasn't, call them a bully, get us to distrust them- and that was part of the point. But there's been so much legwork done to make sure we couldn't ever really be that mad at Evan...
“I don’t know, Evan. But I think you’re right. We need another voice to help us figure out a strategy, and we need help, but the Behaims are out for blood, because of what Molly did. The Duchamps aren’t likely to be in my good books. I’m not sure how to reach out to the junior council, even if I hadn’t tried them, not so long ago. Johannes… I don’t trust him, and I don’t even want to show my face near him, knowing the kind of power his familiar can sling around. That doesn’t leave many options for people to talk to.” “No, I guess not.” “There’re the Thorburns,” I said. “Fresh eyes on the situation. But if I go do that, if I contrive to make them practitioners, am I adhering to the pattern I did before? Backing up the status quo?”
And as trustworthy, moral people go...I think the Thorburns are slightly more problematic in other ways...
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Elliot (Boy) 05-Mar-20 02:50 AM
Also wasn't getting the Thorburns involved like.... the whole plan, just an arc ago?
Maybe not as practitioners, but still
*plan in the Blake sense of the word
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JayManiac 05-Mar-20 02:51 AM
I think Blake wanted to get them involved, but keep them out from under the Seal
it was in the spirit of breaking the wheel- now he's considering Awakening them into the system.
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Elliot (Boy) 05-Mar-20 02:54 AM
I guess this just seems like a thought he maybe could've had an arc and a half ago
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JayManiac 05-Mar-20 02:55 AM
Well, yeah.....
Blake's not great at....that
I got the answer to my question as Molly appeared before me, the bell growing louder, until it distorted vision. The distortion in vision worsened, clarified, and became her. My cousin. She’d changed, becoming one with half of a broken bell that was nearly four feet tall. The top of the half- bell rested on one of her shoulders, the rim at the bottom near her knee. She didn’t bow under the weight. She was taller, narrower, as if she’d been physically warped.
I'm sure her sense of morality is off the friggin charts right now
“You want me to stop,” she said. Unimpressed. If I were human, I might have withered beneath her glare. Holy fuck, she’d soaked up a lot of raw negativity in the past day. “No,” I said. “No, I don’t want you to stop.”
Uh....why the fuck not!?
“Yeah. What does it help, if you whittle down each group just a little? Kill twenty Behaims, twenty Duchamps, kill or turn a few of Johannes’ allies… at the end of the day, we’re right back where we started.” She was silent.
Ahh I'm not sure if I like the sound of that. Oh yeah, twenty lives lost, that's nothing we need more
“You want to attack one. Weaken one side. Upset the balance.” I nodded.
Okay....I uh....think this is going to be terrible and involve a lot of damage
“You want to go after Sandra,” Molly said. “I think it makes sense.”
Okay, but why the fuck!? Just so somebody will win this stupid thing- I mean, that's not the worst idea....but....I like sandra. Okay I like alister and Johannes too, so I don't know if I'm really all that cut out for the whole 'decide who to totally decimate' thing.
“And after? Johannes takes power, safe within his demesnes.” “After,” I said, “I’m hoping the Behaim and Duchamp organizations are still partially intact, and someone can kick down the doors like they knocked down the barriers in Hillsglade House.” “After that?” What a change, from the simple ghost who couldn’t see past the, well, past, to this. An entity with an agenda.
Great, you shaped all that ambient energy into a planning, inentional force of malice!
“It’s a bigger problem,” I said. “A systemic problem, one that involves all of us. I can’t give you anything more concrete in the way of plans. I can’t give you power or answers or strength or any of that. All I can do is say I promise. I swore to Evan that I’d deal with the monsters. I will strive, in the midst of all this, to root out the true monsters and deal with them. It’s the third time I’ve promised this.” “Third?” “The third,” I said. “To Evan, to myself as I realized what I was in the Abyss, and now to you.”
And it just got a hell of a lot more disturbing, because we're talking about people now
“The last I saw, Sandra and the priest weren’t that far away. Closer to downtown,” Molly spoke. She sounded surprisingly like Molly, albeit with a tone as though she were nursing an awful lot of hurt near her heart.
☹
“You’re awfully aware of what’s going on here. You’re generating so much rage. I’d expect a ghost to affect one person like you’ve affected me, but… you’re affecting all this. A huge amount.” “Sometimes, in the right time or place, an idea can become a spirit, and a spirit can become a god,” Molly said, in that ordinary voice that made me think of a Molly who’d never thought of gods outside of visiting church once a week.
I really don't think Jacob's Bell needs its own incarnation of Vengeance on its hands.
“Thank you. I’m not saying I’m becoming a god. It’s… only an idea.” “That’s a hell of an idea,” I said. I looked out over the town. “Scary idea,” Green Eyes said. “I’ve never met a happy god.”
Maybe that's because happiness is a balance
it's all the things, not any one of them in extreme
The bone found its place, and the wood closed in around it. At the shoulder, I doubled down on bones, replacing what I’d lost, then adding some. The wood closed over, almost eager to get a grip on the still-bloody bone.
aaaaaaaaaa maybe this shouldn't disturb me as much as it does but it does
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Elliot (Boy) 05-Mar-20 03:07 AM
Blake just keeping up with Rose by becoming part Behaim
ahyperlul 1
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JayManiac 05-Mar-20 03:07 AM
And that shouldn't be nearly as funny as it is! For every yin there must be a yang, and all
Molly’s initial jolt had, at a glance, made all of the weak bindings break. The secure bindings held, as did the better relationships. In the midst of the chaos, Sandra and the high priest of Dionysus were standing on the dock, giving orders, talking. The priest’s followers were gathered around him. I braced myself for it. It was still bad.
😬
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JayManiac 05-Mar-20 06:15 AM
And believing it maybe makes it just a little bit true
lol 4
Even if, in actuality, I...uh...kind of decided to lie down and close my eyes at like four in the afternoon and didn't open them until somewhat recently.
It has come to my attention that I have had some Scheduling Difficulties, and that this Might Not Be Possible To Achieve
hug 2
I want to accelerate the livereads and pull slightly less things but I just can't help myself, I never developed that talent and I'm having to do so very quickly and I'm not quite used to it.
So I've reworked the plan: now the current idea is to print out the next two arcs on physical paper and read them tomorrow next to a closed laptop that I will have to open in order to Ctrl F whatever words I'm looking at, highlight them, and pull them over to discord to say things.
This should hopefully cause me to prioritize what I want to talk about into just the really juicy bits, and not cause me to read even slower.
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Elliot (Boy) 05-Mar-20 06:20 AM
You don't need to finish Jay, I'm sure we'll have plenty to talk about either way!
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Seregraug 05-Mar-20 06:20 AM
Oh, are you trying to wrap up before APU?
That's...a lot.
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JayManiac 05-Mar-20 06:20 AM
That was the original plan
I have read two arcs in three days, which has never ever happened before on this read
but I have two more days and four more arcs and I can see where there might be issues
Worst case, I don't finish, I pretend to know what I'm talking about, my liveread ends a couple days after and then I write my five Pact video essays and start editing
But I'm gonna try my other strategy first, because if i knew how to quit while I was ahead instead of thinking of further mind-numbingly bad plans, would it really even be in the spirit of Pact?
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JayManiac 20-Mar-20 11:08 PM
I mean bleeding yourself is the simplest way to use power, by spending Identity (which is, of course, the sum strength of all your connections). Power is connections and their strength, which can be used without necessarily 'spending' anything. Like, Laird has cultivated this power of reputation, and can use it without sacrificing or 'spending' any of it, because he's spent the time and effort to cultivate it in the first place- kind of like if you've spent a lot of time working out then you don't lose any muscle when you use that power to lift something heavy. There are more stable ways to use power, but we aren't seeing a lot of them from Blake.
agree 4
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Ishamoridin 20-Mar-20 11:18 PM
Power is more akin to reputation than energy, in Pact. Context is vital, being consistent in some way you can declare is more powerful than just being strong in some way.The more specific and consistent you can make a given pattern you adhere to, the more likely it is to simply ignore or overpower something that would seem to be far beyond you in terms of sheer strength.
The episode of Dragonball Super with Arale is actually a good representation of this
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Elliot (Boy) 20-Mar-20 11:19 PM
I’m struggling to remember if this is understood way back in arc 3 but basically it all comes down to how much you can convince the spirits it’s possible
And all sorts of things can contribute to that, as you’ve all said.
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Ishamoridin 20-Mar-20 11:20 PM
I think that's fairly understood even that early Elliot, if not actually spelled out in so many words
At least Rose seems to understand it
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JayManiac 20-Mar-20 11:25 PM
I think you can see that in so many ways though- it's why the Sight is different for everyone. You can see things in terms of the spirits as things you need to convince, sure, but you can also see it in terms of connections and their strengths and what those connections allow you to do. It's part of what I think is so fascinating about the world: each system of thought is equally applicable, and you can reduce it down to any one way of thinking and still explain all the observed phenomenon. If you make a blanket statement about what it all comes down to, you'll be able to argue your point flawlessly, but that doesn't mean that seeing the world via a different metric would be wrong, it's just a different way of thinking about it. There are as many ways to view the magic of pact as there are to view how stories and culture and symbols work, because they're the same thing. Which is tough when you're trying to- not even just quantify it, but build a consistent frame of reason around it for the purpose of discussion.
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Ishamoridin 20-Mar-20 11:27 PM
It's a world with no 'right' answers, yeah. Power comes down to how effectively you can convince others and the world that your perspective is correct and true. Fundamentally subjective.
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Elliot (Boy) 20-Mar-20 11:27 PM
Aren’t connections spirits?
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Ishamoridin 20-Mar-20 11:28 PM
I don't think so, no. More a belief that the spirits have
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JayManiac 20-Mar-20 11:31 PM
they're the same in that they can both be viewed as the essential building blocks of the world- and you can also make the argument that they're the same thing. I think of spirits as more atomized, and connections as more relational, but there are a lot of places the two can be used interchangably.
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Elliot (Boy) 20-Mar-20 11:32 PM
I always saw spirits as, for want of a better term, the atomic units of meaning. They build up not just people and things, but the connections between them. I’m thinking of Corvo’s 11.x segment in particular
Haha Jay I just read your message and we’re definitely on adjacent pages
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JayManiac 20-Mar-20 11:33 PM
Yeah! like this pencil has a spirit of being a pencil- and that's just the little ball of yarn that is its spiritual connection with every other pencil that exists. It's a matter of whether you'd want to analyze it in terms of being a 'pencil' or in terms of being connected to other pencils
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Elliot (Boy) 20-Mar-20 11:33 PM
I have a picture of connections being built of spirits but now I don’t remember where that came from - did I make it up as a theory and then forget it was conjecture? Maybe.
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JayManiac 20-Mar-20 11:34 PM
Almost a particle/wave duality in that sense; it matters what you're measuring for and why it's important
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spinagon 20-Mar-20 11:34 PM
Spirits flow along connections
agree 1
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Ishamoridin 20-Mar-20 11:34 PM
Connections are the relationships between spirits, as I see it. The 1d components of the world, linking the 0d points that the spirits are
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spinagon 20-Mar-20 11:34 PM
At least it looks that way with Sight
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JayManiac 21-Mar-20 12:20 AM
@David Hunt that's mostly my view of the world right there- that there are a plethora of ways to describe the phenomenon of the world, and that explaining things in terms of spirits and in terms of atoms and forces will be equally fictional, so whichever one is most useful is for all intents and purposes 'true'. And that certain ways of thinking will stumble upon certain truths faster than science- despite being less thoroughly developed- because of their disposition.
And science is especially useless when describing things like human interaction and cultural phenomenon- for that, thinking of gods and spirits and magic is- as we've seen though our analysis of this book- extremely useful.
(also, planning to return to this channel soon, I didn't mean to take such a break but #covid19_panic_room related things have been...rough)
hug 5
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JayManiac 12-Apr-20 12:22 AM
Hey, I got my start with poorly lit powerpoint presentations; live your dream!
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JayManiac 12-Apr-20 01:10 AM
I've been working on a Pact video for a couple weeks now; I wanted it to be done today, seeing as it's the 1 year anniversary of my liveread [glances sheepishly left and right] but certain complications have meant that it'll probably be out sometime in the next week instead. In the meantime I'm glad more people are reading, and I plan to be back at some point soon hopefully.
sharkhi 5
CharmanderHi 1
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JayManiac 12-Apr-20 02:14 AM
That. Is a very good question.I think some pressure would certainly be appreciated, so I'll give it a 6.5! I do want to be accountable for putting this out there, but I understand the possibility of too much being too much (that said, the script is done and I'm very excited about it).
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JayManiac 12-Apr-20 03:49 AM
I think that's quite an applicable form of it, yes! As of now, the voice over is recorded and edited, I've thought a lot about what I've (not) done, and I do aim to have the video out by..let's say wednesday. Interested in how I tackled it from the video-essay side, or the liveread side, bow?
Also: I'm very glad to be a part of anyone reading Worm, so that means so much to hear! I'm happy to see you've picked up the liveread channel~ as livereads go, this appears to be quite a unique one, and I'm eager to catch up with it once I have the time.
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JayManiac 05-May-20 01:01 AM
(first pact video is a go in #classifieds- first of many, I hope. Have a wonderful day everyone)
sharkhi 2
(as a side note, would people be potentially interested in bringing back my livereads in google doc format, so I don't interrupt Jade's? It's something I've resisted for a while, but I can see it being convenient moving forwards; this likely wouldn't happen until after finals are over ~2 weeks, but I'd be excited to get back to it in whatever way I can)
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JayManiac 27-May-20 02:14 AM
👀peeks out from under rock
bulba 3
CharmanderHi 2
Ilovethis 2
sharkhi 2
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Wildbow 27-May-20 02:16 AM
\o/
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Elliot (Boy) 27-May-20 02:17 AM
sharkhi
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JayManiac 27-May-20 02:19 AM
...I have returned, to finish Pact once and for all!...over the course of the next month or so ideally, since finals are officially over, and I’ve got nothing to do but read, make videos, write a webcomic, be in 6 dnd campaigns, catch up on ward, procrastinate on watching the 10+ shows on my list in favor of a 5th ATLA rewatch now that it’s on Netflix, and routinely check up on all of my friends.
An extra note: after two semesters of my endless prattlings about Pact, I have currently convinced no less than five of my college friends to read it. I never really expect many people to go for the myriad of Very Long Things I tend to recommend (Pact, Worm, Homestuck, Stormlight, TAZ, etc.) and really wished I could recommend something in the same universe that didn’t have the prerequisite of reading another million words- yet finally by virtue of time, seeing my video, and spiritual intervention, they all kind of just started at once and I was so happy. And then, not 3 days later we get the announcement for Pale, which I immediately decide I can’t read until I finish Pact and thus cannot effectively recommend because I haven’t read it, despite its way more accessible nature. But yes, most of my friends will likely overtake me in the book I’ve been recommending for an entire school year, which will be equal parts wonderful and frustrating
lol 3
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Project Waffler 27-May-20 02:21 AM
procrastinate on watching the 10+ shows on my list in favor of a 5th ATLA rewatch now that it's on Netflix...
Well that's incredibly relatable
same 2
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JayManiac 27-May-20 02:31 AM
I am, by the way, absolutely overjoyed by Bow’s decision to return to the world of Pact (which needs a name now that there are two stories in it) and I think the idea of a standalone book in that universe was an excellent call. I do wonder if it’s planned to be a shorter endeavor than Pact, Worm, or Twig, since I know he’d mentioned that— or if it’s planned for a similar length? Though I almost don’t want the answer, as not knowing what percentage of the way through something you are is a state you’re almost never in while experiencing media (I’d say a d&d campaign is one of the only other places you get that) and one that might be cool to explore. Either way, this world is my favorite to read stories in, and I’m going to love diving into it in Real Actual Probably-A-Few-Days-Behind Time!
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Wildbow 27-May-20 02:31 AM
Hopefully it'll be long enough to reach the end (edited)
We'll see how it evolves in practice though
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Elliot (Boy) 27-May-20 02:32 AM
(Reuben and I have been pushing "Otherverse" as a name. Practverse is the other one I've seen)
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JayManiac 27-May-20 02:35 AM
A very fair answer, I think
(Oooo, I like both of those; I'll show solidarity for 'Otherverse' though, on the arbitrary metric that I think it Sounds Cooler)
agree 3
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JayManiac 27-May-20 02:46 AM
As mentioned somewhere in this channel, I’m going to be transitioning over to a google-docs method of livereading. I resisted it for a while due to various reasons but now that there are very active livereaders in this channel other than myself I think I have zero patience for spoiler tagging everything I say and I know this about myself it’s probably best. While I appreciate the single continuous stream of things, and it might take some getting used to for all parties I hope we can shift over relatively easily. Plus this way you guys can always comment back on previous livereads, and I’ll be able to respond! Don’t worry if you don’t want to sign into a google account; I’ll still be checking the channel and responding to things there (but please keep your messages in spoiler tags for the uninitiated). If I don’t end up liking it or it gets bad feedback, I’ll probably switch back. And who knows what the Pale livereads might be like, once I get there?
Although as it turns out, this might not be much of a problem for long, given that Jade’s read may very likely be overtaking mine in the near future, but we’ll cross that particular bridge when we come to it, decide what format to keep
sharkhi 1
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JayManiac 27-May-20 02:59 AM
Anyhow, here's Execution 13.3: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1j-7GQ3QP8h_oRsy64FskKD92dQ7kIN1qn3nVpmVNgUs/edit#when we last left off, the Duchamps had just taken a full-power Molly Thorburn 1-2 and brushed it off, Blake was a horrible tree monster bent on killing pretty much whoever he could justify and the town of Jacob's Bell was pretty screwed
Execution 13.3 November 8, 201413.03 Last Chapter Next Chapter We stopped moving once we were clear of the small war that was going on at the lakeside. Evan settled on my new shoulder. Green Eyes collapsed, ro...
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Elliot (Boy) 27-May-20 02:59 AM
Out of curiosity, how have you gone remembering where you were up to?
If I put a book down for 2 weeks I have to reread a few pages at least
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JayManiac 27-May-20 03:00 AM
I did just reread 13.2 for some context, but didn't liveread because I Already Did That one
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Elliot (Boy) 27-May-20 03:01 AM
haha yeah for sure. I was just curious how quickly you felt you were "back into it"
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jsoh 27-May-20 03:24 AM
the best name for the universe is Canada
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Wildbow 27-May-20 03:26 AM
The more I hear people referencing Homestuck's underlying systems, the more I feel like it's just an elaborate joke where people make stuff up and are like, "kismesis! hearts and spades! Blood aspect! Zogmog blend! Insect hearted! Tee hee, how far can we push this until they start cottoning on?"
lol 4
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Elliot (Boy) 27-May-20 03:28 AM
Is it spoilers to remind Jay about Blake's Abyss vision? I normally might not but there's been a big break so I think it might be worth it? (edited)
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JayManiac 27-May-20 03:28 AM
Given that I wasn't sure those lost two weren't homestuck for a solid 10 seconds, that's a fair evaluation. Only one way to find out...
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Elliot (Boy) 27-May-20 03:29 AM
(Sorry Jay - since #pact_spoilers allows Pale talk I can't go in there so I have to chat here)
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JayManiac 27-May-20 03:33 AM
vision concerned all of his friends conspiring against him and promising not to tell him that he's supposedly more Other than she is
right?
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Elliot (Boy) 27-May-20 03:37 AM
Jay I was thinking of the one from his first trip where he was a bat who ate people
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JayManiac 27-May-20 03:38 AM
Oh that one....fuck, you're absolutely right. The wings weren't made of wood, so not all of the same symbols, but it was certainly 'get [thing you want] by giving in and doing what this place wants you to'
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JayManiac 27-May-20 04:33 AM
Excellent chapter- I'm very excited to get back to this arc.
I'd almost forgotten how much fun these things are
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JayManiac 27-May-20 06:17 AM
Racing, as fun as that sounds, might become a bit more of a mess than would manageable or fun, yes
but I'm also catching up with reading your liveread, and I think being kind of neck and neck for the time being could result in some cool discussion
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JayManiac 27-May-20 11:10 PM
My partner is on chapter 1.5 in pact, reading about as fast as I do, and the speculations they're making in trying to figure everything out are so fascinating. They currently: -refer to the bird skulls as "puppets" and think that they're probably made of corpses and controlled by a more intelligent practitioner, because they acted coordinated but in an artificial sense, like a hivemind. -don't think the milky-eyes guy was the puppeteering unless the control has something to do with proximity -think that the bird-skulls are not the same things that killed Molly, because parts of her were eaten, and they don't think the bird-skulls would need to eat, and certainly don't think they would eat only parts of her, thinking that they'd be far more likely to turn Molly into one of them. They also acknowledge that maybe the puppets do have to feed -have latched onto to idea that "if he believes it enough it's almost true" from the very quick andy/eva portion of the dream sequence. They've caught on that there are multiple systems of magic in play, but have basically figured out glamour from that one line and think that that might be how the whole system works, though they're quick to point out possible contradictions (they have also pointed out that part of figuring that part out so quickly could also be attributed to knowing me and my personal philosophy so well, and understanding that this is my favorite book) -in speculating as to why only parts of Molly were eaten, they had the idea that a monster of a certain kind might eat the tongue, as that seems extremely important for Practicing. They also speculated that eyes, hands, ears, and heart might be things to eat in order to gain power, and that that might be how this system works. Which, while a very wrong prediction (they ate parts of her because goblins are fucking gross and that's pretty much as complicated as that gets) is still very much along the right lines for figuring out the magic system.
They haven't made the 'magic as story' connection explicitly (and haven't seen my video) but they're already thinking in terms of symbolism and belief and all of the good things. They think along the lines of the Practice so naturally and it's so fascinating to watch.
sharkhi 1
One of my other friends has made it through arc 8, and sent me this quote with regard to padraic
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Jade | i love you video games 27-May-20 11:14 PM
Oh that is so good
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JayManiac 27-May-20 11:14 PM
The quote is very Quintessential Pact
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Jade | i love you video games 27-May-20 11:15 PM
Also, I'm on 13.3. I take it I can now watch your video?
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JayManiac 27-May-20 11:16 PM
Certainly! It has no explicit spoilers, and- as of now -can contain no information about Pact that you do not have access to!
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JayManiac 02-Jun-20 09:10 PM
Alright! and we're officially back for 13.4, or as it appears, Pact: Pesterchum Edition. I know this isn't the first time Wildbow has done something like this- the parahumansonline chapters are a good example, as is Glo-worm, but I just love when we break format for a bit and it works. Was urban fantasy quite the genre I expected that in? No, but that just makes it all the better. I love that we get such immediate characterization here; considering that as of these past few months chatlogs have essentially been my primary form of communication with people I'm paying a lot of attention to how certain people present themselves through the medium. It's a kind of voice all its own. Do they type everything out in one big message that has to be broken into multiple paragraphs? or is every sentence a different message, like penny has here, so as to emphasize the poetic form of the messages? The junior council appears to be slightly more aligned towards everyone maybe getting along than their older, more ingrained counterparts, but with the bickering that any group of teenagers with this many conflicting interests will inevitably produce. As someone who recently was ambiguously in charge of organizing an irl friend group to communicate online for the forseeable future, making any kind of decision is downright impossible. I'm not exactly expecting the junior council chat to turn into meme central and totally drag everyone off topic, but if it happened it would be realistic.
sharkhi 1
I also can't help but wonder if whatever semblance of community and trust has been built by the idea of the junior council is about to be horribly screwed up by the presence of Thorburns, putting everyone on the defensive and making cooperation towards some greater more peaceful goal even less likely!? Whatever the case, I'm sure Blake's stance on the issue will be approximately "Ah yes, exactly as planned. This is going great" so that we don't even have him to back up our creeping sense of oh gods everything's gone horribly wrong.
lol 1
Craig[B]: no offense but thats your battlefield. your all enchantresses and you do this sort of thing well. what if we accept and you turn it around on us?
also fun: there's almost no such thing as the author making a typo when all the text in a given chapter is typed by the characters! Watch your apostrophes, Craig.
Craig[B]: well i don’t think we should make any deals until alister is back online. Tandy[B]ear: yea
I love this. They're using the way the client organizes text to make cute lil things and I'm just living for it this is excellent. Good characterization, especially since we don't know this particular behaim very well.
Penny[D]: The whole point is to have a deal in place before we’re angry or upset or not thinking straight. Penny[D]: Before things maybe possibly end tonight and the lordship is decided. Penny[D]: We make things official, before one side knows whether they won or lost. Penny[D]: Preserve the point.
Ahh, that's a really good play, actually! I want it to work so badly, but know in my heart that any hope of that is probably going to be distracted or just torn apart by Blake's presence. I would want to see the fallout of this, find out if it would work.
Penny[D]: I know its late and everyone is tired. Penny[D]: I know tensions are high and we’re all worried about our families. Craig[B]: combo break Penny[D]: …What? Craig[B]: no threes plz penelope. saying ‘you know’ three times to try to do smthing with rule of 3?
That's the other thing I was wondering; do the spirits (as they function in the regular world) have less sway over text? Part of me wants to say yes, since it's a new medium and therefore they've had a lot less time to work with it, lots of the magic being based on traditions and how cemented something is in someone's mind- but also wouldn't all the same rules still apply? Maybe to a lesser degree, but when I want to emphasize something here I'll fall back on the same traditional tricks, such as rule of three.
This is also just cementing craig as a bit of a dick; I think we kind of knew that already but reading his chatlog is another level of 'wow this person is kind of annoying'
Mags: Don’t taunt. Penny, don’t make threes.
Mags babysitting all of these magic kids is such an odd circumstance.
lol 5
Penny[D]: Whatev. Penny[D]: As I was saying, I know it’s late and we’re tired and we’re scared. Penny[D]: Its easy to feel helpless. Penny[D]: But let’s do what we can to get in contact with people.
Be careful what you wish for, penny
Penny[D]: How many hours until the night is over? My aunt told me before that we had a situation. Craig[B]: two hours and fifty two minutes. Penny[D] has set chat name to: JBJC [Sunrise at 7:12] Else[B]: Trust a chronomancer to know the time off the top of his head.
Making the metatextual textual is something I feel works well in the context of a chatlog. There aren't timestamps but I'm just assuming that there was no time to google it and he just Knew.
Dolores[D] renamed themselves to ThorburnBogeyman Craig[B]: …what? Lea[D]: Oh god. Penny[D]: No no no. Lola? Craig[B]: is this a joke
Ah. This is the part where it all goes wrong, then
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Wildbow 02-Jun-20 09:30 PM
(It's such a good moment, too- a lot of people remark on it in their readthroughs)
agree 3
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JayManiac 02-Jun-20 09:36 PM
ThorburnBogeyman: No joke. Hi Mags.
I can see why; I apply a certain tone of voice to people's chats, and try to convey a specific voice. It's pure dialogue, but it reads so differently for a whole bunch of reasons (things sorted into messages, typing styles, being able to write everything out beforehand). All that to say that the way Blake does this is pretty much the most dramatically unsettling way he could've (reinforcing my idea that the spirits still work through chat, perhaps? Or just that Blake is semiconsciously doing things in unsettling ways because he's been rewarded for it, even if he doesn't get a reward here because it's the internet- that could also be it). I read his tone here as very dead, hollow, creepy. Like, horror stories don't typically exist in chatlogs (actually who am I to say, I don't read horror stories?) but this has all the correct vibes.
agree 2
ThorburnBogeyman: I didn’t ‘get’; amyone. ThorburnBogeyman: Anyone.
Even the stumbled speech is a little creepy because of what it might be implying about his motor functions- some kind of not-quite-human movements. It kind of contrasts Craig's typo, which is a cognative/organizational one, while this is a "my branch finger hit [';] at the same time because it's a branch finger and it has less control
ThorburnBogeyman: No. I told her about evemts earlier in the night and she accepted what I was suggesting. Enough to let me on.
And it remains pretty consistent with which fingers are messing up, which is fun. I don't think it means anything specific, but it's a cool detail. Also, I think of Blake as pretty charismatic in person, but I can't help but wonder how much experience he's had communicating over text like this. I have some friends who are social virtuosos in real life, but just flop in text chats. While others are able to sound Exactly Like They Do IRL somehow, and whatever they type in whatever tricks they use to type it is readable in their real life voice instantly, usually because they've had a lot of experience or they've devoted concentrated effort to the task. And then some of us sound a good deal better over text than when talking; at least I'd kind of hope so
But however blake must sound in person, it's approximately 200% more robotic here, which I guess is making up for the fact that in person you'd be standing in front of a ghastly, grimy figure made of twigs that are held together by spite.
lol 1
Owen[B]: I look away for five seconds… Penelope, we have your back. If you need me out there, I can help. PM me. Tandy[B]ear: I liked Lola. ChloMo[D]afk: Wait, what happened?
Blake you fumbled this so hard.
I mean I, too, would probably jump to that conclusion if we were in a magical warzone and my friends' discord handle just changed to that of a known wildcard murderer
but sweet cheezits, blake
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spinagon 02-Jun-20 09:48 PM
Wow, you and Jade livereading simultaneously in channels right next to each other is confusing
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JayManiac 02-Jun-20 09:49 PM
Clearly I need to start upping my donation so that at least our names are different colors
Oh wait do you mean that she's livereading Pale?
Like, right now?
Oh shit, that is in fact what appears to be happening
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Wildbow 02-Jun-20 09:50 PM
Well, not rightnowrightnow. She stepped away again. I think there are IRL distractions
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spinagon 02-Jun-20 09:52 PM
Hmm, have we seen Jay and Jade in the same room at the same time?
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JayManiac 02-Jun-20 09:52 PM
Gotcha; I didn't know she was reading both simultaneously. Maybe that's why she hasn't totally rocketed ahead of me while my back was turned. I do hope I'll be able to read it faster than it's written, when the time comes
pfft
You've got me- my fedora is glamoured; when I take it off tattoos start appearing on my arms and I login to a different youtube channel
ThorburnBogeyman: I don’t know if I should be touched at Owen’s offer of help despite family lines or offended that he thinks its mneeded. Lola is fine.
I was touched. I don't think you have the right to be offended that he's drawing what would seem to be a fairly obvious conclusion
ThorburnBogeyman: No you don’t. Penelope is exactly right. There’s a time limit if we’re going to change anything. By dawn, something will be decided about the fight for Jacob’s Bell. You have a window of opportunity. Penny[D]: Don’t put words into my mouth. Penny[D]: I stand by my family. Penny[D]: Thick or thin.
I think Blake is in a pretty terrible negotiating position at the moment. He's assuming a lot about how the junior council's goals align with his, and talking to a lot of people who are far keener on the idea of family than he's used to, having grown up among the thorburns. I don't know if he 'gets' it.
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JayManiac 02-Jun-20 10:21 PM
Penny[D]: the deals I was asking for were for truce, to keep this council intact and preserving it. Penny[D]: Both the older ones and the young ones. Penny[D]: That’s family. You don’t pick and choose family.
Which is interesting, because from an anthropological standpoint, that's the staple of industrialism. I've actually been waiting for a chance to talk about this, because I find it fascinating. I don't know if I'm ever gonna make the video "Practitioner Families and How They Parallel Observed Subsistence Strategies and Kinship Organizations" but I'm pretty sure there's enough to say there that I might be able to. Duchamps resemble a clan with matrilineal kinship organization as it's observed in patriarchal societies. The women are distributed out to various families, who then send support and implied allegiance in times of crisis to recognize that. The Behaims are a straightup lineage. Both systems fall under what's called Unilineal Descent (one line of descent traced through either fathers or mothers, which determines who you consider kin). You don't pick who your family is, you stick with them probably until you die or until you can establish your own lineage somewhere else. Duchamps are a budding clan, uniting a number of lineages under a single banner. This is more common in agricultural societies, peoples who have a lot of stake in sticking to one place and cultivating something there.
Industrialism, however, almost never follows unilineal descent, and when it does, it's typically carried over from an earlier subsistence strategy. Generally speaking, industrialism follows bilateral descent, wherein the idea of kin is individualized, and the only family you can't choose is that of the nuclear household (your immediate siblings, parents, and children; that's it). Everyone else is considered kin only if you consider them kin. My anth professor actually went through his family tree and roasted all of the family members he doesn't consider kin and wouldn't support if they asked him for help because they've been absolute assholes his entire life; it was kind of great. The point being that the ideology penelope would seem to be espousing here isn't a very industrial one; it's quite unilineal. As for what that means in the story moving forwards, I haven't quite parsed out, but it's something to keep an eye on with regard to how the Practice functions. Will we see a movement towards more bilateral descent systems in the future, as these ones lose power? Why do these systems still hold sway in this society?
Owen[B]: You don’t know anything. [Th]Blake: I know more than you’d think. The Lord will get picked, and the city will run much as it did. Only bigger. Worse. If I was in your shoes, I would be terrified of the idea of the lordship being decided in your familys favor. Craig[B]: maybe if i was a duchamp
I'm gonna side with Blake on this one; hell, I'm terrified of the idea of the lordship being decided in his family's favor too- maybe most of all, even
Also: Craig continues to be Craig
I wonder if that was an intentional choice, and we're supposed to be finding him incredibly annoying throughout all of these proceedings, or if I'm just shitting on him for no reason
Owen[B]: A fresh set of eyes isn’t a share of what we deal with is older than the printing press. [Th]Blake: Isnm’t that the logic your parents use to justify manipulating you, Owen?
Unilineal societies also tend to be those which haven't changed for a long time. The elders are respected because their knowledge and experience is still useful. We see a bit of a break away from that in times of cultural upheaval, wherein the newer generation is more familiar with the useful technologies (including techniques) than their predecessors.
A lot to think about concerning the Practice's interactions with the internet
Tandy[B]ear: yea sorta Tandy[B]ear: the parental logic I mean
Tandy is the best
This is really alerting me to what I tend to like characterization-wise over text based media, and which choices earn my respect/which ones annoy me to no end
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Wildbow 02-Jun-20 10:28 PM
What sort of thing annoys you?
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JayManiac 02-Jun-20 10:37 PM
The trends I'm seeing are low-effort, biting comments that add nothing helpful. Low effort in that Craig is the only one who doesn't capitalize a single thing and uses almost no punctuation, which- while not so bad on its own -gives me less of a starting point for how to read what he's saying. And when what he's saying has already been vaguely annoying, the lack of punctuation or active voice to his comments make it easy for me to read it in the Least Charitable Way Possible. Like, was this annoying, biting voice what he probably intended while typing? Maybe not, but I don't have anything else to go off of!? The closest thing the typing style has to a personality is 'lazy'. And while that can work, or be circumvented by what you're actually saying...I find it's best to be clear, or at least unclear in an interesting way. It might be more of a me thing than an Actual Ethical Truth Of Internetiquette, since I put Kind Of A Lot Of Effort into pushing my personality through the text so it's not likely to be misread (meaning my expectation is raised) but I certainly find it annoying sometimes.
Lea[D]: Or help. Penny[D]: Or help. Craig[B]: especially help from someone whose an avowed murderer
Also: Hypocrisy. Which I find annoying irl too, but just creates a combined effect here to affect my disposition regarding Craig.
Also: *who's
Because I'm not typically the most grammar/using the Right Words oriented person but if you're already getting on my nerves you will hear from me about it because I'm perhaps a tad more spiteful than I'd like to be.
[Th]Blake: ?ns after. complicated. I’mn not making promises. But if any Duchamp in this chat feels the need to speak their voice, like Gail mnight’ve needed someone to speak for her, name husbands or members of family who have crossed lines or needed to die, tell me. Chat JBJC [Sunrise at 7:12] has been silenced by Penny[D]. Only chat moderators may speak. They thank you for your patience. Penny[D]: Okay. Penny[D]: No. Penny[D]: I’m sorry, but this isn’t okay. Penny[D]: I can’t let my cousins and sister and everyone else do something at 4am in the morning that they might regret.
Oh this was Blake's plan. Wonderful. Semi-consensual weakening of the duchamp family via murder- what could go wrong!? I'm going to be fairly shocked if this works
"No, no, see this is so much better- I just- look, you give me some of the names" "Blake wtf" "And I'll give em the ol' Hyena Treatment!" "Blake no" "What!? I'm asking first! I'm being courteous!"
lol 1
Mags: If I don’t get a satisfactory response, I’m unmuting the chat. Elliepete has joined JBJC [Sunrise at 7:12] Christoff has joined JBJC [Sunrise at 7:12] Penny[D]: If you unmute the chat, and anyone is shortsighted enough to give him names, you might as well be killing them. Penny[D]: who the hell are these guys?
1. That is a huge leap in responsibility there penny. I maybe get "don't give him names, he's gonna kill people" but "don't unmute the chat you're basically killing people because of choices a bunch of other people might make" is so much more questionable. It pushes undue responsibility to Mags, and pushes it off of the duchamps who may or may not speak up, which strikes me as a little problematic.
2. Oh shit, everything just got so much fucking worse
3. Elliepete is the Steven Universe Fusion that fucking nobody ever wanted and poses a significant threat to the universe
Ilovethis 3
Chat JBJC [Sunrise at 7:12] has been unsilenced by Mags. Owen[B]: Fuck you, Penelope.
This sure is the internet alright
Penny[D]: This is getting too difficult to manage. Owen[B]: You had no right. No right to cut off all communications. ChloMo[D]: Manage, Penny, or control?
I mean, were Athena, Aphrodite, and Hera to blame for the whole trojan fiasco? Absofuckinlutely, they were crazy. But this is still all over Blake's golden murderapple here.
Else[B]: Again, strangers in chat. Are they the Faerie? Elliepete: Wrong again.
Though that is a pretty Fae response to that question
[Th]Blake: I brought them in because they’re faces.m They’re actual people. Because I wanted to generate some sympathy for them,. and I’m praying they won’t be assholes. Elliepete[Th]: us? be assholes? Imagine that.
Oh no. Oh no, Blake's plan was so much worse than I thought. It relies on The Thorburns not being assholes, for one.
lol 1
[Th]Blake: I walked into this with no intention of even touching diabolism. Not ever. Rose did too. I held onto my convictions, even as I lost m y life, my humanity, my familiar, friends who I loved. My bike, dammnit. Everything I hold dear. I could have spoken some names and summoned things and solved problems but I never did. [Th]Blake: I was away for a time. Rose has been in the middle of this since the end of December. She got desp[erate. She’s using demons for leverage. I don”t like the slipp[ery sl;ope shes’ on. [Th]Blake: Damn these wooden hands
Ilovethis
even as I worry about Blake doing the same thing, turning people into monsters so he can be justified in killing them, I do agree with what he's saying and I've been waiting for him to say it for arcs at this point.
ElliePete[Th]: Mags? Can I talk? Unrestricted? I feel like I have to chime in, but I can’t do it with one line. Chat restriction lifted for ElliePete[Th] Owen[B]: Favoring the Thorburns a little, Mags? I know you’re friendly with them. Mags: I’m trying to be impartial. If you have something new to say, ask, I’ll do the same. ElliePete[Th]: Fuck you all! Mags: …
I feel so bad for laughing this hard
I don't know what exactly I expected but holy shit it wasn't that
Ilovethis 5
ElliePete[Th]: This is a chatroom filled with teenagers? Children? Fuck you! Mags: Keep that up and I’ll kick you. ElliePete[Th]: I’m going somewhere with this.
I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse
lol 2
ElliePete[Th]: I was there when Blake was talking to an other, making a deal with it. Telling it not to go after kids. Nobody under twenty. Being here, reading this chat and putting the pieces together, I’m more convinced than ever that this world is fucked up and upside down. And that includes you, Blake, because you think any of these people are worth a damn. Else[B]: Thorburns, making friends and influencing people. Mags: I’m about to revoke your privilege to chat freely, Elliepete. ElliePete[Th]: Fuck it! Fuck your collective righteousness. You’re worse than your parents. You’re everything that’s wrong with the world, and that’s not counting the monsters and bumpkins and shit! I hope you’re ashamed. If I could make deals with Others, I’d do the opposite of what Blake did. I’d send the monsters after you, not after your parents. Your parents at least mostly admit what they are and what they’re doing. But here you are, sitting here, and you’re convincing yourselves you’re upright. Oh, you’re doing good, you’re speaking up. You’re getting a voice for yourselves. And if there’s something wrong with all this, you’re not to blame at all. It’s your *parents* fault. You’re insulated from it, because your parents are keeping you at arms length.
Worse. Definitely worse
why did he ever think this was a good- wait hold on
Oh shit
[Th]Blake: Believe it or not, I think a lot of Penelope and several of the others here. Even with the brief censorship earlier. I wouldn’t have come here to reach out to them if I didn’t. They’re scared, they’re in a tough position, powerless but still part of the families and the bigger machinations. Owen[B]: Why does it bother me more that he’s trying to defend us?
What if this is a big ploy to get everyone on Blake's side by virtue of "at least I'm not Peter"
sweet cheezits that's dumb enough that it might just work. Goes against the stated purpose of "I want you to see each other as people"
lol 1
But like...if he needed someone crazy enough to make him seem reasonable these were the right people to call
Dolores2[D]: It shouldn’t. I think he’s mostly right.
Also !!!
I knew I'd grow to like Lola- she'll totally become friends with Mags, just wait
it feels so victorious to have at least one member of the council here on Blake's side
because I, too, mostly agree with him. With some major stipulations mostly having to do with methods, and whether what he's doing will actually help
ElliePete[Th]: Fuck you, Blake. Scared, in a tough position? Who here isn’t? You know what I think? They’re all complicit. They know they’re complicit. They know they can change things, half of the people in this chat probably know know they should have said or done something different when people were openly discussing what to do about Molly Walker. Or acted after they heard about it. Or hate their parents because their parents kept them in the dark. Christoff: My big brother got his throat cut. He went out like a hero, getting eaten alive. I still don’t know how he deserved it. Penny[D]: It’s more complicated than that. Mags: I don’t know if it is. I don’t sleep easy anymore. I haven’t since Molly died. I was there. I’m as complicit as anyone except maybe Sandra, Johannes or Laird. Laird, at least, paid for it in a roundabout way.
I mean yeah, it's more complicated than that and also yeah, everyone's complicit. Just because it's a lot more difficult to act than peter is making it out to be doesn't abdicate them of responsibility. It's an explanation, but as an excuse? Questionable. That said, Peter's advocating hatred of your family as the proper response...I dunno, how'd that work out for you, pete?
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JayManiac 02-Jun-20 11:14 PM
....fair
but he's also a huge asshole
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Megafire 02-Jun-20 11:14 PM
So, given the situation, not too bad?
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JayManiac 02-Jun-20 11:14 PM
who's miserable
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Megafire 02-Jun-20 11:14 PM
Well, shouldn't these kids be miserable looking at what they're about to get into? (edited)
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JayManiac 02-Jun-20 11:15 PM
I don't know if we should be working off of those particular qualifiers. Blake's neither of those things and I'd still rather hang out with him.
Oh I just meant as in 'Pete is a miserable person who'll be miserable pretty much no matter what happens to him"
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Megafire 02-Jun-20 11:15 PM
Like, one of his cousins was brutally murdered and these kids are making excuses for why they didn't make a big deal of it.
I think he's got the right to be an asshole.
(There are better targets for him to be an asshole at, but he can't reach them.)
Also, yeah.
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JayManiac 02-Jun-20 11:16 PM
like, he'd be an effective practitioner, but just as spiteful and horrible and annoying and self-hating in that world as he was before. Okay yeah he's got the right to say all this, but it's not like he was a Sterling Example Of Human Kindness before
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Megafire 02-Jun-20 11:17 PM
True.
It's just that sometimes being an asshole is the right thing to do?
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JayManiac 02-Jun-20 11:18 PM
I get the reasoning, but I think, actually, that none of those reasons are the reason he's being an asshole right now. Just because he's an asshole who happens to be in a situation where being an asshole is warranted doesn't actually make him a good or tolerable person.
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Megafire 02-Jun-20 11:18 PM
Oh, absolutely.
I don't think we're actually disagreeing so much as quibbling over details, so I'll stop interrupting.
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JayManiac 02-Jun-20 11:19 PM
You're good XD - was a fun side-tangent!
[Th]Blake: I don’t think anyone here feels good about what happened to her. I do think that unless things change, it’s going to happen again. A lot of us, even me, for a time, have ignored what happened. You can’t ignore history, or it repeats itself. I told this to Penelope and a few others here, not long ago, but there’s no reason for things to change.
And it's hard to pull a reason for things to change from nowhere. Whatever happens, why wouldn't we just deal with it the way we've dealt with every single other thing? Those are the methods that work
Penny[D]: And for that to happen, you need a list of people to murder? I can almost respect where you’re coming from. I think you said we cooperated, once? I respect that. But this isn’t a fix. I can’t say how proud I am that nobody spoke up to give you any names, after the chat was unsilenced. [Th]Blake: I have seven names.. I got private m essages while chat was silenced
Hhhhhhhhh, and here's where I almost flip back to penelope's side. Because I still don't think that killing more people is gonna be any kind of push to change things. I get why he thinks it will- because these are perpetrators of the system -but I don't see this as a step outside of its bounds. He's not doing things in a way that sets a different precedent. I'm not as solidly against it as she is here, but I don't think it's a victory.
Penny[D]: This was supposed to be a safe place. A place where we could come without feeling like we were surrounded by giants, always on the bottom rung. ElliePete[Th]: Or a place where you could work on insulating yourselves, reassuring yourselves you were doing right? Says a lot that you call yourselves the Junior Council. Training to be your moms and dads.
Ouch.
I get the idea that 'someone had to say it'
but was that really the best way to?
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Seregraug 02-Jun-20 11:25 PM
Clearly Penny's family doesn't agree with her. (edited)
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Megafire 02-Jun-20 11:25 PM
I'm gonna go with 'probably'.
It has to be jarring, I think, so they can't dismiss it easily.
agree 1
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JayManiac 02-Jun-20 11:26 PM
Which I get
it's an age-old debate
Whether to say something so jarring it can't be ignored, or try to prod lightly at the issue so people don't become defensive balls of opinion that nothing can penetrate
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Megafire 02-Jun-20 11:28 PM
I think the one-two punch is what makes it land here.
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JayManiac 02-Jun-20 11:28 PM
I guess I just think that certain people are capable of reorganizing thought such that their values are only reinforced by reading something like this.
because the answer to the age old debate is that you have to know your audience- some people respond better to straightforwards and jarring.
Clearly some things here hit home, though, so I'll give that to him. I just know that for some people there it's only gonna reinforce, and worry about what that could mean in the future.
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Ishamoridin 02-Jun-20 11:40 PM
Also worth noting that Peter and the other human Thorburns in chat are the only people free of responsibility for what's happening. How much lands on the JC is debatable, but it's not none, so expecting Peter to be the one reaching out to them feels a bit...eh (edited)
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Elliot (Boy) 02-Jun-20 11:56 PM
Thanks Jay! I really love this chapter and it was good to see someone else do a bit of yo-yo-ing about who’s “right” as they read it
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JayManiac 02-Jun-20 11:59 PM
This was an excellent chapter~ I love chat-channel chapters in media, firstly because it's so rare and I love the medium, but secondly because the kind of discussion you get in a chat client can be distilled onto the page and give a really straightforward and unique perspective on everything that continues to be consistent with the world.
It's also interesting to see how the typical structures and expectations of literature are played with in this medium, where the 'tension' or 'action' is in a chapter like this
Because they're present but they're not functioning the exact same way
which, I suspect, answers my question about the spirits
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JayManiac 03-Jun-20 12:02 AM
agree
And Re: Ishamoridin: I kind of agree, but would also add that Peter being expected to reach out would not be in the top ten most fucked up things going on right now. Like no, there's no reason for him to, but if nobody steps up to be the better person then we're left with a bunch of justified assholes. Which is already kind of what we had. Which sucked. So I think he should've reached out, but never thought he was going to, and understand why he didn't.
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Ishamoridin 03-Jun-20 12:05 AM
Yeah, fair. Still, any room that I don't think Peter's the biggest prick in isn't a good room
agree 1
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Megafire 03-Jun-20 12:05 AM
I love Peter so much.
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Ishamoridin 03-Jun-20 12:05 AM
Oh 100%
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Elliot (Boy) 03-Jun-20 12:06 AM
Twig arc 1 I like Peter same as how I like Sy. (edited)
agree 5
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JayManiac 03-Jun-20 12:06 AM
That's a very good way of putting it, Elliot
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Megafire 03-Jun-20 12:06 AM
Yup.
Honestly, I didn't like Peter in chapter 1, but when he returned, the situation had gotten bad enough that his particular brand of awfulness was kind of refreshing.
And also, he's progressively more able to put his asshole tendencies to actually productive use, which is great. (edited)
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JayManiac 03-Jun-20 12:08 AM
Yeah, in chapter one he's just a dick for no reason. By arc 12 the book has set up a bunch of reasons for him to be a dick to. Has he changed? Not really, but circumstances have conspired such that we like him more
agree 3
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JayManiac 04-Jun-20 02:16 AM
Alright, that sure is a liveread that has spoilers for what I'm about to get into! I'm gonna look at it later; although I am curious as to the differences people find between my livereads and Jade's.
I can think of a couple right off the bat: I'm far less inclined towards criticism of the book- or just criticism in general- I love the perspective, but it's not exactly my tack with the text; In fact, my read tends to lean away from the specifics of the plot or even the themes of the story at times- in favor of examining ethos of the world at large, though there are plenty of exceptions; she has more life experience than I do, which makes for a distinct difference in the anecdotes and perspectives we bring to the table. It's perhaps especially striking because we're not actually that many years of having lived apart, but the nature of those specific years means we have very different roles in the world, and tools with which to see it. But I do also think the two of us have relatively little experience with each other's 'reads thus far (despite this taking me on a 30 minute tangent of reading Jade's livereads instead of the book in front of me), so I'd be very interested to hear the thoughts of people who've been around for both!
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JayManiac 04-Jun-20 02:28 AM
In the meantime, though, let's read this book! I'll add that I might be slightly distracted, because while I was busy being distracted by my own liveread comparison tangent my partner also decided that Now was a good time to start reading Pact so I'll be hopping between reacting to that and reading this. I'll try not to accidentally send them quotes from a dozen arcs later. Also this probably means that if they make an especially interesting prediction or especially fun hot take I'll be putting it here.
On a level, Penelope might have cornered herself, trying to censor the chatroom. Now she was in a position where exercising her powers over the chat could cost her. Until another mod came on, maybe a Behaim representative, the Thorburns would have access.
So this is where we leave the chat: with Blake stepping away, having set the Thorburns loose on everyone. I do agree with a lot of what Blake is doing, but as someone who's had to moderate chats before these are some underhanded, manipulative tactics, and the people they remind me of aren't good ones. He's starting to look like the worst of humanity here even as he works for goals I agree with: offline, he resembles a serial killer or hitman, while online he uses the tactics of an internet troll. I would be extremely worried about stepping away from this computer, having set the Thorburns on it, but I suppose Blake has more murder-y things to worry about.
A part of me can't help but giggle at the idea of Alister checking his phone in the middle of whatever he's doing with Rose, and then finding all of this shit going down. Brings a smile to my face.
Manipulating the system was something of a Thorburn specialty. If I didn’t benefit, it was because of my unique nature. I was only part Thorburn. Literally.
-Blake, 2 seconds after pulling some heavily manipulative tactics on his enemies to create uncertainty and gather names for his hitlist
lol 3
I tapped the table, hard wooden fingers rapping on wood, then double checked the piece of paper where I’d written the names. My wooden hands had made my already abysmal handwriting into a scrawl, for the last four entries. The first three had been done in Joyce’s.
This is a reveal that I wasn't expecting, but probably should've. Blake also implied that he got seven names from the other duchamps in the chat, when he only got four; he's still not above those technical-truths, so long as it makes for an impactful statement.
Carter Duchamp, PyromancerLandon Michaelsson, Spellbinder Gudbrand, Valkalla Crooked Hat, Scourge Eric Ritchie, Dabbler Stan Ritchie, Dabbler Mason Hall-McCullough the Benevolent
It'll be fun to see these practitioning styles at play though; I always enjoy getting more magic to pick apart, whether new or variations on things we've seen before. We know that Scourges are bogeyman-mages, which will already have interesting interactions with Blake. Pyromancy should be straightforward but who can say with Pact? I'm sure there'll be an interesting twist; it's also just a bad class for Blake to be up against, considering that Fire is one of his weaknesses. Spellbinders are new as far as I remember, Valkalla are either new or related to Valkyries- I'm intrigued either way. The Dabblers are unpredictable- and surprising. I wonder if that means they're any less powerful than others on this list? If so, why were they worth adding to the Duchamps' repitoir? Powerful connections? Dabbling family? Brothers who specialize in whatever the other one doesn't? Who knows?
“It worked. His being a pyromancer is… almost negligible, in terms of what we wanted from him. Not so much in terms of what he can do. We wanted someone willing and able to do some less legitimate business, we married off one of our own to him, and he got her into that life.”
Getting a glimpse into the Duchamp tactics is very fun; I appreciate the nuance in how they select their targets- each one providing different benefits. Other books might just go "this one's powerful in this way, and this one's powerful in this way!" but wb goes for a much wider variety, which typically makes things more interesting.
“Spellbinder,” Joyce said. When I looked a bit confused, she added, “An enchanter, but specialized in control.
I see why we were talking about Heartbreaker earlier
“He bound his wife. To keep her from passing information on to us. Bound her mind and bound her bodies, so she only does what he says.”
Fuck fuck fuck I really see why we were talking about Heartbreaker earlier
“You could have told me. Holy shit. We condone that?” “He’s strong,” Joyce said. “And we play a long game. Sandra promised we’d act against him, and that the revenge would be dramatic enough that others would know we weren’t to be trifled with.” “But only if we got the Lordship?” Lola guessed. “Only if we had that clout?”
Lola has quickly rocketed up to My Favorite Duchamp. I mean...not that that's saying much- but I really do like her, though. Favorite Non-Mags member of the junior council- wow that's kind of still not saying much alright. I really hope she has whatever it's going to take to start changing things. I think she might be one of the only ones who really gets it- maybe even more than Blake, who's a bit biased in the other direction.
“He was unhappy with the fact that she only bore girls. Valkyries and the various offshoots, they work with spirits and souls. Rather than have girls, he used his newborn daughters.”
I'm not saying I support what blake is doing, or even that I'm moving in that direction...okay I'm moving a little in that direction.
I am going to say I'm finding myself increasingly naive for my stubborn attempts to stick to a "killing people bad" kind of morality.
While continuing to stick to it.
I just don't think anyone deserves to die- if someone is actively dangerous and the safest way to stop that threat is to kill them...I might still say that you should've found another solution, but I respect that a lot more. I'm still not sure how I feel about all of this, but the story is doing a lot of legwork to sell these guys as pretty irredeemable and that's important somehow.
“His Demesne overlaps with a section of the Abyss. He’s trying to learn to manipulate the Abyss to his own ends. The elder Duchamps thought it was enough of a prospect that we could, how to phrase it, metaphorically buy stock in the venture?” “He went there willingly?” I asked. “Long term?” “Yes. I don’t know what he did that made someone think he deserves to die, I haven’t even heard that he’s a bad person.”
And right as I say that we get into some uncertainty, the book gives us this name in a context where whoever gave it isn't here to defend the choice.
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JayManiac 04-Jun-20 03:02 AM
In fact, I think it was Ward that first convinced me of the concept of irredeemability, by demonstrating it with Cradle, Crock, and the like. Cradle's arc in particular is one that I can think of and say concretely that the story gave him his due, didn't dismiss his humanity, and came to the conclusion that his demise was good/warranted in a way that didn't feel cheap. Even then, I would never say he should be put to death or anything, but the idea that someone can just dig themselves a hole that there's no coming out of is one that I've rarely seen demonstrated in a way I could agree with. I have trouble seeing people as just a "murderer" or "monster" pretty much no matter what they've done. Which I'm going to at least partially credit my experience with Worm for.
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Project Waffler 04-Jun-20 03:05 AM
That is an interesting point. For all we know, Crooked Hat made the list just because he's a scourge and someone finds that sketchy/evil. Pretty much the same logic everyone else has been after Blake for the whole book. Although I'll grant that diabolism should be its own category of Bad.
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JayManiac 04-Jun-20 03:07 AM
Exactly; like, I don't doubt that you'd be able to find justifications for killing him, but you're absolutely right to point out the potential hypocrisy
“Longevity goes hand-in-hand with good karma,” Joyce said. “Which he has. In abundance.” “He practices using Karma?” “Yes. I can see why people would be unhappy with him. He made his wife miserable. Tricked our family, even. Neglected to mention that he already had three wives, making his Duchamp wife the fourth. Likeable in person, but less so from a distance, and those of us who realized that kept our distance, myself included. We never had an angle or clear excuse to retaliate for his deception, but that’s how he operates.”
I almost feel like I've been waiting for a practitioner like this ever since they were described. We know that the behaims have a degree of it, and it's implied that the other magical families do too, but the idea that horrible people can get away with a lot because the universe itself is in their favor was too good to pass up. It also makes him a wickedly difficult target. I fully expect everything to go wrong as soon as Blake starts making moves against him.
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Elliot (Boy) 04-Jun-20 03:11 AM
I'm almost always team redeem/rehabilitate, but fuck if Rather than have girls, he used his newborn daughters didn't get me to lay off Blake a bit
agree 2
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JayManiac 04-Jun-20 03:11 AM
I know, I know
it was a kick right to that instinct
which is why I had to bring it up
it's just- hhhhhhhhhhh. I had to check in and make sure I was still against all the things happening.
Like, this is still such a bad plan with so many ways to go wrong
even if you trust Joyce as an arbiter of who should and shouldn't die, we don't always have her outlook to reassure us
“Almost. Almost. It sounds like he’s a personification of everything I hate about all of this.”
That's a really good way to put it, actually. I was just talking about how the Behaims have an aspect of the good karma system, and that's this guy's whole thing. The idea that you can get pretty powerful just playing to the universe's whims and making the token movements while crushing everyone underfoot the whole while. That by reinforcing and playing into the whole shitty system it rewards you.
Carl, who I’d last seen in a nice apartment, enjoying himself as he talked to people. Sometimes bad people slipped the noose. Sometimes good people suffered.
If ever there was any doubt that Blake was gonna go through with this...
Did I trust that there weren’t any traps in here? No. The Benevolent Polygamist was the most obvious potential trap. Old enough that it wasn’t a true loss to the family if he died, and if he was as fortunate as I hadn’t been, back when I’d been custodian of the house, I could be running headlong into disaster, if I challenged him.
Oh holy shit, nevermind, then
I can't help but wonder if he's going to walk that back eventually
not that the universe would probably put him in a situation where killing this guy would be easy, but...it feels too thematically juicy to cross off the list for good. I think we'll at the very least run into him.
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Elliot (Boy) 04-Jun-20 03:20 AM
Argh I'm so sorry Jay but I can't go into #pact_spoilers atm so NO JAY I wonder when Jay will piece together why Mason keeps getting dropped down the priority list. It's such a fun little detail to notice.
same 7
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JayManiac 04-Jun-20 03:21 AM
Fiiiiine
I didn’t fuss with looking for the brothers Stan and Eric. Yes, I had Lola’s assurance that they deserved what was coming to them, but they were minor. Not a threat.
That comes with a few more stipulations than your statement just implied. They're not a threat if they don't get the chance to network- that could mean that they've got some sort of specialty in organizing things.
Looking for them, I found Crooked Hat. The scourge. Identified, surely enough, by the worn, bent top hat he wore. He wore a tattered trench coat that looked like my sweatshirt did, albeit dustier than mucky, buttoned over a vest and a dress shirt with a tie, and he carried a bent cane. The items didn’t match, not quite, despite his generally neutral color scheme. The various articles of clothing had been collected. Trophies.
I love the detail in his description, the abyssal nature of his dress. I can picture it and it's just perfectly unsettling
My approach was noticed. Two Duchamp women and Crooked Hat laid eyes on me and my pursuer. One of the women, by the looks of it, was his wife. Here it was. They were talking to one another, deciding who would handle what.
I'm not entirely confident in saying that Blake has already kind of fucked this up, but rushing the enemy lines was not what I had in mind for this plan.
How did one fight an Enchantress? Same way one fought a Faerie, presumably. Directness, to counteract subtlety.
I like the callback- not sure if he's exactly right here, but something to keep thinking about. I think things touched by the abyss might actually be pretty good weapons against enchantresses, actually, as slightly more disconnected entities.
Right. Of course there was a connection between me and the ground. And if that could be strengthened-
Getting to see the varied applications of enchantment at its finest is so much fun.
His stick extended, touching the railing. Tapping. The railing broke down the middle, as if someone had driven a motorcycle into the midpoint. The wooden slats formed a triangle, broken halves. The broken pieces were longer than they should have been, and they braced one another, touching the wall of the building.
a lot of this is just going to be me going "aaaaah this is really cool" but so be it. His stick is the Hyena on steroids.
“Here isn’t so different from there,” Crooked Hat told me. “Sometimes, all we need is a push.”
This theme is rearing its head again and again, practically every time we deal with the abyss
The amount of shit people could pull because others bought into the idea that it was just so. Mystically and in real life. No. It wasn’t just so. I wasn’t going to fall into that trap. I hadn’t, when Carl had tried to make me buy his worldview, trapping me in his way of thinking.
Ilovethis
Shit on me, he truly believed that this world and the Abyss were close. Fuck me, that took pessimism to a whole new level. To only see ugliness everywhere, to see danger?
Hey, welcome to your grandma's worldview
I love the metaphorical implications of that kind of worldview, coupled with this kind of magic btw
it's wonderful- an extension of a whole bunch of things we've talked about before -but wonderful nonetheless
He raised one hand to tip his hat. The surroundings skewed, just a little. As if everything was slightly ajar. I could see things between the cracks. A dry, dusty, place, not so different from here. The buildings on the other side were all askew, more abstract than real. The place was bright, but it was the kind of bright that killed. That made paint peel and skin burn and plant life die. The kind of bright that bowed and broke, that left people swaddled in rags and hunched over, crawling. A radiation sun.
This is so cinematic and I love it, the language, the implication, all of it
“You know stuff, huh?” I asked. “About the Abyss?” “And this world.” “Yeah? Do you know why your family asked me to kill you?” I asked. “Because they did.” I saw his eyes widen a fraction.
This doesn't exactly strike me as the tack usually employed with the Practice- this is more fighting Like with Like
There were exceptional people in this world, people who found their niche, something they were good at, who put their all into it. Some became great scientists, others became artists, or architects. Crooked Hat had become a great cynic, it seemed, and if he was the type to carry the Abyss around with him, very literally, then did he take it home with him? Did he subject his daughters to it? Did they live in the Abyss? Maybe someone in the chatroom had thought so, and thought they needed a way out. Evan, I suspected, was another great sort of person. In the moment I saw him fly free of the reach of others, papers trailing in his wake, I wished I could have seen what he might have grown up to be. He’d survived the Hyena, only to get claimed by the elements. He’d found talents in that, in sheer tenacity, and resourcefulness. He’d been good enough at escaping that spirits had found a connection to him. What could he have been, if he’d been allowed to grow up?
Ilovethis Ilovethis Ilovethis
Ilovethis 3
If I hadn’t been thinking about his better points just a moment ago, I might not have considered our next step from the same angle. Maybe I would have fought, and trusted him to handle himself, or called him to me, so I could protect him and take the brunt of it all. But this… “Go, bird, save the Duchamps!” I called out, pointing at the Duchamps. I tore my upper body free of the trap of wooden spikes. My words made for hesitation. Practitioners heard my words and didn’t attack Evan. But Evan listened, no question. As the Other found its bearings and pressed forward, Evan swept by. Getting the Duchamps on course. Helping them slip away.
AAAAA THIS IS SO GOOD
I tore my lower body free as I pulled myself to my feet, and kicked Crooked Hat squarely in the side. The Other caught his head in one hand, enclosing it. It squeezed.
Oh shit
All the positivity was happening and I forgot that it was to weaken the worldview of this guy Blake just killed
Okay blake didn't technically kill him
Which is important and all, but he went in there with the goal of killing him so I'm not gonna give this one on a technicality nearly as easily
I flung it. Almost automatically, without the man even looking, his shortsword came up, and knocked the cleaver aside. The thrown weapon broke in two with the impact.
And a wave of appreciation for the Hyena's durability washes over me.
His sword came around. Automatic. Always parrying any incoming strike.
I like that we get this as a reflection of the kinds of spirits Evan attracts; these ghosts likely had something to do with being really good at protection, maybe the ghosts of those who died saving someone- which would parallel the original myths about valkyries.
I swatted with the Hyena, as I drew close enough. Sure enough, his sword parried automatically. It left him open. Maybe he expected me to try and cut him, or hit him. But I didn’t. I embraced him, hugging his sword arm to his side, gripping his gun arm, forcing it down.
interesting, that Blake continues to make the moves that are positive on the surface level, to distract and eventually bring down his opponants
the word 'embrace' here sticks out
I wonder if we're stetting up a three-beat there?
A part of me felt like it was mocking me. Taking advantage of the very same thing that had plagued me from the beginning of all this. In a sense, killing a son for the crimes of the father. Onward.
Ouch. that's something I hadn't thought about, but a valid line to draw, cementing me pretty solidly in my original position on these killings. I don't think they're actually helping; my hunch is that they're still perpetuating the things Blake finds wrong with his world.
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JayManiac 13-Jul-20 10:57 PM
It is once again time for me to spontaneously decide to read more pact! I may have to duck out before the end of the chapter this time around (have a thing that will be happening in 1.5-2.5 hrs that I can't predict- and I'm a little out of Practice (ha) so my commentary might be a bit more sparse (although those two effects could just cancel out) but I figure that it's better to leap at the opportunities as I feel up to them. I really didn't mean to leave it for this long, and I do plan on continuing this liveread, it's just very easy to get swept up in torrents of days and weeks, having signed yourself up for far too many things for a summer where the world's on pause. It's also more difficult in these chapters where 1. I feel a bit rusty on the livereading, and that I'm providing far less imaginative commentary than I typically would. 2. it's very action-heavy, and I don't have as much to say on those parts despite their typical awesomeness, which compounds the issue as I wonder if I'm still qualified. I don't know if I can promise more forthcoming reads since I have a number of irons in the fire, but it's in the plan. Luckily, it's been long enough that Jade has completely shot past me right to the finish line and we're not in any kind of spoiler limbo! So we've got that at least. (edited)
sharkhi 2
Now, onto 13.6- luckily Pages will be forthcoming, according to this table of contents, and those parts always have a bit more of the kinds of things I can analyze more easily (worldbuilding, contained structure, quick characterization, plotting, and episodicism) (it's mostly worldbuilding) and that should be enough to kick me into gear.
I’d perched on the edge of a rooftop, and I watched through curtains of falling snow as the Duchamps shifted positions. The tolling of the bell in the background had returned to normal, or as normal as a ghostly knell could get.
Ah yes, the ominous tolling of the bell that the book lets you forget about just long enough that you lower your defenses a smidge...experiencing the weight of The Bell pumping the town with vengeance and an inability to communicate feels strikingly familiar.
I saw how the group moved as they came around the edge of the park. There were groups that had broken into threes – the pyromancer was part of one group, and there were two more groups that were composed entirely of Duchamp women and girls. As an Other approached, it was set on fire, left to scream and roll around in the snow.
So he's not just one of those 'aren't I cool I lit my cigar with my thumb' type pyromancers. {/looks over at our protagonist made of dead wood*} Neat.
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JayManiac 13-Jul-20 11:15 PM
Green Eyes jerked her head around, startling. “Hi Molly,” I said, without turning. “Expanding your senses?” Molly asked. “No,” I said. “Evan didn’t freak out, and Green Eyes didn’t lunge. Not many people it could be.”
I disagree, actually- this is a very strange beat. I do not buy this attempt to rationalize away something that seems this...I don't know, there's something going on here with Blake's senses. Maybe they're not expanded in the traditional sense, more of a thinker power to recognize the 'signature' of negative emotion, and intuitively know who it belongs to? I think blake thinks he just figured it out, but in the left-brain-narration way of 'clearly I know this, and so clearly it was because I figured it out from the available information'
“Cracks. By going out of your way to save them?” “Our weapons aren’t numbers,” I said. “Not blades or guns or bindings or fire. It’s doubt.” “And fear,” Green Eyes said. “In the middle of all that, even while you were being shot, you looked like you were standing an inch taller.” “Fear and doubt, yeah,” I said. “They aren’t much different.”
which is a clever move, but one chosen because it's the way that things are going to change for the better? Or because it's the only option that the drains has afforded you?
That said, it's a good strategy. If you have to use fear, you're making them doubt the right kind of thing.
“Our enemy in all of this is complacency. The faith that everything will all work out okay. We need to shake them,” I said. “Do the unexpected, hit them where they’re weak. And these people, the Benevolent, the dabbler brothers, the Pyromancer, and the Spellbinder? They’re weak points.”
And he is going the unconventional route there, seeding doubt about their overall mission. but as his plan continues, what will that teach his opponents about how the world works? What expectations does it reinforce?
“Damn articulate for a ghost,” I muttered. “What the hell is going on with her?” “I know, right?” Evan asked. “Artakulate. She talks goodish.”
If I don't say that I love Evan every time I read then what have I even accomplished?
agree 3
“No way she’s becoming a god,” I said. “So fast? So easily?” “I know, right? Crazy. It’d be like a ghost becoming the best bird ever.”
Might as well double down on it right now for good measure
but also 👀
If ever there were a time for a god of vengeance to rise from the collective spirit of familicide quickly, it's probably right the fuck now in jacob's bell
That said, it's a very sliding scale and she's probably nowhere near just yet- if people decide to feed her more and more power to use her in their side of the conflict, then we might have a bigger problem on our hands.
An acolyte of Molly Walker is not exactly what the town would probably like to be dealing with at the moment
“You’ve still got holes in you, though.” “There’ll be some trees along the way,” I said. “I can grab some fallen branches.” Evan hopped down, perching on one of the gaping hole in my side. “You’ve got some broken bones, too.” “Don’t do that,” I said, sticking my finger under his bird feet to pry him free of his perch. He hopped from my finger to my shoulder. “And with luck, we’ll have our hands on some bones soon enough.” ■
Wildbow is heartbreakingly good at writing the Textbook Sinister Villain scenes in a way that mixes them with our protagonists continuing to be wholesome and cute.
As next targets went, I kind of liked the Pyromancer. Career criminal, he’d gotten his wife hooked on drugs. ‘Ruined her’. I was already pretty goddamn jealous of anyone who had someone. Knowing that he’d had it and he’d ruined it? That he’d perverted it and made it something ugly? I wasn’t a fan.
I mean as villains go, he's already thinking like the lost cause (who's a lost cause mostly because they think that)
Eyes forward, now, I searched my recollection. What I’d seen of the group before, what I’d seen after. Not quite a ‘spot the differences’ puzzle, given how the group had shuffled and some people had walked further ahead or back, but… there was something. Troll, the thought crossed my mind, an instant before Evan whistled.
I should've really figured out that these assassinations were not going to continue to work- it's the third one, after all, something had to go wrong
In entirely unrelated news, I bring you the invasive thought interrupting my inner monologue: Others are just minmaxers
I don't know how we got here but we're here now
She pulled a water meter off the back of the building in passing without slowing down even a fraction, tearing it free of thick metal pipes and fasteners. It was one of the bigger meters, nearly as large as a microwave, but with the general aesthetic of a parking meter. I glanced back again, just in time to see her throw it. Again, without slowing. She simply used the forward movement to drop into a four-limbed forward lope, moving like a gorilla might. I moved a bit to the right, still heading full-bore away from her. The water meter struck the ground to my left, hard enough that it bit through ice and snow and hit pavement with force enough to spark.
Nothing clever to say I just love the momentum of this chase scene, literally and figuratively
In the moment I wasn’t looking, just as I reached the sidewalk before the intersection in question, a satyr came at me. A headbutt.
Oh yeah! The Frat Satyrs! I love the frat satyrs
Enchantment started to settle around me. One of the teams of three. Same practice they’d employed earlier. If the relationship was between me and the ground, well, there wasn’t a lot I could do to get away from ground. Evan returned just in time. I caught him out of the air, then gripped him, sweeping him between me and the Duchamps, much as I’d once painted lines of blood to break a connection that was being used to track me.
I love this power, I love the abstract-yet-physical magic- this is just such an awesome book
“Whatcha making?” “A parcel,” I said, doubling down on how thick the lines were, to make them obvious. “A parcel. Huh.” I showed him the message on the side. “Per request, for treatment of wife,” Evan said. “Huh?”
Blake engaging in petty warfare and stirring up drama is the best- I don't know if it's necessarily good for the world in general but boy is it fun to read. It's all the action of a typical assassination with a little of that playing-a-really-good-prank sadistic satisfaction to it.
I heard the impact, the scream. I felt the fear. Those two things were very different, in how they affected me. The scream was a reminder that I was dealing with humans. That I was dealing with real people with real feelings, who could somehow be grossed out and alarmed. The fear, that was something else. I didn’t enjoy the fear, but I did feed off it.
When are we going to run into an Other that feeds on laughter instead and gets ten times as much power from it monsters inc style?
You know actually, knowing Wildbow he'd probably find a way to make that even more terrifying than anything to do with the bogeymen
I like the differentiation between the fear and the scream as representing the Other and Human parts of Blake, because it gets to the heart of something kind of interesting: that the abstract idea of fear is almost counter intuitive to feeling empathy for people who express it, to an extent. At least to the extent that it's a socially reinforced concept that in turn is utilized or creates or has some sort of causal relationship with the Drains
I’d been looking for a goal, and I had it, meager as it was. Not a grandiose dream, like being normal again, or riding my bike, or fixing things. I was going to do what I could to steer things towards a better path, and I was going to try to stay true to myself. I’d veer one way or another, along the karmic path or against it. But I was going to be Blake, when all this was said and done. Even if Blake was less than half a person.
Now this is fascinating...that he won't throw his identity away (worm)in the same way taylor did to fix what's wrong with the world, or for a chance at doing so. Or at least, that that's the plan, the better path. It is just so interesting to see the protagonist outright state that things won't go that way, and sets the stakes for the overarching conflict of the book.
Okay I have time I'm gonna start in on the next one and hope I can finish it (edited)
13.7!!
I was the monster from the movies. Difficult to put down, creative in how I killed. I operated by a pattern, and I accomplished what I set out to do.
Which is just...so comforting, and certainly on-trend for what was indicated at the end of last chapter
In assuming my role, here, in lining things up and knocking them down, in sticking to my word, and in doing justice, I was being rewarded by the universe. Things were being allowed to go my way. I didn’t have the burden of Thorburn karma. I was fledgling, relatively newborn, and the parts of me that were older were being subsumed, eroded away in favor of me becoming more of a monster. I was becoming less of a fragment of Russel or Ross Thorburn, and more of a complete Other thing.
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
I'm gonna need the connective thread here that ties it with the last one
He doesn't really give much of an indication that he thinks this is an especially good or bad thing, I suppose
but still
I think the universe is not, in fact, rewarding you for doing justice
Lining things up and knocking them down? universe likes. Justice? So long as you pretend hard enough, I suppose, but...I don't think that's why you're specifically being rewarded here
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JayManiac 14-Jul-20 12:09 AM
Yes, but I'm not sure Blake is really doing things in the karmically sound sense, for one. He doesn't declare his victims, he isn't taking a solid side in the war (which karma probably doesn't like)~ I think it's far more likely that he's just being rewarded by the Drains for accomplishing their entropic deeds of disarray
I could be wrong, and he could be much more karmically backed now (or maybe that's just how it feels to not be so utterly karmically screwed as the rest of the thorburns) but I don't know that he's doing all of the things correctly.
He's making sure not to accumulate bad karma, by not attacking people in their homes, etc.
But is he generating good karma?
Not that it would necessarily mean anything one way or the other if he was- the universe is certainly fucked up enough to reward this kind of thing so who am I to judge?
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Seregraug 14-Jul-20 12:12 AM
I don't know if the universe sees it as good, but as justice, like you were saying.
After all, this is a universe where the whole "sins of the father" is seen as justice. (edited)
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JayManiac 14-Jul-20 12:21 AM
This is true
it's very possibly correct that the universe is rewarding him for this, and I could see the logic for why
“Do you trust yourself?” she asked. I didn’t have an honest answer for her. “That’s not supposed to be snarky or clever. It’s a real question,” she said. “Physically, you’re about as messed up as I am. But your head? Your heart? That’s different. You get hurt and you fill in the gaps with bits of ‘monster’, but you’re doing it faster than I was. But the stuff that hurts your body is different than stuff that hurts your head and your heart.”
I like that we're calling attention to the idea that they're not the same process, and that the things blake is filling in with 'monster' head-wise are more the troubles with his friends, complicated feelings about rose, and struggle with identity than whether he got wallopped by a hat guy
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Seregraug 14-Jul-20 12:24 AM
I think getting permission from the family itself gives him sufficient justification as far as the universe is concerned. Not to mention that Molly is tolling the bell of justice/doom for those complicit in her murder.
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JayManiac 14-Jul-20 12:27 AM
Very good points- he did go through the proper channels in that regard I suppose
Alright, I do have to go now unfortunately, but I'll pick this up tomorrow, hopefully knocking out a couple more chapters while I'm at it; good to be back!
ty 2
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JayManiac 14-Jul-20 10:53 PM
Good to see you! I'll be interested in what you have to say about everything I haven't read yet! And I am back, as permanently as I can be!
And I love the custom name there XD
Now onwards, to the rest of a chapter and the rest of an arc- okay no I probably won't finish the arc today there's literally not enough time.
“A small part of me feels like I was the sort of person who didn’t trust herself, even before I was a monster,” Green Eyes told me. “How can I be sure I can trust myself now?” “That’s a good question,” I said. “I wish I had an answer.” “You’re such a guy,” she said. “God. Not every question needs an answer. Not every problem needs advice. Sometimes the question is an answer. My question was an answer.”
It was still a good question, and while lots of questions don't need an answer or have one forthcoming 'do you trust yourself not to kill random people and decide they deserve it afterwards' is a pretty important one to figure out the answer to, because if the answer is 'no' then you should maybe remove yourself from the situation. To be clear, I think "I have trouble trusting myself in general because of larger more-encompassing mental issues" is a valid answer and that no, not every question really needs an answer and sometimes it's best to just empathize and explore the issue. I really do. But I also feel that this is kind of evading a very important potential circumstance that is going to go unresolved until Green Eyes decides that Sandra deserves death. Which, like, I get- there have been conversations about how Sandra is portrayed in Pact as pretty sympathetic but does do a lot of fucked up things, including the perpetuation of the duchamp's horrible way of attaining more power -but also I don't think she should be killed, and admit to my bias of Actually Kind Of Liking Her. Probably because of Arc 8.
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Jade | i love you video games 14-Jul-20 10:57 PM
I may have either forgotten or missed something - do you agree with the Kill the Duchamp Husbands Plan (KTDHP)?
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spinagon 14-Jul-20 11:00 PM
This thing is so polarizing between livereaders thus far
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Jade | i love you video games 14-Jul-20 11:07 PM
I left to go to the bathroom and he was typing and when I came back he was still typing
ahyperlul 1
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JayManiac 14-Jul-20 11:10 PM
You see, that's a bit of a complicated question, but one that I will Attempt to answer. Basically, no. I have this strange thing about killing people, where I think it's kind of bad. to be clear, I take a bit of a Matt perspective of 'well if they're an active threat and the most effective and safest way to neutralize them is to kill them before they can hurt anyone else, then it's acceptable' but I have a whole lot of trouble with things like the death penalty, the idea that someone ever deserves to die. Deserving to die isn't something I trust the courts with, isn't something I trust myself or any amount of people with, so it's certainly not something I trust Murderblake and the junior council with.
Best case, the duchamp girls come to regret having given him the names and sentenced these guys to death. Worse case, they learn to be okay with it or feel good about it and continue the cycle of eyes for eyes, of 'you did x horrible thing and my response to this is to sic something horrible right back on you'. And actually it doesn't really matter if what they did is 'worse' than what Blake is going to do to them, because it's just piling on bad acts, it doesn't make what he's doing any more right. Okay maybe it makes it a little more right, as in if he was going after innocent people this wouldn't even be a conversation, but I still think that two wrongs don't make a right, and that this kind of killing is still the wrong thing to do.
Also yes! Welcome to 'why these take two hours a chapter'
I'm a person of so, so many words
or I'm just typing the good word of oopw, who knows
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Jade | i love you video games 14-Jul-20 11:14 PM
I was about 15 seconds from giving you an oopw
Thanks for the clarification
I have all of the same feelings about killing, I don't like the death penalty, I recognize that if someone is an active threat they need to go down, and all that
But something about this section made me just... stop worrying about Blake and get ready for some violence
I'm not sure what the difference is or what caused it
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spinagon 14-Jul-20 11:18 PM
These guys are kind of active threat
In that duchamp girls are still married to them
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JayManiac 14-Jul-20 11:23 PM
I talked a bit about it last chapter, but I think a lot of the moments I catch myself going "fuck yeah violence" are just because the action is so satisfying. I'm a sucker for the troublemaker who's trying to manipulate their victims and piss them off in addition to dealing them damage. Like, I like when stories focus on pranks and stirring up drama, or heists- Blake is being clever, he has targets, he's moving in and dealing with them in creative ways. It's also (Twig) one of the first reasons I loved Sy so much- like, top three characters of all time so much -and why I kept rooting for him even though he's mostly a bad person doing pretty bad things to not-as-bad people the entire time
same 3
And it's kind of really a lot of fun to feel like all of the creative assassination is justified, because thinking about what some of these guys have done just triggers such a visceral "fuck you and everything you stand for" reaction in your gut that can easily be set against any growing sense of dread about what this means for our protagonist and world.
I'm mostly concerned about the latter, honestly- the idea that this kind of thing doesn't actually make anything better in the long run because it reinforces certain ideas and ways of doing things that will only be doubled down on continuously.
Why did Green Eyes seem to associate creepy, predator-ish situations with these sorts of discussions? In grave danger? I like you! Stalking potential victims? You’re swell!
Have you considered that you havent' exactly been in situations which aren't those things ever since you busted her out of the abyss? Or honestly very much since the book started!? I think that if you're going to spend one kind of quality time with someone and it's 'in grave danger' they can't exactly be blamed for choosing those moments to have discussions. In fact, she's kind of just choosing the moments that are down-time between being chased by a troll and whateverthefuck else is going to happen next, so props to her!
“Does the trap have something to do with the box over there?” “Box?” Green Eyes and I both asked, almost in sync. “Yeah. Box. Far side. Squiggly bit, circle, zig-zag, then the forky bit, and there’s the circle on the far bit of the forky bit…”
Can Evan see something that the bogeymen can't here? Because they're both bogeymen, or due to some other aspect of his nature? We don't exactly have a control group of anyone who's not an Other to test out theories so...who knows!?
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spinagon 14-Jul-20 11:29 PM
Evan trained for this shit in Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes
Is my new headcanon
Vision is the most important sense for birds, since good eyesight is essential for safe flight, and this group has a number of adaptations which give visual acuity superior to that of other vertebrate groups; a pigeon has been described as "two eyes with wings"
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JayManiac 14-Jul-20 11:31 PM
A very good point
“I’m not sure I should,” I replied. “I’m looking at the diagram, and… look. Some diagrams keep things out. Some keep them in. You can look at the way that things point, and infer a lot from that. Triangles pointing in, triangles pointing out…”
Symbolic geometry is cool; I don't know if we've ever covered it extensively in the 'read or in the book, but I like the idea of shapes being ways to channel certain kinds of power, drawing on the same cultural frameworks as character design, etc. And that with enough understanding of such things and a critical eye you can figure out what certain diagrams are supposed to do. I've realized that the reason my partner is scarily good at making predictions about the magic and worldbuilding in Pact is because they're an art major who's also scarily good at parsing out artistic symbolism, visual composition and analysis, etc. as a result of being really really passionate about it and learning to think about it critically. I'm definitely awakening them if I get sucked into the practice. I hear there's an all new serial about how that's a really bad idea that actively ruins the lives of everyone around you. Most of this is guesswork based entirely on the titles of posts in r/parahumans, but I don't think it's a bad guess.
ahyperlul 1
“We could be going around,” Green Eyes said, practically squirming in impatience. “Just saying.”
Green Eyes almost certainly has the right idea here, but I'm curious so poke it.
“As traps go, I don’t think we want whatever’s in that box to get out,” I said. “It could be a curse, an Other…” “Or a distraction from chasing them,” Green Eyes said. “A mystical bit of mumbo jumbo to catch your attention and not let it go. Because that’s how those enchantresses work, right?”
This would be a hilarious strategy that's just dumb enough to work. Set up something that looks complicated, but its only magical effect is looking like it does something way more powerful.
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JayManiac 14-Jul-20 11:46 PM
Hey, super duper sorry about this, my college just sent out an email that's pretty day-ruining, I'm gonna have to pause again
hug 3
I don't know when I'll be back but it probably won't be today
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JayManiac 16-Jul-20 02:31 AM
Okay we're back to finish the chapter at the very least, with the rest of the arc hopefully to be dealt with tomorrow, sorry again for that interruption. Thanks for all the support; my friends and I took the rest of the day to work through it, and while things are looking pretty rough for the future, it's not exactly something I can do anything about at present, so we're gonna read about a whole different set of things going horribly wrong instead!
hug 2
When we last left off there was a very obvious trap set up by an ally of the duchamps that these guys are probably going to set off in a completely unexpected way that actually unleashes far more destruction than the way they were supposed to set it off, leading everyone to regret every decision that brought them to this state of being. Or maybe I'm being paranoid and it'll be fine; I suppose the result of this will help to confirm one way or another whether the universe really is on blake's side or not...which would be an interesting chapter structure: introducing the (frankly, bold) claim that Blake is racking up good karma and being rewarded, and then building the tension around a situation that someone with Thorburn Karma would have significant trouble not screwing up beyond any intended scope.
“Just like that,” Green Eyes cajoled. “Keep walking. Or run. Don’t focus on the box.” But I stopped. The four triangles didn’t meet at the corner. There was a gap between the four sections of the symbol.
I'm way too curious not to want a look at whatever's in the box, especially because I know Wildbow isn't above just never ever telling us what it was; currently, though, I have the utmost faith in Blake and Evan's curiosity overriding whatever sense of wisdom or self preservation they have left.
lol 1
Then I reached out and took hold of it. “What are you doing!?” Evan asked.
Evan is currently winning the self-preservation contest by a landslide. Then again, his entire spectral existence is based partially in the idea of self-preservation, so that makes a fair amount of sense I'd say. Also the bar's not very high, because this is compared to Blake. And if it was high he could just fly over it, being a bird and all. I love Evan.
bulba 3
same 1
“Being very careful,” I said. “Which is a lot easier when people don’t speak very suddenly, right in my ear.” “I bet. Screw those jerks.”
I reiterate my most recent statement. A dose of Evan being Evan was probably exactly what I needed today.
hug 2
As I drew it out of the circle, backing down the path, it started to shudder. The box growled. “I greet you, stranger,” I spoke.
You are making so many assumptions about the nature of the binding here, and I can only hope it pays off. What it certainly isn't is Careful. I guess his plan here is to talk to this thing other-to-other and hope that works? Whoever set this up must be new. Maybe he's got a powerful family that the duchamps wanted connections to and now he's here and they're just letting him do shit to feel helpful. Or maybe he's competent and blake's falling into such a trap here.
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JayManiac 16-Jul-20 02:47 AM
“I am Inomenos. I am a wrong, made by man, released against men. I have earned a name for myself.” A curse, given life, I thought.
Ah! A little mini corvidae, perhaps? Or maybe not mini? In which case we're all in a whole lot of trouble? I wonder how exactly these entities are given power and when that power translates to personality. Was this thing made out of something human, once? How was it 'given life' beyond being a curse? Did someone feed it power, like Mags did to Molly? If you put a whole lot of power into conjuring a magical effect what're the chances that that magical effect gains sentience? Does it depend on what it needs to accomplish? I suppose they all have a little bit of sentience. I'm getting distracted let's just figure out this guy's deal.
“You’re bound by the Seal of Solomon?” “Yes. You’re bound to truth, but you’re not bound to any seal.”
Confirmation that Blake can't lie despite not being within the seal; I like this as defining his own seal, but wonder at its similarity to the existing system, and if that makes it better...I still think being bound to an immitation of the seal is making blake a less genuine person.
“Can we redefine ‘master’ here?” I asked. “Can you call me master?” The thing chuckled, from within its box. “No. Not a thing such as you. A mortal, only. A man.” “The bird?” I asked. “Yeah!”
I love how little doubt there is in anyone's mind who said the 'yeah'. There's no indication, we just know because it's set up through his flow of dialogue so far and it's fanatstic.
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JayManiac 16-Jul-20 03:01 AM
“Monster of the Thorburns is far less descriptive than you’re imagining,” I said. “The family is mostly monsters, honestly.”
Forgot to pull this absolute thorburn of a line 🔥
“Let me explain my line of thinking,” I told Inomenos-in-a-box. “I want to screw with the guy that summoned you.”
I like that at this point Blake is familiar enough with Others- being one himself -that he's become fairly adept at working the other side of the counter, so to speak. The switch has kind of flipped in his head, and now he's using all the same skills he's accumulated through the run of the book to get the jump on practitioners and find the loopholes that turn their monsters against them. He seems to approach Inomenos as more of a peer in this conversation, aligned with Other-ness in a way that he wouldn't've been as a human. This feels like a very different method of interacting with Others than he had previously- I suppose in a way that was set up by conversations with the Pizza Guy, Molly, even Faysal. All those circumstances serve to highlight a bit of that difference. Maybe there's a trend that Others tend to associate with their own, as do practitioners, broadly speaking; I'm thinking of the contrast between the two times we went into the North End: Molly spoke pretty much just with Johannes, while Blake never saw him, and was attended to by Faysal. Maybe it's just an understood thing.
“Are you prohibited from indirect harm?” “If I intend to harm, even indirect harm is prevented.” I resisted the urge to curse. Annoying.
It really does highlight how on the Other side he is now, to the point that I think it must be intentional- especially with how we began this chapter: musing about Blake's nature as a horror movie monster.
He's now getting frustrated at humans (well, practitioners) for closing the very same loopholes that he himself used to be sure to take care of, lest it end in disaster.
“I’m not done,” I said. “Go after the ones near him. The blonde women. Return to him as you’re instructed, but seek out the ones within ten paces of him. Plague them, torment them, but don’t inflict any permanent harm on them. Nothing they’ll suffer from, in body, mind, or heart, more than a day from now.” “I have reason to believe they are his allies,” Inomenos said. “I’ll give you one reason to see them as his enemies. If you look, I suspect you’ll see that the men do not keep the company of the women. They’re reluctant to mingle, except where they’re otherwise bound together as family, as married couples. There is doubt in their hearts, fear, and confusion.” “If this is so, I will do them mischief.”
And I'm being taken in a bit by it, I have to admit. I kinda like this guy. A bit of a dork- in kind of a Nightblood sort of way -but likably so. Blake's plan of dividing the duchamps seems to be paying off a little here, if this works; I think that part of the plan, mitigating what they can do and highlighting the problems with their system, might actually be worth it in the grander scheme of things.
Inomenos appeared in a dark cloud, flexing four skeletal arms, yawning until his lower jaw nearly reached his pelvis, where his legless body stopped. There was only dark smoke beneath. His face was like melted wax, the teeth few and far between.
That said, if we ever see this guy again, it's probably not a good sign. Sent against Blake (1), who turned him back to plague his master's allies (2), who sent him back to deal with Blake (3). Not necessarily a bad sign, but he'd better win that encounter
The sounds were horrible, and I wasn’t particularly vulnerable to it all. Many of the younger Duchamps were bent over, hands over their ears. One noticed me as I looked at her. She looked my way, and I could see images dancing across her eyes, as if they were television screens. Herself, a crowd, in a place that wasn’t here. It was some place with pillars and marble walls. The older ones were holding up, though, they each had their own images dancing across their eyes.
Then again, there are the issues with these kinds of plans. In that they're most likely to cause suffering to the already-suffering...
“And me?” Green Eyes asked. “You want me to stay back?” She was pulling the closest thing she could manage to puppy dog eyes, given her translucent eyelids, and a bit of agitation at the end of her tail, twitching restlessly. I could remember how eager she’d been to keep moving.
Ah, and I thought she was being sensible
possibly just bloodthirsty
Possibly both!
Maenads. The High Priest’s bloodstained, drunk murderesses. Their hair was disheveled, as were their winter clothes, and they had the eyes of animals. One was perched on the corner of one roof, the other stood between the two houses.
👀
“Shit,” I said. “Now I’m doing it.” “Doing it?” “Talking about stuff in the middle of a crisis.”
Again, you could try not being in a crisis if you want to talk about things 'normally'
angery 2
Besides, lots of times crisis are good for discussing the important stuff
She leaped back to maintain distance between us, and stumbled on something in the snow, and caught her balance, hands going wide to her side. A flask. Aw hell no.
nOPE
I saw what the other one did, and I'm not eager to see this
actually I didn't see what the other one did
He just blacked out and then woke up having kicked the shit out of a full grown sphinx
The High Priest of Dionysus approached down the length of the alley, where the snow wasn’t as high, due to the two adjacent buildings and the overhang of the roofs. He stopped at the end of the so-called path, so he wasn’t wading in mermaid-infested snow. His Maenads flanked him.
Here to finally do what he came here to, I presume? Deal with the bogeyman?
“Blake,” he said. “You’ve managed to be an ungodly nuisance.” “Going by the fear I can feel from that group of people, I’ve been more than a nuisance.” “Yes. You’ve been other things, but that doesn’t change that you’ve been a nuisance.” “Point conceded.”
I love these two; this is also just another one of those prank tropes that I'm really glad made it in here, considering what I've said about the last few chapters.
“You’re not going to escape. You weren’t going to escape the moment they caught your scent, without that damnable bird around to shake it.”
I love that Evan's been so instrumental in fucking with the duchamps
“Just so you know,” he said. “I have no intention of attacking your friends. You’re removed, we have plans for Rose. I fully intend to talk to Sandra and urge her to banish your friends from Jacob’s Bell. This isn’t their town, and it’s not good for them. I’m sure you’ll agree it’s better for them if they’re not here.” “I don’t disagree,” I said. “Thank you.” “Despite everything I’ve done,” he said, “I did want to be a good Lord.”
I believe him. I don't think he would've been, but I believe him
“I see,” he said. “And if they can’t keep what they’ve taken, will they still bare their necks? I’m almost disappointed you failed.” I shot him a quizzical look. He shrugged. “I can love the woman, even if I loathe much of what her last name brings.”
Why couldn't these two have gotten along like Elliot predicted so many months ago?
ahman 1
“Have you ever had your heart broken?” he asked. “It’s an important question.” I had to stop to think. “I can’t say for certain,” I told him, “But I think, in a way, I am a broken heart.”
👀
greeneyes 1
we are definitely gonna talk about that later
Jeremy glanced to one side. “You didn’t smell her?” From the length of Green Eyes’ snow-crusted hair, Evan shook himself free of snowflakes. “Ah,” he said, with a note of finality.
Ahahahahahahahahahahaaha this is fantastic
“How much bad karma do you rack up for setting your monsters on us now?” I asked. “I imagine it’s less,” he replied, “than it might be for turning on one’s wife.” He turned around, facing down Sandra, not me. I could see the confusion on the maenad’s and satyr’s faces. “I love you so much, Sandra,” he said. “I know,” she replied. “Bastard.”
Oh Shit
Well I'm definitely going to be back tomorrow to see how this sorts itself out...
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JayManiac 16-Jul-20 08:58 PM
Okay so let's go over this scene in a little bit more context before jumping to the next chapter, because holy shit I have so many questions and why wait for the book that's already written and readily available and sitting right in front of me to answer any of them when we can guess wildly based on things I read probably long enough ago that my guesses will be more random than accurate!?
“Despite everything I’ve done,” he said, “I did want to be a good Lord.” “Despite what I’ve done here, tonight, I only intended to remove the most problematic men from the Duchamp’s roster. I hoped it would shatter the family’s power base, done right. Make people think twice about maintaining their alliance with the family.” “What does that achieve? They’re still obligated to stay, to help, by compacts made months, years, or decades ago. Fight in service to the family in a qualifying situation.” “I needed the Enchantresses alive, if we were going to collectively rally against Johannes,” I said. “But at the same time, I needed the family broken. Maybe the husbands will stay and help take the Lordship, but if they know that this is a bum deal, if they’re going to get killed off while the Duchamps walk off frazzled but okay? If they’re wondering if they’ll get murdered at the request of other Duchamps… can the Duchamps keep what they’ve taken?” “I see,” he said. “And if they can’t keep what they’ve taken, will they still bare their necks? I’m almost disappointed you failed.”
First questions: How premeditated was this? Was he going to do this with or without Blake, or is this conversation essentially what swayed him to go through with it? The satyrs and maneads aren't like "oh cool so we're finally enacting that awesome plan we've definitely talked about" they're more like "uhhh....boss?" which I take to mean that this has been something he's kept to himself. I wonder if he ever intended to deal with Blake, or if he was secretly hoping Blake would give him a good enough reason not to the entire time? Has it been something he's been on the fence about?
The best real indication we've been given so far that Jeremy doesn't think much of the Duchamps and doesn't like their methods is in his introductory scene
“Where do you stand? Your family is whoring it’s daughters out in bids for power-” Stung by the choice of words, Sandra glanced at her aunt. The woman hadn’t flinched in the slightest. “-and I’m asking, what am I worth, and what are you worth, do you think?”
where he does kind of tear them a new one. But it never really seemed like something he intended on doing anything about. I can't help but wonder at ulterior motives here: taking the lordship for oneself, making a deal with Johannes, etc...but maybe he just felt like he should finally do the right thing for once. Maybe he's spent the whole time just looking at how miserable the duchamp method makes everyone.
You know, I've been treating it as if Jeremy deciding to do something spur of the moment with no premeditation is out of character but that's kind of part of his thing- he doesn't exactly like to wait after he's decided what he wants to do. The premeditation would've been pre-decision, when he was stuck, and Blake seems to have unstuck him.
ahyperlul 1
To be clear, I'm not saying he's decisive- he'll waffle about decisions all day, but once he's decided he doesn't then resolve to wait even longer to do the thing unless he really really has to.
And even then he'll be annoyed at it- remember when he was stuck in traffic?
“Jerry?” one of the Satyrs asked. “Don’t worry, Itys,” the High Priest said. He sighed, and I could see the cloud of cold breath in front of his face.
I wonder how many times these guys have been part of plans that turn in wild directions with a "we're doing this now, deal with it"- I have to assume that some followers of dionysus have just kind of been Like That
“Yeah,” the High Priest said. “I can explain, but it’ll be after. For now, form ranks. No permanent damage or killing of any of the Duchamps… but we are dealing with them. Get ready.”
This just extends the Oh Shit-ness of the moment even though I've had plenty of time to muse about it
I love the writing in this opening scene, really paying off the cliffhanger
“Uh huh,” he said. “I promise, then, to aid you in your efforts against the Duchamp family, provided you promise to refrain from doing permanent harm or killing the individual members.”
Fuck YEAH!!!!! I was just talking about how much I wished Elliot's prediction about these two being allies came true and I'm so so so here for it. He's not perfect, but I like him, and I think he's trying to do the right thing here, if only because I have too much faith in people and he- well, he's too earnest for lack of a better way to say that. He may be a bit of a sleezebag but he's just as fed up with the practitioner bullshit as we are, and he doesn't seem like the type to pull this kind of con. It's not up his alley, he's usually pretty straightforward about what he's selling which is typically immediate satisfaction
“I won’t lie,” Sandra was saying. “I anticipated something along these lines. For years, I thought you’d suddenly show up, after finding the right kind of power, or the right contact, and you’d react. Take action. Fix what was broken. I didn’t anticipate it in the here or now. Your timing sucks.”
I love that we're showing that the grapeseeds of this have been here the whole time, because we're doing it way better here than I just did in my opening paragraphs today. The idea that Jeremy really would've been the type to try reforming at least some parts of the system, had he gotten power- which is probably a reason or the reason he never really did. The language she uses here- "fix what was broken" -is very telling, and I think it confirms that he's being pretty transparent about all this. That he wants to do better, and thinks that this is the best or only way to do that.
“But I like Sandra,” one of the Bacchae said
Also, almost missed it, but 😢
I like Sandra too
she's just doing a lot of fucked up stuff for power so...you know, I don't really expect the spirits of hedonism to get the long term planning and ideological debate. Slytherin Primaries, the lot of em.
“You’re going to tell Hildr to attack, aren’t you?” he asked. “First chance you get?” “Yes.” The Drunk winced. I was looking at his back, but I could tell. He spoke, “We’ll let you walk away without taking you hostage if you promise to call her off. Keep her out of this.”
This is painful and also very tense- side note (okay I lied, main note): I wonder whether Blake's ability to parse out this wince is a little more than typical body language reading- not that it isn't that, just that maybe his ability to read when someone's suffering is being...informed on some level by what he's become. Not something we'll get an explicit confirmation of, I imagine, but also something I might be on the lookout for as we keep reading.
“You get a one-minute head start,” Sandra said. “Ten minutes.” “Three.” “Starting from the time you meet with the other Duchamps,” he said. “From the time you let me go. I’m not joking around, Jeremy. The stakes are high, here.” “No,” he agreed. “Not joking around. I let you barter me down to three minutes of head start, let me decide when the timer starts.”
No, I did the dishes last night, that was the deal- how are we going to have a functioning hostage negotiation household if we can't respect each other's time? Love is about compromise,
“Remember how we put it back then?” she asked. “No asking for forgiveness.” “I think,” he said, “We meant there was no need. ‘We do what we must’, remember?” “Because that worked so well for us, you think?” Sandra asked. Another small sigh. “I’m being a bitch. It got us halfway, at least.”
I'm making jokes about it but only because it's very close to the parallel the book is drawing here and gods this is heartbreaking
“Who are you after?” “Mason Hall-McCullough, the Ritchie brothers.” “Ah,” he said. “If I’d known you were after the old man, I might have decided differently.”
XD
This basically confirms that- however long he was thinking about maybe doing this -he just fuckin decided right there
That's wonderful
“That was my understanding,” I said. “I was thinking he could be a trap. A name given to throw me off, a situation where I’d almost definitely lose.” “As opposed to a genuine target?” the Drunk asked. “A genuine target, yeah. Maybe one of the Duchamps named him because they know something none of the rest of us do.” “And maybe,” the Drunk said, “He’s both a genuine target and a fight you’re bound to lose.”
I think that's the more likely option of the bunch, mostly because I do not trust good karma, but I wonder what Blake would do in that situation? Whether he'd try to go for it anyways, still not entirely sure? Ever curious; I hope we get to find out. I'm also glad we basically just got the three that blake took out on his own before we changed up how the conflict was going to progress, and the factors involved. It's just some good plotting and pacing of the action.
“Word is you were human, not long ago. Did you forget that mortals like me get tired, after hours of tension and stumbling around in the cold and darkness?” “No,” I said. “I’m counting on the fact that mortals like them get tired.”
This points to the belief that in a prolonged disturbance, none of the humans ever really win- the Others thrive from the conflcit while people get worn down more and more until there's nothing to take from them anymore
Snow crunched around me. Two Satyrs. They were surprisingly adroit, on the steep, ice-and-snow laden roof. But then again, they were goat men. They wore only sweaters and gloves, despite the cold, no jackets, one with a scarf, the other with a hat. All despite the fact that the weather really demanded a hat, scarf, gloves, and coat.
This seems like an idea, to be sure. Don't get me wrong, I love the fratboy satyrs they're the best- and I bet they're extremely useful as allies. But also if Jeremy didn't give them specific instructions, and they already don't like Blake and like Sandra better...well then they might be more of a problem than anything else
“I think tampering with my perceptions is a bad idea,” I said. “And I kind of want to keep whatever I’ve got left, fleshwise.” “You don’t got much,” he said. “Hey, yeah,” Green Eyes said. “How much do you have, even?” I declined to comment. Just by being here, not even talking, the Satyrs were bad influences.
Real smooth, Green Eyes
Still, it was manpower. And, I thought, it was symbolism. A more experienced practitioner like Jeremy wouldn’t have missed that.
I've thought about it for a bit, but I'm having a bit of trouble with the symbolism here and what it's supposed to imply.
I mean Satyrs are primarily symbols of nature and male sexuality- I'm guessing the latter is more relevant to whatever Blake is talking about. I mean, he's trying to sow discord amongst the duchamps, which is one thing- and the two men he's after are 'in dionysus' domain' whatever that means, but if he's talking about anything specific to do with the team he's put together I'm not sure what it is.
I'll probably kick myself when I figure out what it is, because it'll be real obvious
The men had been airing grievances with Sandra, or asking for more information. With luck, they were reacting to the loss of the High Priest. The Drunk had been, going by what I’d seen earlier, a representative of their side, in the Duchamp contingent. Powerful, somehow a leadership figure, and someone with Sandra’s ear.
Yeah, if you wanted that discord, Jeremy joining you was pretty much just the thing to have happen- I too am hesitant when things go in blake's favor, but maybe the book is also just super eager to prove me wrong about Blake not having good karma
But it went a step beyond. Large patches of its flesh had almost ossified, or calcified, or something. It, in simple terms, looked as tough as dammit. Makes me think of those biopunk movies, I thought.
Ah yes, like "Taking Root" and such (this is my headcanon now you can't stop me)
devastating 1
The Ritchie brothers, there. Mason Hall-McCullough the Benevolent was there, too, but he was halfway down the driveway, at the side of the house. All unaware. Until the Satyrs behind me screamed. Battlecry screams.
Fuckin hell, I'd really hoped I wasn't right about that one but here we are
“Deus-” one started. I smacked him in the mouth with my forearm, goblin-chain-and-barbed-wire included.
I'd forgotten that he'd done that- also probably good that that guy didn't get to say what he wanted to. But also maybe he's not that bad and you just barbed wired him in the face, so...
“I was asked to kill specific individuals,” I said. It was easy to speak while I fought, as I didn’t really need to breathe. My words came out strange, wind whistling past trees, albeit with force behind them. “By Duchamps. For Duchamps.”
He really is just horrifying here, casually but forcefully talking in the midst of battle
“Eric Ritchie, Stan Ritchie,” I said. “You’re next on the list.” I saw heads turn. Stan and Eric. A green jacket and a black jacket. One had a thick mustache, but his beard was scarcely more than stubble, a step behind in growing in. The other had thick glasses, a book in one hand. “I’m on the list too!” Mason Hall-McCullough called out, almost cheerful.
Okay, but firstly: dammit stop being so likeable I'm supposed to want you dead gods dammit. Fuck, I'm succumbing to karma by immediately having a good first impression of him and the book absolutely is doing this on purpose. Second: How the fuck do you know that!?
A toad. A large toad. Perceptions seemed to warp, the thing moving too fast toward me. Thing was, it wasn’t foreshortening at play. Not a thing growing bigger because it was closer. It was getting bigger because it was getting bigger.
I just love this sequence of action and think that it's really really fun. I don't know that I have a lot to say about it, it's just very good writing.
The goblin was showing off its stuff. The weapons it was holding weren’t the only weapons it had. More dangled from its waist. A trophy collection. The weapons, if I had to guess, were what the Hyena might have been if it hadn’t been insistent on taking an inconvenient form. And if it were unbroken. Goblins, quite possibly, of the Hyena’s general caliber.
Uuhhhhhhh
okay!?
I'm not sure if we're supposed to take from this that it's more powerful than the hyena, as are its weapons...quite possibly. But also the Hyena has and had a lot going for it besides its power level goblinwise.
It was somewhat infernal, touched by demonic energies for one, which created a very specific effect that I wouldn't expect normal goblins to replicate- and then in its current form that effect is compounded by the fact that it's a bogeysword, essentially, so I think that Blake still might have the upper hand weaponwise. Otherwise? Probably not, if he's facing something that can beat the Hyena.
I'm guessing it's beat the hyena without its forest full of half eaten Others, which is still a pretty big feat
“They’re monsters,” I said. “Monster enough their own family wants them dead.” The goblin stabbed. Wind rushed past me.
You- you're trying to talk to the goblin, and convince it to, what, do something for the greater good? Now I know you're still confident having swayed jeremy but I frankly don't think this goblin gives a shit at all
Or it will give a shit
straight to whatever human flesh you still have kickin
violently
lol 2
Does that really make any sense as a statement that I just said? Yes, but only in the context of goblins
“They want them dead, even knowing the stakes, knowing the fight for the Lordship is happening right now,” I said. “Knowing I have no interest in you, why defend them? More than a few members of the family want blood and justice more than they want the Lordship.”
Oh he's talking to the people, the other duchamp men; that makes a lot more sense. Whoopsie daisy, misunderstood for a second there
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JayManiac 16-Jul-20 10:09 PM
“Or are you defending them because you’re monsters too?” I asked, edging to the right, circling around, hoping to avoid the diagrams.
I think they're defending them because it's what's expected and you look like a crazy monster
not that what you're doing isn't continuing to sow doubt
“Monster?” Mason the Benevolent asked, behind me. “Tch.”
This guy seems awesome. I fully expect him to be an antagonist and also Actually Evil but he's got such a charismatic aesthetic and presence in the book, which slots so well with what magic he uses. It's a very good use of the metanarrative potential and I Appreciate.
The needles, as it happened, were a kind of shotgun spray. They tore into my shoulder, into my head, and the side of my neck, but they didn’t strike the flesh of my face. Branches as thick as a finger were shattered by needles as thick as, well, needles. The sort one put threads through. I staggered back, until I was at Evan’s side, where he’d landed in deep snow. Feathers lay not so far away. I cupped him in one hand. “Ow,” he said. “Ow.”
psyduck
The monster demanded revenge for daring to hurt Evan, and it was hungry, angry, violent. The human wanted revenge for different reasons, in different ways, but it wanted it all the same, just as much. All together, though? The human and the monster together? What that wanted, what I wanted, was different.
Ilovethis
I hooked my arm over the brother’s head, and pulled the chain against his neck. A human shield, between me and goblin. The weight came around, and struck the top of his head clean off, meat and only meat striking the side of my face. Several practitioners dropped to the ground as they avoided the flying sphere. “Back,” Needledick said. “Back. No collateral damage this time, please.”
!!!!
Okay!?!
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Jade | i love you video games 16-Jul-20 10:17 PM
Do you want a note about something you may or may not remember?
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JayManiac 16-Jul-20 10:17 PM
Yes, yes I would
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comb_jelly 16-Jul-20 10:17 PM
i love how blake cannot be bothered to get the guy's name right
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Jade | i love you video games 16-Jul-20 10:18 PM
The dude's name is Hal Spikedick, Blake just can't remember his name
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comb_jelly 16-Jul-20 10:18 PM
"oh it's just pencildick or something"
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JayManiac 16-Jul-20 10:18 PM
Oh my gods
that's wonderful
And you know what, Blake's only context for this guy is that he was associated with goblins and dammit if pencildick doesn't sound like a name for someone who hangs out with goblins
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comb_jelly 16-Jul-20 10:20 PM
also all of blake's names for this guy insult his dick size
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Jade | i love you video games 16-Jul-20 10:20 PM
Blake sure is one to talk, as far as we know about his body at this point
I don't think he has one at all
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JayManiac 16-Jul-20 10:22 PM
Well I don't really want to know but Green Eyes seems to
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comb_jelly 16-Jul-20 10:22 PM
Green Eyes, Diary Girl, Tiff, Alexis ...
the list goes on
also what are you talking about, he's got more wood than he knows what to do with
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JayManiac 16-Jul-20 10:24 PM
I really didn't walk into this chat today expecting the hot take of "Blake is a harem anime protagonist" but that's pretty much what I got from that statement so congratulations, we're here now
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Jade | i love you video games 16-Jul-20 10:24 PM
Diary Girl?
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JayManiac 16-Jul-20 10:24 PM
The one with the human skin book
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Jade | i love you video games 16-Jul-20 10:25 PM
I know but how is she in the harem
Did I completely misinterpret that scene
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JayManiac 16-Jul-20 10:25 PM
'paper and trees we go together so well let's get together after we kill all these annoying humans' was the vibe I believe
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comb_jelly 16-Jul-20 10:25 PM
i'm pretty sure she was hitting on him, among other things
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jsoh 16-Jul-20 10:25 PM
i almost said the tsundere in the harem is isadora but i guess shes on the other team
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Jade | i love you video games 16-Jul-20 10:25 PM
I gotta go reread that
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comb_jelly 16-Jul-20 10:25 PM
oh isadora's def a tsundere
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Jade | i love you video games 16-Jul-20 10:25 PM
I was mostly concerned with the fact that she was slitting Alexis's throat
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comb_jelly 16-Jul-20 10:26 PM
then you've got the astrologer and padraic
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jsoh 16-Jul-20 10:26 PM
yeah but isadoras mad gay
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Jade | i love you video games 16-Jul-20 10:26 PM
Padraic for sure
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JayManiac 16-Jul-20 10:26 PM
“Diary girl,” I called out. “Mirror boy,” diary girl whispered back. When she turned her head, her neck didn’t bend so much as the individual papers turned. She could have turned her head three-hundred and sixty degrees around. She smiled, the paper of her face reshuffling, her expression changing in the wake of the rearrangement. “Paper and wood. Affinity. A-F-F-I-N-I-T-Y. I’ll let you free when I’m done. If they bring you up and out and you manage to kill them, you’re free.”
"So...what are you doing after this, after we kill all these humans and set ourselves free..."
I have to admit I didn't read it like that as I was going through the chapter but now that you say it I can pretty clearly see where it's coming from
“Ohh,” she said, her voice almost sing-song, amid the whispers. “We can sup on the fear. Cut them in the sensitive parts of the flesh. In the meat between each tooth, the corners of the mouth, the eyelids and the eyes themselves. The webbing of the fingers and toes. The achilles tendon. Then, when we have them just how we want them, the soft flesh of the stomach… The armpit… the thigh.” If I hadn’t known better, I’d have almost thought she was trying to be seductive. She breathed those last few words.
In case you still aren't convinced
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Jade | i love you video games 16-Jul-20 10:27 PM
I'll take it
Hahsahahahaah
I can't believe I missed that
At one point in DiP one of them said something about an important part of the Pact experience being shipping Blake with "everything that moves" and I feel like that's very true
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JayManiac 16-Jul-20 10:29 PM
I mean I did too, I didn't call specific attention to it but when I pictured that scene I pictured her definitely playing up the cutesy sexy monster angle with him so it had to come from somewhere. Also blake decides like three lines after this that there's nothing human left in her XD
Also yes
very true
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Jade | i love you video games 16-Jul-20 10:30 PM
I have never otherwise thought in a book "the protagonist described that person's lips for too long.... better read into that"
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JayManiac 16-Jul-20 10:31 PM
pfft- yes, that's something uniquely suited to these stories; also Padraic definitely joins the 'hitting on blake' club, 100%
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jsoh 16-Jul-20 10:31 PM
isnt padraic like, the founder
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comb_jelly 16-Jul-20 10:32 PM
Padraic even confessed that he liked Blake 😆
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jsoh 16-Jul-20 10:32 PM
doesnt he call him lovely rose in his first appearance or am i misremembering
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JayManiac 16-Jul-20 10:32 PM
yes but that's just how fae talk I think
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comb_jelly 16-Jul-20 10:33 PM
also don't forget this glorious line
“This rose is male,” Keller said. “Men don’t give birth.” “Male?” Ev asked. She gave me a closer look. I was pretty sure no humans had made that mistake since I was five or so. Patrick, for his part, mused, “I forgot that detail. I’m sure we could make it happen. Do you want to try, my rose?”
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Jade | i love you video games 16-Jul-20 10:33 PM
pfft (edited)
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JayManiac 16-Jul-20 10:35 PM
“I like you, Thorburn,” she said. “Not like-like, though I wouldn’t mind, if you didn’t-“
Okay so this is a quote from Magdraic right before blake dies- kind of more casual than the rest of the harem but still a solid archetype within it
My gods we have literally a centimeter of scroll bar left in this chapter and this is what's decided to derail us
“Only them,” I said. “And him.” I looked at Mason Hall-McCullough, and I let the body drop. “I can handle this,” the practitioner spoke.
I just love the unbridled confidence of this guy, as if I can't help it and the universe is compelling me to. He reminds me of all those assholes who you can't help but like even though they're assholes: Varrick from LoK, or what Tony Stark Billionaires are actually like, etc.
He spread his arms wide. “If you think it’s right,” he said. “Strike me true.” I stabbed him in the chest with the Hyena.
PFFFFT HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
That's fantastic
agree 2
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comb_jelly 16-Jul-20 10:37 PM
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JayManiac 16-Jul-20 10:37 PM
Oh I'm so glad we did that
that was lightning quick, comb
have you been saving that the whole chapter?
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jsoh 16-Jul-20 10:38 PM
gotta say mason, that plan fucking sucks
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comb_jelly 16-Jul-20 10:39 PM
i was waiting for the chance to post that
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Jade | i love you video games 16-Jul-20 10:40 PM
Actually there's a meme about this exact scene
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JayManiac 16-Jul-20 10:41 PM
And that's not it?
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Jade | i love you video games 16-Jul-20 10:42 PM
I passed this on WormMemes back before I had decided to read Pact
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JayManiac 16-Jul-20 10:43 PM
Basically, yes!
Okay but also maybe this is what Blake gets for not ascribing to the Seal: a bit of freedom from its influence. Where this would work for any other practitioner because of the sheer karmic mass at play, Blake never bound himself and thus gets some immunity. It's the only way I think this guy would be that confident and that wrong about this entire situation.
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Jade | i love you video games 16-Jul-20 10:44 PM
I think of karma as your charisma modifier
You can have a +10 in charisma, but it's not going to make you able to ask a king to give you his crown
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Sebastián 16-Jul-20 10:45 PM
Except Blake was being influenced by that guys karma
he dismisses attacking him as "too much trouble" like 3 times
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Jade | i love you video games 16-Jul-20 10:45 PM
Right, even with influence, Blake believed Mason needed to die
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comb_jelly 16-Jul-20 10:45 PM
also this ties back to something Lewis says way back when she was explaining karma to Blake at the beginning that relying on good karma is a trap ... it works, up to the point when it fails you at a critical moment (edited)
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Jade | i love you video games 16-Jul-20 10:46 PM
Apparently labeled as an Ur joke
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JayManiac 16-Jul-20 10:48 PM
That's a good point, I hadn't considered that Blake's seemingly well-founded hesitance to kill him was part of the karmic influence but it certainly is
even that, though- i wonder if it's direct
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jsoh 16-Jul-20 10:49 PM
i think like, blake got to shoot his shot because he made it part of a pattern
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JayManiac 16-Jul-20 10:49 PM
See that's the thing though, isn't it? Blake doesn't trust himself, so he relies on the opinions of others within the system, and then he's influenced by karma whether he likes it or not
He doesn't really escape
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Seregraug 16-Jul-20 10:50 PM
It's also a point showing that karma isn't a substitute for say dodging attacks.
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JayManiac 16-Jul-20 10:50 PM
Absolutely
4 dex, 25 cha- Mason was a minmaxer and the dm got fed up with his shit
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Sebastián 16-Jul-20 10:51 PM
Also... 1 rolls happen
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JayManiac 16-Jul-20 10:51 PM
that they do, that they do
It occurs to me that the process of accumulating that much karma means making a prediction with utter confidence and then being proven right time and time and time again- you have to at least act that arrogant if you're going to make it your process, but you keep being right and getting rewarded for it until the entire world, including you, believes you're untouchable
In a sense, you can't help but succumb to your own good karma and think the world of what you're capable of
which Ends Badly
NOTW spoilers Kvothe is just rolling in perfect karma, the bastard
Alright I've decided I'm reading another one because I'm so close to the end of the 'blake kills a bunch of people' arc and I'm so curious
also the next one is a Pages- I won't get to it today, but I'm very curious
The two satyrs looked just a little too smug, as I reunited with the splinter group. It wasn’t a nice smug or funny smug. It was the kind of smug that people enjoyed when they’d pulled something on you and they knew there was nothing you could do about it.
The fact that these guys look like fratboys is enough to irk me
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JayManiac 16-Jul-20 11:10 PM
“Where’s chicken nugget?” Green Eyes asked. I pointed at my torso. Her eyes went wide, and her mouth dropped. “You bastard,” she said. “What?” “You ate him!?” she cried out. I realized I’d been pointing more at the middle of my body than my upper chest. I was about to respond, when my thoughts ran aground wondering if she was upset because I’d beaten her to eating Evan or if she was upset because she liked him now.
I love that Green Eyes has done this apparent 180 on Evan they're really just a great team
Have I mentioned I love Evan lately, I should do that
Also she calls him chicken nugget which I've decided to interpret as adorable instead of concerning
“I think he used it for shaving, going by the nuances of the smell. But it’s good for the skin, helps with healing, and it carries other scents well,” the satyr said, the words adopting a faint roughness as he spoke, almost as if he were purring. He extended an arm. He was definitely purring as he said, “Smell. Tobacco, sandalwood, and shea butter.”
I wonder how satyrs and fae get along?
Both associated with pleasure, though satyrs are more hedonistic while fae are purely about beauty
He was putting emphasis on words, rubbing it in in a way that made it hard to call him out on. Practically telling me that if I tried to rely on him, he’d sabotage me. Sabotage Jerry, in a roundabout way. It was doubly irritating because I wouldn’t have called him out on it if he’d said it outright, I’d have shrugged and accepted that his loyalties fell at least partially with Sandra, and that the satyrs had reason to resent me for killing some of their own. But by implication and by denying me the chance, he made it doubly infuriating.
Frat boys tend to be good at that sort of thing
“Seven is an important number, Jerry says,” one of the satyrs commented, arms folded.
Alright, so we're going for seven heads, then
I forget whether I pointed that out or not when he first got this list
“Three, seven, twelve,” I said. The satyr nodded.
Interestingly all very important to christianity, though I'd believe it if the traditions predated abrahamic religions. it makes sense, anyhow, that they'd be tied up in the seal of solomon
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Jade | i love you video games 16-Jul-20 11:20 PM
We had a discussion this morning about whether we think it would be rule of 4 in Eastern cultures
Depends on whether the numbers made the superstition or the superstition made the numbers
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JayManiac 16-Jul-20 11:21 PM
I don't think it much depends on that at all, though I do have my opinions there
Because clearly the numbers didn't make that superstition there, so it must be the influence of different numbers
(or, more likely, the other way around)
“Anyway, I imagine that a lot of the sort of things you don’t want to mess with, like genies, that goblin I just dealt with, they’re human shaped. So if you stand far enough away, or if you’re dealing with a crowd, you have to wonder. You hold back. But something in a car? It’s going to be a practitioner, and I don’t think many practitioners can practice while driving.”
Also there have been almost no instances where blake has been in a car on the reciveing end of lots of potential ire from Others- it wasn't so difficult for Briar Girl's creations to mess with that kind of technology
the only other times have been with Fell, basically- and he had the relevant rights where the Lord of Toronto was concerned
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comb_jelly 16-Jul-20 11:27 PM
(pale) hehehe
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JayManiac 16-Jul-20 11:27 PM
Deep Sigh
I'm trying
“They’ll travel on foot, maybe assisted by practice,” I said. “Evan’s unable to fly, so we’ll have to be quick, we’ll have to be smart, and we’ll have to be lucky.” “Because luck has really been with us?” Evan asked. “It has,” I said. I thought of the karma hoarder I’d stabbed. “Eerily so.”
ohno
She saw me looking, looked at the Satyr, then turned her eyes forward, ignoring me. I saw a small smile creep across her face. It got wider, until her teeth showed. Narrow, long, and sharp, interlocking like a piranha’s. Was she playing me? I didn’t like the idea. It stirred up all kinds of ugliness, like a footstep in a clear puddle kicking up clouds of black, vile mud.
fine
Friendly reminder that That Is Manipulation and Really It Isn't Good and it's the Same Tactics That Cults Use thank you
Having been where I’d been, experiencing what I’d experienced, knowing it was only partial, I had no grounding in what to do. I’d had girlfriends. I’d had more than enough tender moments, back at Carl’s compound, but now, like this, being what I was? The only reason I wasn’t panicking at the idea of physical contact was because I’d left so much of myself behind. I’d disconnected from Blake the human. But maybe this was a possibility because we were monsters. Green Eyes was probably never going to be a tool to manipulate me. I wasn’t about to be something she could look at as food. Or at least, not quite, in both cases.
uhhhhhhhh....I don't know where you're getting that idea but I'd be very careful with it
relationships can still be unhealthy, even if you're both literal inhuman monstrosities
some might say especially
Yeah this just seems like a really problematic line of thinking anyways
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Jade | i love you video games 16-Jul-20 11:31 PM
I think he's just saying he can find a way to make it not remind him of his human relationships
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JayManiac 16-Jul-20 11:32 PM
Which is a valid thing to want but also is this the right coping mechanism?
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Jade | i love you video games 16-Jul-20 11:33 PM
In my opinion, as someone who did not have the same problem as Blake....
It's been like 3 years and he hasn't physically contacted another human. Whatever gets him into a headspace that allows him to even consider being within a few feet of someone is a step in the right direction (edited)
If this doesn't work out with Green Eyes because of interpersonal stuff, but it's mutual, he'll at least have taken a step in being able to trust another person to touch him
I don't think there is such thing as a magic cure that would have made his issues go away completely, other than actual mind magic crap
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JayManiac 16-Jul-20 11:37 PM
I think that you can have an unhealthy coping mechanism that successfully deals with a really bad problem, but I see your point here, and it's very possible that it's not as bad as I'm assuming.
Evan piped up, “While we’re talking about food, you wanna know what I never did when I was alive? I never had sushi.” “I was getting to be fond of you, nugget,” she said, “Don’t go and change my mind.” “Well, I liked you pretty much right away, so there. Maybe I’m just a better person,” Evan said, his head poking up beneath my sweatshirt, a little lump at my back. “If you are, then learn to be quiet when a girl’s trying to enjoy a moment with the boy she likes,” she said, very gently pushing the lump under the fabric down. “Oh. Oh, dang. Shoot,” he said. “Didn’t realize. Now I feel bad.” He sounded genuinely upset. “Don’t,” Green Eyes said. She stroked one section of the sweatshirt. I could only assume Evan’s head was under it. “It’s good.”
And also this scene is very adorable, which helps
Probably closer to being everyone that was willing to go. Good. That was ideal.
Because here at bogeyblake inc. we have a specialty, and that's breaking people's willingness
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Jade | i love you video games 16-Jul-20 11:42 PM
I think, if every person has usually one (close to)perfect relationship in their lives, it can't be that only that can help somebody
agree 1
And now I am getting off of my box
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JayManiac 16-Jul-20 11:43 PM
If I’d had a heart to stop, it would have stopped as I saw the diagram drawer look back, his fear spiking and staying at the new height. Recognition? He said something to the practitioner beside him. The fear rose a bit more.
Ah, okay, so Blake has moved to very explicitly detecting fear. Excellent
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JayManiac 16-Jul-20 11:52 PM
The Spellbinder, as it happened, was easy to pick out. He looked so ordinary, if a little stone-faced in expression, with drooping cheeks and larger ears betraying his age just a bit. His hair was parted to one side. I could have figured his identity by process of elimination, after stalking the Duchamps enough times tonight. I didn’t have to.
Why would you ever fight a bunch of enchantresses who are prepared for you
At least, I hoped it was a Faerie. There were two girls in red-and-black checkered scarves. They were identical in appearance, but different in dress. Both had unruly curly hair that was only slightly more manageable because it was damp with snow, both had earmuffs, albeit with different styles. One knelt in the center of the circle, slumped over. The other stood between Sandra and Needledick the goblin king.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Is this our guy!?
informal participant of the Blake Thorburn Harem!?
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Jade | i love you video games 16-Jul-20 11:54 PM
I dunno Padraic was pretty direct
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JayManiac 16-Jul-20 11:55 PM
You're right
Moreso than most of the others, actually
he's a full time member
I thought of the story I’d heard of the spellbinder. He’d bound his wife. Enslaved her mind, spirit, and body. Mags? The girl standing between Sandra and the goblin king shook her head. “No, Blake.”
Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh yeah I forgot about this guy; don't blame blake for worrying about Mags
The girl beside Sandra raised a hand, and pointed at the spellbinder. “He got the faerie for me.” “You might consider it a gift,” Sandra said, “for goodwill. My family has long dealt with faeries, and Padraic is a bastard. I’m content I can smooth over any hurt feelings.”
HHhhhhhh pt 2 enchatnted boogaloo- I actually kind of believe that Sandra might've done this because of a desire to protect Mags
“I’m Maggie again,” Maggie said. She smiled, but it wasn’t the smile that should have gone with the statement. She hugged her arms close to her body. “The ambassador is supposed to be impartial,” I said. “You can’t side with them.” “Mags is the ambassador,” Sandra said. “She doesn’t have the name, she doesn’t have the title, or the obligations. If she takes on any bad karma due to any lingering ties to the title, that will be dissolved when I become lord and do away with the job. Maggie, of course, will be free to go. No consequences.”
noOOOO
I don't like that at all
Come on Mags, you can't just give in to the system, give up what you fought for, etc.
“Screw this!” Evan piped up. “You were cool!”
You said it, kid
“You’re their puppet, doing what they say. Doing things the way they want you do to them.” “Yeah. I am,” she said. She couldn’t make eye contact.
I really hope this is some bullshit cooked up by Sandra and not what's actually happening
“A benefit of changing identities,” Maggie said, “Is that you get to leave consequences behind.” She straightened, and looked me in the eye. She turned on Sandra, backing away, moving in our direction.
I super duper don't trust that and you shouldn't either
“Drat you,” Maggie said. She swung the club. The ground and air shimmered, tremoring, and many of the Duchamps stumbled backward. “Yes!” Evan cheered.
On the other hand...
Hyena in hand, I put the point to Maggie’s throat. It all settled. Things going quiet. “No!” Evan said, louder than before. “What? No!” I met Maggie’s eyes. “Drop it,” I said. She dropped the weapon. There was a long pause. Very nearly silent. “What gave me away?” Maggie asked.
Oh SHIT
this chapter just fuckin tripple whammied me
I had no goddamn clue what the fuck was happening
And it was fantastic
“Green Eyes. I don’t think the reaction fit to Maggie’s. And I’m not so optimistic to think that things would go this well for me.” “Yeah,” Maggie said. “Fool me once,” I said. “I fooled you quite a few times, in Toronto,” she said. “More than once.”
Ahahahahahahahahaha Excellent
The other Maggie stood from the circle. She moved her arms and swept up the diagram, wrapping it around herself like a drape, as she backed away. I saw the Spellbinder fall in step beside her.
Any time people look exactly like you expected them to it's probably some fae bullshit
Is what I've learned from this sequence of events
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JayManiac 17-Jul-20 12:09 AM
Meant more people you'd never met- if they're just exactly what you expected with no surprises...probably some bullshit cooking
Like (John dies at the end spoilers)Arnie Blondstone
“I’ll surrender,” I said, very deliberately, “I’ll end the fight, let you have Jacob’s Bell if you can earn it, even support you, if you so desire, with one condition.” “One condition?” “Yes,” I said. “Yeah. All I need you to do, is swear to me, on your family, on your title, on your power, that you’ll stop with the fucked up arranged marriages. You’ve told others in the family, you swore to them, you’ve implied, I want to hear it from you, that the Duchamp family will no longer continue catering to husbands like the ones I’ve killed.” “You’ve killed a variety of husbands,” she said. “Stop prevaricating,” I told her. “You know what I want. I want you to tell me, straight out, that I’m wrong. That the Duchamps aren’t going to take the lordship and then keep doing what they’ve been doing. Do that, you win here.” The wind whistled. There was no answer she could give.
Fuck
I mean we all knew it
But to get that confrontation is just so satisfying and heartbreaking and awful
I’d created the cracks. Created sides, fostered arguments and doubt. Put people on two sides with the six previous kills. All I needed was one more. A seventh.
We've been talking this whole time about how the kills weren't really about the kills, how they were about the doubt and fear and all of it; this works as the surprising yet inevitable twist.
Ilovethis
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Seregraug 17-Jul-20 12:13 AM
Blake pins down Sandra as the real monster between the two of them.
agree 4
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JayManiac 17-Jul-20 12:13 AM
Absolutely
now that's not to say that Blake isn't a monster or that he's good to go just because Sandra's also awful
but Sandra's also awful
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JayManiac 21-Jul-20 11:42 PM
A cold evening of red bells I never liked dates. This makes a fitting entry for tonight’s diary. I’ll remember it better than a number.
So, with the powerful magicks of Being Able To Read The Table Of Contents, I can tell that this is the final Pages chapter of the book, and hope to take numerous opportunities throughout today's 'read to talk about the storytelling device, because it's one that I think is really unique and well-utilized in this story about (at some level) storytelling and culture, symbolism, and how information is thought of. I get why it may have been difficult to keep up with, and how its restrictions would've prevented the book from doing a lot of what worm was able to with its interlude format, but I think where it appears we get some really unique stuff.
(edited)
It certainly helps that we begin in a library of books and Pact is so good at building the suspense around how the intricacies of the magic system work that we actually just want to read all of them- making the eventual story conceit a veritable wish come true.
While I love a lot of the Histories arcs- particularly Corvidae/Midge/Green Eyes, Maggie, and Alister -I still think that a chapter like Black Lamb's Blood is something you very rarely see in stories, yet fits perfectly into this one, and I'm glad that we got the chance to explore a number of those avenues.
I mean BLB is a philisophical text, essentially, and invites you to think critically about this world and its issues- which is in fact a thinly-veiled method for thinking about this (gesticulates wildly around self) world and its issues. It's the kind of thing that I love to see in a story, and the kind of thing I typically have to write myself and publish seperately in the form of long-delayed youtube content!
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JayManiac 22-Jul-20 12:00 AM
Anyhow, one of the (many) reasons I love this method is that it gives the book the unique opportunity to explore other first person perspectives in a controlled fashion. While I love what Wb books (Pale possibly excepted? I still don't know how that works~) do with perspective, focusing on a single first-person pov and renting the interludes out as 3rd person, I do really love seeing variety in first person handled well, which is something you typically aren't sure if wildbow can do until you read multiple books by him (Spoilers: he can). This opening already conveys such personality in the quintessential way that first person narratives do (if you couldn't tell, first-person is my go-to; it's just the most engaging stuff for me to read and I almost always prefer it (I couldn't get through Dune and had a hard time with American Gods- which I love -mostly due to narration style (the one exception is the Terry Pratchett/Douglas Adams method, where the narration still has a very strong personality and disposition despite not being tied to any one of the characters (I should get back to reading probably)))).
Also while we're at it, the personality that this does convey is endlessly amusing, off-kilter, and immediately likeable
I skirt the truth. I portion it out and hand out thirds to make a whole, and the world lets us be. I like to think I amuse it.
which makes sense as we read this line and determine that this is probably one of the fae (I'm hoping for my boy Padraic, especially since we just saw him, but not gonna call it quite yet). I'm about to relate way too much to these horrible entities of beauty and human suffering, aren't I?
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A bird 🐦 22-Jul-20 12:04 AM
the one exception is the Terry Pratchett/Douglas Adams method
Third person smart ass?
lol 1
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JayManiac 22-Jul-20 12:04 AM
essentially, yes
If the third person perspective has enough of an opinion about things I'm suitably entertained
I actually have a video that talks about perspective and engagement in fantasy, now that I think about it!
Right! Slaughterhouse 5 and the Components of Fantasy! I forgot I made that; knew what I was talking about sounded familiar
I always said that if I were to actually survive Being A Practitioner, I'd almost certainly become a Fae. It's already far too much a part of my aesthetic, and carefully practiced self-delusion is a specialty of mine. I'm entirely ready to be proven right
The one with the name Maggie Holt promises to leave, and she does. The guise is discarded.
I'm wondering if this is one of those Pages that hops back in time at all, or if this is just Happening right after the last chapter, and Sandra is the one who's asking Padraic to leave?
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A bird 🐦 22-Jul-20 12:13 AM
It is a Pages interlude, of a diary
so it's necessarily a touch decoupled from time
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JayManiac 22-Jul-20 12:13 AM
Ah! Bookends!~ we do like that
I don't know for sure that the only two diaries are the first and last Pages chapters- Andy's might count -but it's a fun detail nonetheless
But I am bound to this place by the orders of my Queen, and I am bound to it by my own perverse interest. It is interesting, is it not? I could hardly stay away. I observe, and I chronicle.
It's quite fun, because Padraic is the kind of person to talk directly to the reader- fae are spinners and partakers of fancy, another reason I tend to relate so heavily to them. So it feels quite conversational, as Padraic assumes he has an audience to entertain and beguile. Which, of course, he does.
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JayManiac 22-Jul-20 12:24 AM
He almost feels like a wink to the readers, an "aren't you enjoying this wonderfully fun story!? Excellent, me too!"
agree 1
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JayManiac 22-Jul-20 12:32 AM
There are so very few here who understand what is really happening. There are many, I think, who would put a value on any record of these happenings, to piece it together after the fact. The Duchamp family works with the Court and the Court may well wonder what happened to its fine allies, to the highborn and noble faerie who were given as pets to the Duchamp families.
I've always been interested in the Fae Realm- actually numerous other realms -and how they function within the world of pact: what their relation is to the~ oh gods dammit I was about to refer to it as the 'prime material plane', I really am playing too much dnd. I mean the Drains have a fairly evident relationship with the Surface World™️, being that they're made of- or at least take the forms of -whatever 'falls through the cracks'. The Dreamworld, I imagine, likely functions much the way we expect it to: in a cyclically causal relationship with the things people dream. But what is the feywild's composition, how does it 'sit' in the cosmos? Is it governed by one queen, or many? Where is it most prominent, and do its reaches stretch across countries and cultures? Do we know the answers to lots of these questions and I've just forgotten because I spend far too long away from this book?
All fascinating mysteries... (edited)
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jsoh 22-Jul-20 12:34 AM
ms lewis said all notions of fae governance is mostly just them fucking around because they are bored
id say its composition is mostly whatever the current fad for the fae in power at the time is
they are mutable and presumably in a place where they rule the place is mutable as well
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JayManiac 22-Jul-20 12:36 AM
That makes sense- the fae have a unique way of ignoring history and replacing it with whatever they want, which is...very interesting
I have lots and lots of thoughts on that.
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jsoh 22-Jul-20 12:36 AM
happy days: the realm
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JayManiac 22-Jul-20 12:40 AM
Sandra tried to convince me to help, to turn my talents toward resolving this situation.
I love the way he writes- this is one of those areas where you can absolutely get away with making your prose plenty purple, apply an arsenal of alliterations and base your statements' placements on their timing, assonance, rhyme far past what's considered classy by your own standards. If ever there were a time to delve into the most irritatingly self-indulgent writing, it just might be with someone like Padraic. I appreciate that it's a bit more subtle than that, though.
Just as I piece thirds of truths together into a whole, others might piece half-lies together if I am not careful.
I love every single line of this and I have to stop myself from pulling each one just to rant about how cool it is. This is really some Peak Pact and I'm living for it.
here's hoping that the Fae come round to torment our new protagonists in Pale
I really can't get enough of them
Should I need it, it is useful to have my thoughts on a page, in case I need to discard the ones I have. One cannot be too careful, when the Court does their investigations.
Is...is he implying that he's writing this specifically so he can possibly voidfish his memories if he gets interrogated!? That...is awesome
Also, show of hand-emojis, I'm curious who exactly gets that reference XD
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JayManiac 22-Jul-20 01:07 AM
It would be unfortunate if the Court found out I had left the bounds of my prison, under a different name. For that, they would most likely kill me. More unfortunate, if they found out I had interfered in local politics. My punishment is to remain here, my hands tied, tortured with idleness. If they discovered I had amused myself, hah. For that, they would not be so merciful.
What would they do, ruin your eyeliner? Although honestly, being revealed as imperfect, flawed, ugly, or even average would likely be extremely painful for the fae, seeing as it's the antithesis to their being. But would fellow fae even be willing to exact that punishment? Maybe it's more likely that they'd just use glamour to inflict a facsimile of horrible, overdramatic pain.
Worse still, I suspect, if they discovered that I had befriended miss Essylt and mister Keller.
Fae aren't allowed to make friends!? That's...kind of sad
She thought to blackmail me, and made three mistakes. The first was simple. I want the Court to come looking. What fun!
Three is a dangerous number of mistakes to make, I'm sure. Also, this tracks- he's a maniac. I'm absolutely rooting for him. I think I've mentioned in my livereads before that Padraic is such a fun character for many of the reasons the shards are a fun story conceit: he wants things to be more interesting, to be fun- he wants to play out his own dramatic, wild fantasy and we're all kind of just here for it. Pact, as a story, is built to undermine and subvert a lot of those expectations, and so Padraic stands in for them.
A tie of hair in my pocket, wound around my finger. My finger, in turn, winds around a lock of hair at my ear. Winds it in, as a corkscrew penetrates a cork. Let it reach the scalp and take root. A shake of the head, a toss of golden hair. All done in plain sight. It’s clear the focus of the Duchamp contingent is elsewhere.
and I always root for a trickster, I must say
The rest is simply changing how I think. Adopting a role.
And actors especially
“Why,” she told me. “Miss Joanna. You wouldn’t be awed by someone like me, would you?”
Oh dear- I somehow think that the fae wouldn't be careless enough to let two Joanna Duchamps run around, and have to wonder what exactly might've happened to the other one...
Also her familiar was a fae, so I wonder how exactly that played out- presumably a fae still loyal to the Court, since she was gifted to the Duchamps. Must be a bit of a mess to deal with
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A bird 🐦 22-Jul-20 01:28 AM
Sounds like an awful lot of fun
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JayManiac 22-Jul-20 01:34 AM
I was halfway through the second song before Letita arrived. In the form of a chickadee, she settled on my wrist, eyes closed, as she listened.
Ah, that makes more sense
Disgraced, not quite banished, her placement here in the service to a young girl had been intended to remind her of the fate that awaited if she did worse. The three of us were meant to be a threat, kicked dogs, broken Fae. The Court had underestimated my winning personality.
So he got Letita to ally with him against the court? or perhaps hypnotized her somehow? Also are the Duchamp girls Fae Australia? I think the answer is probably yes.
I invited a touch. Subtle cues. I’d already draped my hair over one shoulder. the shoulder closest to her was bare, but for the jacket I wore. The rest was height, distance, and the suggestion of anxiety. Marjorie reached out to place a hand on my shoulder, partly reassurance, partly to guide.
The subtle manipulation is just delightful to read. Kind of reminds me of Twig, but magically enforced- he's such a bastard I love him.
It also continues to be delightful watching all of the Fae's statements and their technical-truthfulness; I am struck by the urge to pull every single line once again. Wildbow really manages to faithfully embody these masters of deception and it shall forever impress me
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Jade | i love you video games 22-Jul-20 01:44 AM
Do you think you're going to finish this chapter today?
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JayManiac 22-Jul-20 01:56 AM
With the pace that I'm currently going and the increasing frenzy and adrenaline with which my time for reading runs short- as well as the imminent distractions the universe has decided to provide in the forms of a friend's Ward liveread, my professors emailing me, and my partner deciding to curl up in my lap (sans glasses, so as not to spoil anything for themself) I Somehow Doubt It
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Jade | i love you video games 22-Jul-20 01:56 AM
I just wanted to share
These are the notes I made about Padraic's letter to the girl with the checkered scarf for my video on Signature
I think it's hilarious that a trait I found so profoundly irritating you find this endearing
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JayManiac 22-Jul-20 02:14 AM
It's probably because I relate to it so tragically, which I understand may be damaging to our own personal rapport...I honestly think it's working on both of us and I just happen to channel those same sentiments into liking the bastard, in a sense. I think I have a little bit of Fae in me- as all humans do -and I somewhat sadistically enjoy watching that oh-so-familiar piece of my motivation given thematically-relevant superpowers and then loosed on the world! I like attention, I enjoy crafting believable lies, I admire cleverness and I'm self-indulgent in my scribblings at times. I recognize and work on those things, but part of that indulgence is taking a kind of delight in seeing them unleashed nonetheless. He just wants to entertain and be entertained, and those things have a lot to do with my personality. His presence in the story is also satisfying to me as a reader, since I- as an audience member -want the story to have wonderful twists and turns and brilliant conflict, to be where all the action is and make it as interesting as possible: all things that Padraic fulfills.
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Jade | i love you video games 22-Jul-20 02:15 AM
That's a really good point. I hadn't thought of Padraic as an exaggerated audience surrogate.
My reasoning was something like, "I like maggie and padraic was mean to her"
And, of course I can empathize with wanting to create stuff that people give attention - I'm a Youtuber. In Padraic's case it's his entire existence. I just don't like him because he's a dick.
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JayManiac 22-Jul-20 02:20 AM
No that's also a very fair take- if you're curious, here's what was going on in my liveread at around that time:
I'm just very appreciative of villains who are ludicrously Extra and Fae are perhaps the personifications of Extra
It also helps that I don't have the burden of possibly seeing him as redeemable- he's more of a chaotic force of nature to me, and so I don't actually blame him that much for being a dick, even when perhaps I should.
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Jade | i love you video games 22-Jul-20 02:24 AM
That's a good point. I am always rooting for people to be redeemed and be nice to one another, and assuming he would f things up from the first sentence would have probably left me less disappointed
Anyway, I've dragged you off track
(I was not disappointed, per se, just uhhhhh very very angry)
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JayManiac 22-Jul-20 02:35 AM
I'm not sure why I never had any hope for Padraic despite generally taking that same philosophy when it comes to characters, but that's an equally valid and intriguing assessment- I'm afraid I'll have to finish the chapter at a later date, I didn't expect to take so long with it but I suppose I should've known a bit better than that XD.
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JayManiac 22-Jul-20 11:40 PM
I mean, there's a lot that goes into whether you like a character or not- part of it is the whole 'being a good person' thing, but other factors include: - Do I relate to this character? How well do I understand them, and how do I see myself in them? - Do I admire this character? Do I think they're competent, intelligent, witty, badass- the being a good person can actually fall as a subset of this category, theoretically, if they're just admirably good-natured, empathetic, selfless, etc. Depends a lot on what I would admire in a person - Do I sympathize with this character? Overlaps a bit with relating to the character- in a ven-diagram-space I'd call 'empathizing' with said character -but even if I haven't been through comparable things, how well does the book do with getting me to feel for them? - Are the struggles that they go through interesting to me? Will likely depend a lot on what I relate to, and what I'm able to relate the issues in my life or the lives of people I know to. is their struggle, perhaps, one that I would like to win? - Do I like what they do in the book? Does their presence make things more interesting- by virtue of their decision-making -or are they a buzzkill to things I find more compelling than their story? (Mary Sues typically fall into being a buzzkill to interesting conflict-resolution, for instance) - Maybe more for my taste, but I think there's an element of it for a lot of people: have I seen this character before? Can I predict what they'll do- not as a result of my understanding of the character, but because they're acting in-line with so many of the tropes I've seen before? And- if they are, do I get the sense that it's intentional and being spun in a new direction? - And the occasionally-overlooked: Is their point of view entertaining? Do I like to read it? Are they funny? Opinionated? Do they have a unique perspective that gives the book more life?
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A bird 🐦 22-Jul-20 11:47 PM
Ward huh, this really crystallised the divide over liking Sveta for me. I never quite grokked exactly what was motivating people to not like her
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JayManiac 22-Jul-20 11:49 PM
That last one is hugely important to me, actually. Some of my favorite characters aren't very good people, but they make up for it in one of the other categories. Dave from John Dies At The End doesn't go through things that I particularly relate to, but his viewpoint is hilarious to read; (Twig) I admire Sylvester Lambsbridge's competence, I think his perspective is outlandishly unique, and I relate to a lot of his struggles but this doesn't mean he's anywhere near a good person- and if he isnear a good person, get that person away from him before he ruins their life. Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes scores well on relatability, low on not-being-a-little-shit, but astronomical on [presence makes things way more interesting] and [perspective is fun to read]. In six of crows, I admire Kaz, relate to Jesper and find him funny, think Matthias is a good person, feel sorry for Wylan, and empathize with Inej's plight.
Padraic, then, gets very high on relatability and interesting presence, very high (for me) on eloquence and fun-to-read-ness, and still very high on admiration because he constantly astonishes me with his schemes, turns of phrase, etc.
I suppose there's a metric I didn't consider: the "did u hurt the boi" metric. The idea that what Matt might call our 'monkey brain' thinks the characters in the books are our friends, and gets protective of them, making more snap judgements that determine how we think of characters that wrong our friends. I don't know why it sometimes goes off for me and sometimes doesn't, but if you're the guy who broke Evan's neck the readers are gonna feel zero sympathy, never take your side, make fun of you for eternity for being the most incompetent behaim.
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A bird 🐦 22-Jul-20 11:54 PM
Fuckin' Dunc 😠
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JayManiac 22-Jul-20 11:56 PM
Re: Bird I didn't realize there was a divide; I like Sveta because I admire her good-ness, feel sorry for everything she goes through, and relate to her struggle- also she and Victoria make each other better people, which is another thing I find admirable. Mind informing me/explaining how this clarified? (edited)
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JayManiac 23-Jul-20 12:36 AM
That makes sense. I actually did agree with Sveta's motivation there because of my own personal beliefs, and see it as a bit of an impossible situation. I very much understood where she was coming from. My own personal philosophy is "fuck the trolly problem" expanded to "objective truth does not exist and fuck treating any concrete definition as truth". Anytime you put something into language, you categorically reduce it, and contessa is categorically reducing it a whole lot, reducing possibility itself by her measure- and the measure of the shard -whether she intended to or not. She dealt in absolutes, in numbers of casualties, in a bunch of things that I'm not sure should define what the future looks like. Sveta's rejection of that was- to me -quite admirable, and showcased that we think about things along similar lines, in that regard, so it only really made me like her more. I might not have made the same choice myself, to commit to rejecting the absolutism, but if anything that just makes what she did more admirable in my eyes.
thistbh 2
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Seregraug 23-Jul-20 12:38 AM
I think it's also important that she has no reason to trust what Contessa is saying. It's kind of like asking Victoria to trust what Amy says. And given Contessa's power, what she said made not have mattered at all. We still don't have any idea of whether Contessa gave them a choice at all or just said the right mouth noises to manipulate them into the intended behaviors.
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JayManiac 23-Jul-20 12:41 AM
(as an added note, I very much disagree with the world leader comparison. Breakthrough wasn't elected to this position, didn't choose it, aren't qualified, etc. They aren't world leaders. They were 'elected' purely by Contessa. While a world leader agrees to deal in the absolutes and the measures that their country decides on, and the people of said country understand that in the election process, Breakthrough made none of those agreements at any point. Sveta has no responsibility to adhere to the options presented or accept them as defining reality- whether that's as a hero, a person, or a leader.)
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Absolutely agreed, Sere. There are a number of vectors upon which she is entirely validated to reject Contessa's premise, the unverifiable source being foremost among them.
I'm seeing what Bird means about our livereads; Jade and I are two very different people, and I'm having a whole lot of fun with it.
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JayManiac 25-Jul-20 12:50 AM
Alrighty! Let's get back to it and wrap up the chapter, shall we? Or even just get beyond the halfway point, because there's a lot to say here. Then again, maybe there's the same amount to say and a good chunk of why it's taking me so long is that I like a passage so much that I spend like a minute trying and failing to come up with things to say about it that I haven't already said- anyhow- 13.x continues!
There was a sound of steel being drawn from a sheath. Like the movements of a dance. Turning around, backing away. One hand clutching Auntie Marge’s wrist, to control how she moved, to keep leaving. As bends in the rule went, it was silly, but it had been established, and a faerie must do as a faerie must do, even if it’s a silly, self-imposed rule. The Goblin King’s familiar had drawn a blade.
Now this is fascinating- there are so many possible things he could be reacting to here. My first thought was that he swore to avoid physical altercations or some other type of conflict, but that seems more something that the courts would decree, and he says it's self-imposed. The next idea was something to do with cold iron but then I realized I wasn't reading Name Of The Wind and there hasn't really to my knowledge been any mention of that in Pact (although I would assume that untempered or unrefined iron might be able to pierce glamour because of its un-purified, crude, direct nature; you could probably find other materials that would do that, though). My current theory is that it's got something to do with the fact that the King's sword is almost certainly a defeated goblin itself, and- considering their nature as opposites -it might be related? Other factors to consider include the fact that he himself has used goblins in the guise of Maggie, and he's been around Blake when he's used the Hyena, so I'm not quite certain.
“Violence?” The Goblin King asked. “This is mere emphasis to a goblin.” “Slitting a throat is emphasis to a goblin,” Teresa Duchamp commented. “Good point, good point!” The Goblin King declared, obviously agitated. “Yes. Should I start doing that? Or could Sandra Duchamp please break her silence to tell me that I didn’t just waste the last six years of my life supporting a family that’s clearly unable to follow through on promises.”
Still pretty satisfying to see the aftermath of Blake's revelation coming though here, although I can't help but wonder what this guy's investment is in what she admitted? Did he have stakes in the marriages ending specifically or was this more a breach of trust in general?
There was an art to the interplay between Faerie. Cleverness, layers. But sometimes one wanted the equivalent of trash television when they were looking for amusement.
No shame in a guilty pleasure, Padraic.
There was an art to the interplay between Faerie. Cleverness, layers. But sometimes one wanted the equivalent of trash television when they were looking for amusement.
well, I suppose if that guilty pleasure is 'basic human suffering' then we might have a bit more of a problem
“You failed,” the Goblin King said. “Your trap didn’t work. You let several of us die.” “The ones who died were the worst of you,” Teresa Duchamp said.
The Goblin King's displeasure certainly makes sense, if perhaps more out of a sense of self-preservation. I love how the language reveals what Blake's antics have done to the family- with the use of "us" and "you" I get the feeling the husbands are being united against the duchamps a little, despite really not knowing much about each other compared to what they know of the duchamps. Which, I suppose, is pretty much what blake was going for in terms of stirring up unrest.
I write this and I admit, I didn’t let the Thorburn win. That had more to do with other agencies at play. But if I didn’t try my utmost, knowing that this would happen might have had something to do with it.
That's the fancy, technically-true Faerie way of saying "yes I totally meant to do that". I don't doubt that he's enjoying himself, but that language is very hypothetical and strikes me as at least a bit of bullshit.
Here, in this time and place, it was all the more temporary. Sandra had tried to blackmail me, and had graciously conceded when I didn’t bow to it, offering a chance to deceive Mr. Thorburn instead. Her blackmail had failed for three reasons. The second reason was that I had no reason to expect any of these individuals to still be here, when the Court came calling. Humans knew my secrets and didn’t even know that the important ones were secrets. Yet I had no reason to expect they would live long enough for it to matter.
First of all, another example of why I like Padraic: he's doing the 'silence of three parts' thing and while it's pretentious as hell and he's delighting far too much in it, it's still just a satisfying narrative thing that I like to see happen in prose and I'm enjoying myself. As for the reason itself, uhhhhh...well. That's not ominous at all, especially not with Padraic's apparent ability to predict the future, which has been confirmed at least to be reputable enough for the Behaims to take very seriously. See, I'd have to stop making statements like that if I were a practitioner.
Sandra wasn’t Faerie, but she had picked up some things in her time as the Duchamp ambassador to the Court. She was making the Goblin King do exactly what she wanted him to. No enchantment at all.
Ilovethis
But it had been the right play, to let the Goblin King go. To put the power in his hand. Had she made him swear, she might have removed him as a problem, but she would have had to deal with the rest. These next moments would prove the true mettle of her character. Oh, how I wondered, in those delicious heartbeats. How would you handle this, Sandra Duchamp? When she spoke, her voice was clear. “The deal is done. Those who came at our request are now free to leave,” Sandra said. “Contact me in one month’s time if you have grievances, but give me that month to resolve this situation. It is salvageable.”
See I just want padraic to be the narrative announcer to every dramatic practitioner moment- he's just as invested in all of this and feeling much the same sense of drama and whimsy that I am, so...relatable.
Also: Holy Shit It Really Worked
The Duchamp Family's primary resource has officially gone under, and it's the Behaimburns vs Johannes for the Lordship now, I suppose. Blake really did get a win there, kind of. Things went as intended for once- hell, that's more than enough to sell me on the idea that Blake has some good karma working for him at this point. Maybe he lost a bit to Mason, but he evidently had enough to seal the final blow.
Interesting, how I've been all "no wait killing people bad" this entire arc and yet there's a part of me that's just like "...I'm still pissed that the spellbinder got away, fuck that guy".
A point, I imagined, to the Thorburn Bogeyman as well. Our blighted Rose. The Duchamps would be intact enough to help him accomplish other things, but not so intact to be a threat.
Yep, it's pretty much the best possible outcome for the thorburns, and I don't actually see very much of a problem with the husbands being sent away- other than the somewhat murder-y methods of getting there.
I followed his glance. A crow? The Thorburn’s crow man. Perhaps it is better to write that it was Crone Mara’s crow man? Ordered to interfere with the enemy. Doing just that.
You know, it almost makes me feel a little better to see ol Corvidae kickin around here. It's like when there's a black widow in your room: the whole situation is way more tense if you lose track of it. We know where he is, at least, so when he finally pulls the rug out from under Rose we go "ah shit that's what he was doing there we were totally foreshadowed and should've seen this particular method of fuckery coming"
He met my gaze, then Keller’s.
Wonder how he feels about fae in general? My guess would be neutral-to-dislike, since they're in some sense an Other that came from europe along with colonialism, but they're not humans...maybe he'd work with them? It's also possible that these two have a history, considering that padraic knows about his correspondence with Crone Mara
Displaying an uncanny strength, it emerged with a gun held in its beak. Moving up onto a spot where a coat had been left folded atop a snowbank. Depositing the gun atop the coat. Moving a cell phone from the coat pocket to the bag the gun had occupied.
Haha, surely this will be a Fun and Lighthearted Prank that will be joyous for all involved. Neat. fine
(edited)
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The man the cell phone had belonged to picked up his coat. Muscular, tattooed, he seemed comfortable in the cold. The gun slid off the coat as he moved it.
Oh fuck it's paying off now
I thought we'd wait like five chapters before we heard about some horrible shit but I should've known better
See, being in Padraic's head is so convenient! We get to be right where all the fun is, because he wouldn't have it any other way!
On seeing that he was facing down a practitioner with a gun, the diagram drawer reacted without hesitation, in the time that practitioner was looking down at the weapon. He drew a knife from inside his coat and used it in the same motion. Slitting the gunman’s throat. He reached for the gun and reclaimed it as the gunman’s free hand went to his throat, in surprise.
Hey so maybe the husbands aren't all that united and friendly after all, my mistake
Auntie Marge covered my eyes, and I might have killed her for it, if I’d been permitted by the terms I’d agreed to.
Oh Padraic, you silly goose...fine
(edited)
Then he raised his gun, aimed, and fired twice into the crowd.
It's quite horrawesome to watch Corvidae work
“Penelope!” Sandra cried out, in the midst of the chaos. “Go, get the younger Duchamps-” Penelope’s eyes widened, on realizing that Sandra was talking to her. Before Sandra could finish speaking, Penelope spat in the woman’s face.
This is what I've really been waiting for: not what the revelation does to the husbands or their place in the battle for Lordship, but the Junior Duchamps' reactions, particularly Penelope, in light of how fiercely she was arguing against Blake and Lola's points, in the council and then later in the groupchat. It's so, so satisfying to see it all pay off for her.
I cast a glance backward at Sandra Duchamp. The faction had broken up. Grudges that had been suppressed now boiled to the surface. In the midst of it all, the former leader of the Duchamps stood alone
See, I understand that she's awful, but I still like Sandra and seeing her like this, after her husband and children and allies have all abandoned her is kind of still...ouch.
It's a section break, and I'm afraid I'm gonna have to duck out once again here; I did warn that the price of me reading more often, considering the timeslots I have, might be not quite fitting an entire chapter into a single or even two sessions, espeically if it's an interlude that I've got a lot to discuss with. Sorry to cut it short! I'll see you all soon, and I'll be around to chat at various points of the day.
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JayManiac 29-Jul-20 01:18 AM
A paraphrasing of the events on the Night of Red Bells, II
Alright I swear I'll wrap this chapter up this time; there's not even that much further to go, I can do it. Also, we're still not really sure what 'the night of red bells' is supposed to mean? The Red Bell in question could refer to Molly, red being associated with anger- I suppose it could also be getting close to christmas time? I'm not sure when exactly we are besides winter. There's also a flower called a red bell, but we haven't exactly seen reference to a flower besides 'rose', and the relevant offshoots of said flowers. Curious, quite curious.
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JayManiac 29-Jul-20 01:34 AM
Penelope finished drawing the circle. She checked her laptop, then looked down at the diagram. Nervously, she looked over at the door.
And we're still getting to check in/expand upon the Penelope's reaction to The Bad News here, hopefully with the rest of the junior council in tow, if that laptop means what I think it does.
Lola Duchamp had chosen not to join Penelope here at the house, claiming it was too dangerous to go out. That sunrise was in less than an hour.
drat; I was hoping for Lola to be there to say "i told you so" in person in this moment, but there are probably reasons that's not the case.
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JayManiac 29-Jul-20 01:47 AM
One spark, a flick of a knife, and things had imploded. The allies had become enemies. Each girl had a mother, an aunt, a cousin, that might not survive this. Many had to wonder if their dads or uncles would turn on the family, now that the family was no longer convenient and useful to them.
Ahahhhahhahhhhhhh that's not even something I'd thought about, but yeah. That the children have fathers who are wrapped up one way or another in this war, and that's something they each have to wrestle with. This entire situation just got so much worse for me, because I'm sure there are absolutely terrible people among the husbands who genuinely care about their daughters, whether it's a healthy relationship or not, and that's going to be pretty traumatizing for all parties involved.
Couch and chairs had been pushed to the side, a rug rolled up. The diagram drawn on the floor had circles that displayed the masks of Thalia and Melpomene. The dramatic masks of comedy and tragedy. Large, shallow bowls of water were set at different points around the diagram.
I wonder how fey interact with greek ideas like the muses. I imagine that there might be some metaphysical similarity, such that some of the minor greek deities might be subsumed into the fey courts, but honestly I've got no clue. I don't know why this passage makes it sound like padraic knows them personally, that's just the vibe I got.
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JayManiac 29-Jul-20 02:01 AM
“Chin up, girls,” Penelope said. Almost as one, the collected Duchamp girls fixed their expressions, squared shoulders, and wiped tears from their faces. Across the room, Chloe Duchamp crossed one leg over the other and folded her hands in her lap.
Ah, the staple of all good enchantress covens: child brainwashing!!!
This is just... really really sad
An image shimmered into existence. Then another. Alister Behaim. Ainsley Behaim. Rose Thorburn. Lola Duchamp. Mags. Wearing a concerned expression as she looked around the room.
Ah! It is a whole council meeting. Excellent
The ambassador’s eyes fell on me. The one who had taken her name. She smiled sympathetically. I smiled back, but to all appearances, I failed to put on a brave face, and broke eye contact.
I don't suppose she knows that he's back in town yet?
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JayManiac 29-Jul-20 02:18 AM
“You won. I have a hard time believing you’re going to agree to a deal that ties your hands.” “Believe it or not,” Alister said, “I’m actually interested in the council succeeding. I believe in what we’re trying to do.” “But?” Penelope asked. He sighed.
This kind of checks out, with Alister's idea of changing the status quo, or being one of the 'bullets' that does, but I don't know that any deal he creates will do anything but bolster the existing system. He's got another angle to play. that said, he's typically pretty straightforward, so I do actually believe him here, despite the obvious potential for deceit (he doesn't specify what he believes in, and that could mean a multitude of things (I think being in Padraic's head has re-infused my awareness of technical truths))
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A bird 🐦 29-Jul-20 02:20 AM
CharmanderHi
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JayManiac 29-Jul-20 02:23 AM
“I am being altruistic. But I don’t think you’re going to like how far that altruism extends.” “Extends?” Penelope asked. “Rose Thorburn,” Lola Duchamp spoke. “No,” Penelope said.
Aaaaand there it is. I wonder if this is the knee-jerk reaction of family loyalty, a deep-seeded belief- probably both. Also whether it's diabolism, or Rose specifically that she has a problem with. I have to wonder at the behaims' general reaction to this, too. Penelope was willing to extend a hand to Blake at the beginning of the story, at least a little, while the prejudice against diabolism was so ingrained in the behaim kids that I don't know how easy it'll be to dispel.
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JayManiac 29-Jul-20 02:34 AM
“That’s not what I’m doing,” he replied. “Believe me, if things hadn’t happened this way tonight, I would be making the same offer. I’ll agree with what you were offering to Craig, provided Rose Thorburn is included.” “Stop fighting everything,” Lola said, her voice low.
I still wonder whether this will solve anything. Is there any agreement that could possibly be made at this point to where nobody will end up in the same position Blake did? And will they be able to convince penelope, if that's the case?
I can't believe how wholeheartedly I'm rooting for Alister here
“I don’t know what he’s planning,” Rose spoke. “What I do know is that something bigger is going on.” Ah, so they’ve figured it out. “Bigger?” “Alister detected a larger threat. He told me about it before the engagement,” Rose said, holding up the hand with the ring. “Something else is pulling strings. Not a practitioner. Something powerful. There are other things at work here.”
I honestly hope it's barbatorem and not some other force that we know absolutely nothing about- but this explains why padraic is so sure that nobody will live to be interrogated. I don't know that I have any other guesses, so Barbatorem it is? I'm sure when it turns out to be something completely different I'll be kicking myself for not guessing it now. Maybe it's (worm) Scion, who knows?
“No,” Alister said. “We can’t afford for things to settle down. If things are left to stand as they are, Johannes wins, and Johannes isn’t cooperating or communicating. We can’t afford to give him ten hours of daylight and peace to consolidate and strategize. We can’t afford for the other player to get a chance to step back and plot his next move.” “You want to revoke the rule that creates peace at dawn?” Mags asked. “No,” Alister said. “I’m going to work around it. The Behaims have a store of power. I’m going to spend it.”
Fucking time wizards, always screwing with the rules. It's everyone else's fault for basing said rules on something one of their opponants can manipulate, but nonetheless...Still racking my brain for who the new player could be, and what kind of influence it might have. If Rose is working against it actively, it seems less likely to be Babs, but after that there's the Toronto Players, Ur, the Angels- it could be the Fey but I doubt it...
Rose remained. “What?” Penelope asked, hostile. Unaware of just how much she was influenced by the well of karmic gravity that surrounded even the image of Rose Thorburn.
Yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense, and I hadn't thought about it in quite those terms before. Regardless of what she does, she's going to be 'everything everyone's working against' by the sheer weight of Karma. That's not to say she's innocent or should be treated as such, but nobody seems to be adjusting for biases here.
“I’ll see if I can convince Alister to help,” Rose said. Her image disappeared. The water in the bowl gone. “Manipulative bitch,” Penelope said under her breath.
Perhaps it's telling how my view of Rose shifts much more favorably whenever we're not in Blake's head
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JayManiac 29-Jul-20 02:59 AM
The inside of the Faerie House was luxurious. Glamour painted every surface. The front hall had been expanded to a grand hall, with twin staircases leading to a balcony above. Music played. Puppets made up with glamour danced. A clock loomed over the staircase. Joanna laughed. “Padraic!”
Oh dear- how long do we think she's been in here
?
“Because I’m going to be the youngest practitioner in the family to do the Awakening ritual!” Joanna gushed. There were lights reflecting in her eyes that would never stop flashing and dancing. “I’m going to get a familiar, her name’s Letita, and I’ll get to practice. But I’ve only got five or ten minutes, and there’s so much happening.“ “When the clock hits ten, you’ll go, as we agreed,” I said, gesturing to the clock that hadn’t moved in quite some time. “You don’t want to miss your tenth birthday party.”
OH FUCK
THAT'S SO MUCH WORSE THAN I WAS IMAGINING
Ilovethis 5
So he's just been Joanna for the entire book, then
How the fuck did the Faeries pull off being awakened as a practitioner, getting the familiar pact, and keeping quiet about it for three years while continuing to show up in various other places?!?!
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JayManiac 30-Jul-20 12:31 AM
Sine Die 14.1
And onto another arc! This legal term apparently means "postponed indefinitely"- which so far could refer at the very least to the dawn that the behaims have decided to delay. It could also refer to a postponement of the Lordship, the delay of some commupance...I'm not entirely sure, but maybe we'll be a bit more so by the end of this chapter!
“Here!” Green Eyes called out. “Found one!” Wood popped, snapped, and creaked as I approached.
I don't want him to be eating more behaims, but he's probably eating more behaims
if I remember correctly, there was some mention of shoring himself back up before tackling the next phase of the plan- which is, if I remember correctly, unite the town against johannes? I know that's vaguely Alister's plan, but I think it was also Blake's. Although he might be planning to take on the Behaims first...hopefully not, though, since I just started agreeing with them a little again, and plus whenever Blake and Rose get too close to each other shit just hits the fan.
Speaking of shit hitting the fan: there's still a Mysterious Force pulling all the strings that's more powerful than a practitioner, and that the faeries fully expect to wipe out everyone in Jacob's Bell. I don't know what exactly could be the mastermind- honestly Corvidae's up there in guesses, and if we hadn't just had Padraic's interlude he'd be a contestant. It doesn't seem quite like this book for the entity to be something we'd never ever heard of, but there are so many possible angles it could go that I'm not sure. Conquest? Literal God? I don't know that the book would go there, but hey, in twig they spend a pretty harrowing chapter killing a being called God, who then proceeds to unleash a horrific old-testament plague. I wouldn't rule Angels out of the question at least; a kind of "maybe we should just wipe this town off the map before shit gets too bad" kinda thing. Oh, speaking of shit getting too bad, Mags still has a prophesy that's probably gonna come to a head here. And it won't even be the last time it does!
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JayManiac 30-Jul-20 12:46 AM
“Huh?” Evan asked. He started to make his way through my body, and started to poke his head out, when I covered his eyes. It quickly turned into a game of whack-a-mole, as he shifted position, poked his head out, and was blocked before he could take in the image. “You’re not letting me see this? You know the kind of horrible gunk I’ve seen? Old gobby Mcnailface back there? People dying? I bit a man’s eye. You going to tell me this is-” He managed to worm his head out and around the edge of my hand. “-blegh,” he said, before retreating back inside.
This is just a real good tone setter for this image. I mean first of all, can totally relate to being too curious and then regretting it, so thanks Evan, love u. And then second of all, it's just a real "yeah this is worse" thing that we're pulling off here. If it is goblins, I Absolutely believe it's probably worse. Goblins are always worse. Is poke really a goblin love story? Because they're just such the worst I'm very confused at what direction the story might take things. I guess I'll have to read and find out.
Maybe it was better that Evan hadn’t looked long enough to see the smaller details.
Yeah no I was gonna pull this description but I didn't want to pull all of it so I started looking for the salient parts and then I caught myself wondering what the fuck I wanted to say besides "wb how do you delight so much in giving us these descriptions?" and decided to spare all of us having to read them again. On one hand, they're a crucial detail in what makes Pact Pact. On the other...it's the kind of detail I want to experience a total of once per time that it's in the story.
“They didn’t even eat him,” Green Eyes said.
Has her priorities straight.
But the reason they did the displays, I think, is they were marking territory.” “You think that’s what these goblins are doing?” I asked. “Staking a claim?”
Makes sense. If being a Lord is anything like claiming a demesne- which I'm sure it is to an extent -then these goblins staking claims everywhere are gonna be a real pain in the ass for whoever ascends.
“It’s not intact enough for me to do the polite thing and close the eyes,” I said. “Doesn’t work anyway,” Green Eyes said. “The body keeps them open. It gets weird if you try, and they keep opening their eyes. I learned pretty fast, you have to look at them as meat. Once they’re dead they’re gone.”
I actually learned this because of Twig! Thanks for ruining all the dramatic story moments where they do that with the image of the dead character's eyes just kinda popping back open as soon as the scene cuts somewhere else, Wb! See, these books are so educational
lol 1
“Yeah, I learned my lesson. The goblins threw some back in the water, after fishing them out and doing things to them.” “Doing things?” “Glass shoved into the skin, twists of metal, rusty razor wire jammed down the throat. Worse. Not stuff you want to bite into.”
You'd think that being torn and impaled and left to the scavengers was ugly enough for the personifications of ugliness, but no, that's just a bit too environmentally friendly for em
I pulled the section of spine free. “Evan, I might not be around forever. I’d work on making friends with Green Eyes, just in case. And heads up, coming in.”
I mean I think they're friends, with a bit of banter thrown in. Could be wrong. Still, the idea that Blake's still planning in terms of not being around after this is concerning. yet probably accurate.
“We’re near the faerie house. It’s at eleven o’clock. Hillsglade is at two o’clock, maybe five blocks to the northeast. I know you mostly looked from overhead, but can you remember the layout of the city? I know Rose had you scouting Behaim houses, and we need to find some Behaims.”
I misunderstood the first two sentences because I got flashes to faerie houses and clocks...also, I really hope Blake's trying to diplomatically find some behaims. Maybe that hat-while-driving guy? He's probably just going to try to weaken them next, but hey. Come to think of it, who does Blake want to win the Lordship? If it's not Johannes, not the Duchamps, not the Behaimburns...does he really think he can stop the contest entirely?
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JayManiac 30-Jul-20 01:12 AM
“We’re going to Hillsglade House, then we’re heading that way. Next part of the plan is to work against the Behaims. Go communicate with Jeremy. Tell him what we’re doing. Sandra’s done, but if we’re going to balance the scales and get things so we can all deal with Johannes, we’re going to need to hit the Behaims where it hurts. We don’t have long, so… let’s do what we can. We’ll meet you over there, if all goes well.”
All would not, I expect, go well. But it seems that his plan is to weaken the Behaims past the point of assuming Lordship, which is...a choice. I somehow doubt it'll go quite as well as it did with the Duchamps. Blake may get a win, but he won't be allowed two in a row. Or maybe he will...but at that point we'll have a three beat...
Who was cleaning up? At a certain point, things had crossed a line. This wasn’t a mess that could be cleaned up before dawn, even with a concerted effort. Even if every genie, practitioner and even goblin chipped in to help.
I suppose that's the duty of whoever gets the Lordship? Not that you're apparently obligated to do so, if Conquest was any example
“Aw, crap,” he said. “Surrounded,” Green Eyes observed.
greeneyes
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A bird 🐦 30-Jul-20 01:17 AM
CharmanderHi
I don't want him to be eating more behaims, but he's probably eating more behaims
Can you imagine explaining that line about Blake to Jay circa arc 3?
lol 1
Pact sure goes places
Heck, Pact sure goes
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JayManiac 30-Jul-20 01:19 AM
it sure does
"hey J, here's a line from your liveread a year and a half later, when you still aren't finished!"
"it's about cannibalism! And that protagonist you like so much!"
“We know those guys,” Evan said. Why did that fill me with more concern than if they were utter strangers?
Maybe it's because you're aware that you haven't exactly made the best impression on the people you've met?
lol 2
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A bird 🐦 30-Jul-20 01:21 AM
"Most of them were already dead!"
fine 1
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JayManiac 30-Jul-20 01:24 AM
Not a bogeyman, to all appearances. Where a bogeyman generally looked like something had been exaggerated, twisted, cut away and patched up until something had come together, in an extreme or in a single way, this thing looked like an artist’s work, and it was colorful, clean. The feathers were more ornamental than functional, like a headdress from one of the First Nations, but they extended to wings, as well as a general mane. His face was covered by a stylized wooden mask with a beak, painted gold and white. If it weren’t for the taloned bird-feet that extended from knee down, I might have pegged him as an archetypical angel that just so happened to have red-and-gold feathers. His hands, as he drew his wings back to reveal his torso, complete with a painted wooden breastplate, were taloned as well.
I really love this character design, and wonder if it is, in fact, designed. Maybe it's something similar to Corvidae, a spirit intentionally crafted for some purpose? Seems more recent than him though, if it's managed to stay relatively pristine. Corvidae's kind of spent his time being warped. This guy almost reminds me of the fae. I wouldn't say angel, because I...don't think Pact is doing angels exactly...as expected
(edited)
The faceless woman and her companion, who had a head like a burn victim, lips and nose burned away, teeth and eyeballs exposed, almost too white. His face was almost exaggerated with the burn, his flesh red and raw where it wasn’t black. The Revenant. The dead man that had returned.
Ah, good ol Pizza Guy!
I wonder whether Blake's new rapport with Others will do him any good here?
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JayManiac 30-Jul-20 01:33 AM
“We’ve been manipulated. Sent this way and that by the bell, and by practitioners. My friend here was driven halfway up the wall by the tension here. The bell let up, and I thought we had a moment to think for ourselves. Some of the others have been noticing that they’re an awful lot stronger tonight. There’s something going on.” “Sure,” I said. “There’s a lot going on.”
Is it just the effect of the Bell and of the ambient fear that's been feeding Blake lately? Or maybe the Abyss is trying to dig its finger-claw-hoof-tendrils in? I suppose bogeymen don't exactly have an 'opposite' in the way that angels and demons, fae and goblins do. Interesting. They exist in a kind of non-dualistic cycle. Or it's a dualism with humans, but there's nothing specific in the other direction. I suppose if connections were weakening across the board, it would be free real estate for the Abyss to poke its head in, but I'm not sure to what extent that has to happen for a noticable change.
“Something specific,” he said. “We went to go find answers, and we were headed off by the young Alister Behaim. He sent us here, suggesting that we could get the answers we wanted if we ran into you.” I closed my eyes. “Right. Of course.”
Well I don't know any answers, but I'd love to find some, so...buddies?
“I went after your kin, your kin took my face off. No permanent damage done either way,” the Revenant said. “Let’s spite little Alister, yeah? He thinks he can manipulate us, I say fuck him. Let bygones be bygones?”
Buddies!!!
kind of
eh, we'll take what we can get
And I'm all for spiting little Alister- I think I might be older than him at this point, so I can look down on him like everyone else does. Yay.
“I swear we’ll be allies to you, or to leave you be. Can’t promise to be with you through thick and thin, but you won’t have me champing at your heels during the thin.” “Good enough,” I said. “I swear the same.”
is...uh...is Pizza Guy actually bound to the Seal of Solomon? I'm not saying it's grounds not to trust him if he isn't, that'd be a bit hypocritical, but I'm just curious whether Blake has any confirmation or idea of this at all/if he's potentially making a mistake without realizing it.
“We going to assassinate Behaims?” Evan asked. “That’ll be a little weirder than anything else tonight, I think. Strangers, okay. But I’ve been watching Behaims and I know their faces. It’s like in a video game, you know how you play, like, Fray, and-”
Awww, buddy. I absolutely relate to this. Although I just don't like killing things in video games in general because I cannot squash my sense of empathy, and wasn't raised on video games. But also yeah, maybe don't assassinate behaims? Maybe don't train Evan to squash his sense of empathy in order to take them down?
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JayManiac 30-Jul-20 01:53 AM
“Well, what I’m saying is it’s like, when you play for way too long, you get to this point where you’ve fought Bat a hundred times and you see him and he’s kinda easy if you know how to deal with him so you feel almost fond of him? You know anything like that?” “Yeah,” the Revenant said.
I love this analogy and this recurring beat of Evan and Revan liking the same video game. They can be buds.
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JayManiac 30-Jul-20 02:06 AM
“I’m quite interested in the answer to this question, myself,” the Revenant said. “We need to knock their legs out from under them,” I said. “For the Duchamps, it was the husbands. For the Behaims, it’s their well of power. To access that, we’re going to need information, and we’re going to need something else. With luck, we’ll find it at Hillsglade House.”
I hope blake has a specific something else that he thinks will help, though I don't know what exactly it could be
“You may find that we have a problem on that front,” the Revenant said. “For one thing, when we ran into Alister…” He trailed off. I picked up the statement. “…It was at Hillsglade House.”
Fun. The Bogeyman Avengers have assembled, and they're off to face their arch enemy. You know, it would be apt to call these ones the Revengers, I think
“Fashion choice, a little more curious,” he added. When I glanced at him, he pointed to the body I still carried.
Blake: "Ah, Evan should not look at this, it's too horrible" Also Blake: "I shall carry it though the streets"
(edited)
Alister, other Behaims, including close relative of about Alister’s age standing close by. The timeless armor, Alister’s weapon. Rose. Did Rose count as a Behaim, now? What would I have thought, weeks ago, when all this started, if I’d known I’d ask myself that question?
As a little bird once said: Pact Sure Does Go
“We just happened to cross paths. Thanks to you,” I said. “I only had a small role in it,” Alister replied. “Satyrs and neutral monsters. Odd, how they’re gravitating toward you, isn’t it? How you’re doing so well, and how some Others have noticed they’re stronger?”
I mean, we've noticed that things seem to be going well for blake, and there was the question of whether or not that's good karma bouncing around for the last arc or so...but it seems like Alister thinks there's another possibility
“You’re inclined toward action. Right now, you’re itching to move, to carry out the next goal. It’s like a workaholic that keeps moving because if he stops, he realizes how empty he truly is. You can’t afford self reflection. But try to relax, all the same. I’m not going to fight you, unless you start a fight.”
Oooof. That's a hot take there, and one that I'm not sure even Blake would 100% disagree with. That said, Alister's still pushing, everything around him is still letting his terms define what's happening. Just because this might be an accurate analogy doesn't mean it's all that's going on, but he's using the idea that it is to leverage more karma and push the world evermore in his favor
“It’s like when you get caught in an undertow,” he remarked. “You can’t swim for shore. The current has too much pull. The tides favor you, right this minute. Sandra tried to go against you, I won’t make that same mistake. I’d rather go laterally.” “Laterally.”
It's quite satisfying to see Blake regarded as a force of nature, maybe even a bit less of an underdog now...also satisfying to see someone willing to kind of work with him, even if I really don't trust it, or trust that seeing Alister's goals though will be best for Jacob's Bell or the world of practitioners at large.
“Behaim family crest. Knight’s helm above a kite shield bearing the Fleur-de-Lis. The ring isn’t the well of power we’ve accumulated, but it’s the key to accessing that well. If it’s destroyed, the Behaims won’t be able to access the well for a few generations, until we figure out a way to undo the damage or get at the reserve from a different angle. It’s also the symbol of my office as the leader.” “Fancy that,” I said. “It’s funny, but I’m the first person that’s been able to wear the damn thing on anything but a pinky finger, for a long time. My predecessors tended to wear it on a chain around their neck. Thick fingers. But I digress. The benefit of being a very old, important object is that it has very strong ties to the family. If the owner dies and is lost, the ring has its way of finding us again. Only a very powerful being or a specific scenario would be able to keep the ring from making a migration to the display case in Laird’s old house. The power of connections, connections strong enough that the Duchamps would have a hard time gaming this little system here.”
So if Blake gets his hands on the ring, would it even hold? He doesn't have that much of the universe on his side, does he?
I mean maybe it'd be prevented from going anywhere if he gave it a little nick with the Hyena, that might be something that could work
“Not fighting against the current,” he responded. “Sorry for all the water analogies, but you would not believe how many times I heard the ‘time is a river’ thing, growing up.”
He really does know how to be charismatic, the little prick
“What’s the angle?” I asked. “In giving you the ring? To get you listening. Get you to stop, and maybe get you to relax. The power’s in your hand.” “Okay. I won’t deny that.”
And how to get himself a listening audience. I suppose he did get this far by making bold plays and being proven right
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JayManiac 30-Jul-20 02:36 AM
“Do you know the import of the tower card, in the major arcana of the tarot deck?” “No.” “Disaster, revolution. Revelation, even. We’re due an omen in about…” he checked his watch, “…forty seconds, and that should make it all clear.”
Well shit. I suppose it's a little bit of Chekov's tarot deck: if you have a tarot reading in arc 3, then in arc 14 you've gotta draw the fuckin tower
“Our omen. Hillsglade House just dropped a few feet toward sea level. It borders marshland, so that might be the official explanation.” “And the unofficial, practitioner explanation?” I asked. “You’re due a third visit to the Abyss,” he said. “Except this time, Hillsglade House seems inclined to go with you.”
Uhhhhh
is that...a good thing?
I somehow think that's not a good thing- all that knowledge, all that horrible-hair-demon-in-the-fucking-attic going kersploosh into the place with no rules? Maybe it'd be a good thing if nobody ever remembered Hillsglade House again? I Very Much Doubt It? Maybe it'd actually get rid of Babs, as a neat side effect, but...who knows?
“Jacob’s Bell is on the way down. The only thing keeping it here are the innocents, snug in their beds. No innocents in this house, so nothing to keep it up. Now, if I don’t keep the locals from suddenly deciding to evacuate this town, which they will, shortly after waking up, Jacob’s Bell is going to become a new attraction in the Abyss, complete with a spiteful lesser god and a perpetually tolling bell. Johannes takes over, by virtue of being in charge of all that’s left of the city, and we… go down to stay, quite possibly on a permanent basis.” He paused to let the words sink in. “Damn it,” I said. “You win. Take your damn ring back and stop this, then.”
I hate it when people like that are right. Not that Jacob's Bell wouldn't make an absolutely bitchin Abyss, but...I think that's probably the opposite of what we want. I suppose this is why all the bogeymen are getting more powerful, although we still don't know what the fuck is causing it besides a possible loss of connection? I think it's gotta be whoever is pulling the strings, because there's no way anyone else would have the kind of power to do that, and it doesn't seem like something that could happen naturally. I could be wrong, but I haven't seen the thing that makes Jacob's Drain make sense.
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JayManiac 30-Jul-20 07:47 PM
Absolutely! It'll be today if all goes to plan, which it typically doesn't!!
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JayManiac 30-Jul-20 10:47 PM
Alright, here we are for another chapter- I want it to be a couple chapters because we're A Bit Behind after it took us three (count em) sessions to finish the fey chapter (which fits, honestly) -but knowing the amount of time i tend to take it'll probably just be one. Especially if I get sucked into more discussions with the likes of bird and @Jade | i love you video games (just nailed that natural-flow-of-the-moment ping right there)
Different Behaims stood at different points at the periphery of the octagon. Adults. Elders. I recognized Ben, and the one that had sent the clockwork soldiers after us, killing Callan. He was the one I’d failed to kill.
Blake has such a complex relationship with the behaims; there's really all kinds of emotions going on here. Also we're setting up a Cool Ritual in the Hillsglade House so I'm down for this, nothing could ever go wrong.
CharmanderHi 2
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JayManiac 30-Jul-20 10:54 PM
He placed the ring in the center, standing on end, then flicked it, spinning it like a top. “That’s not part of the ritual,” Rose observed. “Theatrics,” Alister and I spoke in the same moment. Alister smiled. I didn’t.
Ahahahahahahahahahaha- This can't be the first beat of "Alister gets along better with Blake than he does with Rose" can it? I'm just already so sold on the idea, possibly because I find it hilarious. I mean there's so many directions you could take it: making fun of how Rose and Alister are a kind of disjunctive pairing (not just because they're both tops), calling to mind the find a man to marry thing from the original contract, the ol rivals-to-friends trope...it's interesting, I never pegged Rose as being quite this out-of-tune with the Theatric aspects pre-Blakening, but I suppose without Blake there pushing for it she leans hard into the Scientist aspect of the Scientist/Artist pair, and adopts the more practical attitude. Which is doubly fun because Alister is extremely well-suited to the other side of that dynamic
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JayManiac 30-Jul-20 11:49 PM
Oh no that's such an almost-had-it moment, I'd be frustrated too (edited)
pardon the- in retrospect, very predictable -interruption wherein my partner reminded me that food exists and foolish mortals such as I cannot, in fact, sustain themselves on the emotional turmoil of humanity as we might wish. I'm back to continue reading past the fifth paragraph this kind of thing always happens!
The fires went out, but the manner in which they went out was unique. It was as if they were opened at the bottom, the burning liquid emptying along the lines of the diagram. It animated, the individual components moving. Everything rotated, circles spinning, individual components aligning.
I absolutely love this; I'm a huge sucker for awesome-looking dramatic-as-the-fires-of-hell ritual circles in urban fantasy and Pact certainly delivers
agree 2
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A bird 🐦 30-Jul-20 11:54 PM
emotional turmoil of humanity
Optimistic assessment of Blake's current "humanity"
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JayManiac 30-Jul-20 11:57 PM
Oh don't worry I'm sure there'll be plenty more humans who suffer in this book, we won't have to rely on Blake's share
Examples: -The Thorburn Cousins -Anyone Unfortunate Enough To Be In The Presence Of The Thorburn Cousins
lol 2
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JayManiac 31-Jul-20 12:13 AM
It was a fairly pointless endeavor. The breaker was thrown, and the lights came on, all at once. Tiff shrieked. At some point between the ritual and the lights going on, Green Eyes had climbed off me and crawled over to Tiff’s side, at the far end of the room. Tiff had seated herself on the arm of the couch that had been dragged into the kitchen, Alexis sitting on the couch cushion itself. Green Eyes was on the other side, her face six inches from Tiff’s, at about the same level. Unmoving.
Another moment to wonder: are the flags red or Green for this relationship? She's been alright so far, with the explicitly-communicating-feelings and the respecting-boundaries, but if this turns out to be a jealousy thing I will continue to wonder whether she's ready for a relationship at the moment. Because people who make jealous overtures typically aren't.
greeneyes 3
Green Eyes smiled, showing her teeth, then dropped to the ground, moving easily through, under, and around the pieces of furniture that had effectively blocked off the entire kitchen and back hallway.
Welp, I guess we're gonna be left to guess at exactly what that was beyond "bogeymen scare people and get positive reinforcement". I don't think her choice of target was an accident, but I can't speak to her reasoning or what she knows of Blake and Tiff's relationship or lack thereof
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Ishamoridin 31-Jul-20 12:15 AM
I'm sure there's an Other that can manage that. Maybe there's a way to join up.
Don't call Wildbow an Other, it's not nice
lol 2
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JayManiac 31-Jul-20 12:20 AM
“Said me, to you,” Alister said, his voice stern. “What I’m saying isn’t for just the bogeymen and Others. It goes for you too. Don’t pick fights.” I could tell, at a glance, that the older Behaims were not keen on being told off by an eighteen year old.
I mean, if the plan is eventually to divide the behaims and start a civil war, it's gonna be a little harder- there's no clear divide like there is between the Duchamps and the Husbands -but this is the thing to poke at.
“How’s your pet demon?” Alister asked Rose. “Bound. I should check on it in two hours.” Alister didn’t respond. Instead, he raised one hand, showing Rose his watch.
Pffffft
I'm currently wondering whether Rose is just kind of off of her game, having apparently not grasped exactly what this ritual was going to do. I mean, it's not super intuitive, so I'd understand just going "oh yeah wait, time stopped" but she seems surprised at the correction shortly afterwards, so maybe she's just had a long night
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Jade | i love you video games 31-Jul-20 12:23 AM
I think that's a fair bet
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jsoh 31-Jul-20 12:24 AM
a long night eh?
lol 1
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JayManiac 31-Jul-20 12:24 AM
Better chug some 5 Hour Couquest Energy to make up the difference
-ayyyyyy
that's, that's a good one
I set us all right the fuck up for that
We’re borrowing against tomorrow, adding to today. Except, as you’re well aware, given how you broke through my uncle’s barrier around this house, there’s more to some Chronomancy than simply altering time.” “Or less to Chronomancy than altering time,” I observed. “Ah…” Alister said. He glanced at some of the other Others in the house. The faceless woman and burned Revenant weren’t standing that far from me, and could see into the living room. “Yes. Both are true, depending on your perspective. Right now, however, our focus is on the consequences. We effectively skip a Tuesday. Certain important mail isn’t delivered. Errands are skipped. We put everything out of order. The real cost is in smoothing out the wrinkles, paying our debt to the universe for leaving things a bit out of order, and giving this enough backbone that it won’t fall apart the second it’s tampered with.”
I love the wordplay between Blake and Alister- they just seem to naturally fall into a very good rhythm and back-and-forth, supporting my new accursed ship. Alister's charisma is just wonderful to watch in motion, and Blake's got a whole bunch of his own to toss back; I hope they get a lot more chances to interact across the rest of the book. Also, it's gotta take a pretty big chunk out of that Karma Well for the behaims every time they pull some police station bullshit, and sic Isadora-like-creatures against them, which is always fun.
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JayManiac 31-Jul-20 12:39 AM
“Don’t know,” Alister said. “What’s the timer?” “Three hours. I should check it in two.” “I’ll remind you,” Alister said. “If I can’t, someone should?” A few older Behaims nodded in agreement.
I love the note that the Behaims can all keep time perfectly without clocks and thus are some of the only reliable ways of doing so; it just fits. I do wonder if that's a thing you can train yourself to do (and therefore a thing that a horrible practitioner family can train all their brainwashed kids to do) or more a result of the direction of Other that the Behaims are
I led the way out, walking past the faceless man and burned revenant. I didn’t like him. I didn’t trust him. It wasn’t that he could lie to me. It was a question of loyalties.
Confirmation that Pizza Guy can probably lie, although I absolutely agree with jsoh's take that Karma would nonetheless be very against him if he went back on such an explicit promise
And I agree that Blake probably shouldn't trust the Pizza Guy, especially since he's on-team essentially for the purpose of fucking with Alister, and Blake's currently playing a little nicer than initially expected.
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A bird 🐦 31-Jul-20 12:50 AM
I do wonder if that's a thing you can train yourself to do (and therefore a thing that a horrible practitioner family can train all their brainwashed kids to do) or more a result of the direction of Other that the Behaims are
Bet you can't guess the answer to that question
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JayManiac 31-Jul-20 12:51 AM
I know it's both; it's always both
“Perception,” Rose said. “Neat to see, but it’s only a trick of the mind, a great many spirits playing along. Pay too much attention to it, and you’ll start to see holes in it.” “If it was a weaker effect, I’d urge you not to poke too many holes in it, but I didn’t make it weak,” Alister explained. “I’m half expecting Johannes to send a genie or two to start trying to undo it and speed things along.”
This is such an unnecessary boast to go along with the explanation of 'pls don't touch it' which is still what I'm pretty sure he means by all of that.
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JayManiac 31-Jul-20 01:05 AM
Finally, as if she’d come to a decision, she said, “Before we discussed the marriage in detail, Alister told me that he thinks someone’s pulling strings behind the scenes.” “This abyss thing?” “That’s part of it. We can’t be sure without the full cooperation of Sandra and Johannes, but we think there might be more going on with the number of Others in town,” Rose said. “Goblins without masters. Many of your new acquaintances.” “Gravity,” Alister said. “As if we’re at the center of a whirlpool, and things are being drawn in. Summoning is easier, control is harder, and thanks to the involvement of the Abyss, bogeymen like you and the faceless woman are thriving, recuperating faster, hitting harder.”
That still doesn't sound like super concrete evidence that whatever's manipulating things behind the scenes is an intelligent force, although I assume this is a conclusion reached by way of prophesy and vauge understandings as much as by the evidence I currently have laid out. The most striking evidence to me is that Padraic confirmed that they'd figured something out. All of this is strange, yes, but with the likes of Mags' prophesy, Barbatorem's influence, and possibly reprecusions for everything Johannes has done running amok it doesn't seem too out of the question for things to just naturally be going wrong
Alister tilted his head to one side, then held up a hand, as if warning me or warding me off, even as he stepped closer. I didn’t move as he approached. “May I?” Alister asked. He held up the ring.
Tamper with Evan? No the fuck you may not. I can't help but like Alister a little but I still don't actually trust him, much as I'd like to.
“You’re not going going to ask me my permission?” Evan asked. “Do you want to fly again?” Alister asked. “Yes.”
And it's not that I necessarily mistrust his intentions either- I do, a bit, given that he's been shown to care more about his own ambition and standing than any semblance of the greater good -I just think that even if he means well and this is truthful, it'll have consequences that he either doesn't care about, or doesn't know about (likely both) and that accepting his help or leadership is a dangerous game, especially given his confidence
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JayManiac 31-Jul-20 01:24 AM
“Up to you,” I said. “But it’d be good to have you flying again.” “And it would be good to keep the Abyss from getting too much of a grip on him,” Rose said. “The element of time should fit with his spiritual makeup, and that’s a void that the Abyss isn’t filling.”
Does the element of time fit with Evan's spiritual makeup? There was an element of buying time in Evan's- you see, I almost just wrote "Trigger Event". I mean Ghosts are pretty comparable to Parahumans, it's just that their trigger events killed them. Anyhow, I could see it, but I wouldn't say it's super consistent with Evan's spiritual makeup. Also I figured out why I don't like this idea: Alister's approach to problems has seemingly always been "well that part's unpleasant, but you can skip it!" which means he never fully lives the consequences of having messed up, the experience that a kid like him was supposed to get. So the impact it ends up having on Evan- the undercutting of "hey maybe getting hurt like this is something I should definitely try to avoid because it means being out of commission for a while" -is something Alister has been imposing on himself his whole life
“See? I’m not hostile,” Alister said, backing away from me, showing me his hands, ring included. “We’re not your enemies.”
Like, I think that if Alister wants to work more with the Junior council and pursue goals of changing the system from within that's pretty great
he's just kind of a dumbass because of the way he's always existed
So the way he does that might actually be actively counterproductive
espeically because it's the wheel, and its job is practically just to make efforts to undermine it reinforce it instead
“Okay, okay,” Alister said, raising his hands. “Right. That came out as being more combative than I meant it to. I’m just saying-” “I protected those people in there when Rose was taken away. Are you going to fault me for the Others I killed while I did that? It’s a war, Alister, and I’ve been fighting the only way the smaller force can fight. I’ve been trying to do it in a way that leaves the right people alive. So I’m pruning for future growth, rather than simply destroying.”
To Blake's credit, I think it's the most noble goal a creature like him can manage- and I don't think that the change brought on by the likes of the abyss is always a bad thing -it's just a very dangerous tool that quickly gets into ambiguous territory.
“Back to what we were saying before,” Alister said. “The abyss, and our mysterious player. We all thought the wraith of Molly Walker was a little too strong for what she was. She’s only a vehicle for larger events. A gateway between here and the Abyss.”
So it's two separate things in Alister's estimation: the Abyss, too, being a tool of the 'player'- even if it's one of their main tools. I somehow thought that Molly was kind of to the left of the Abyss, corralling an adjacent, but different kind of energy, but I suppose it might make sense of things? I'd still watch for being fed from another source there.
“I think what Rose means,” Alister said, interjecting himself again, “Is that you’re an ally. Our goals are the same. We want to stop people we care about from getting hurt, yes?” “Yes,” I said. “Yes,” Rose said.
I love that this is- maybe not exactly the starting point, but a moment of clarity. Neither of them can lie, and it reminds the readers that we're getting a bit of a biased take on Rose while we're in- well anyone's head that's affected by karma -but especially blake's head.
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A bird 🐦 31-Jul-20 01:48 AM
Also I figured out why I don't like this idea: Alister's approach to problems has seemingly always been "well that part's unpleasant, but you can skip it!" which means he never fully lives the consequences of having messed up, the experience that a kid like him was supposed to get.
You could say that his consequences are postponed sine die
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Jade | i love you video games 31-Jul-20 01:51 AM
I prefer Evan’s decaying state postponed sine die (edited)
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JayManiac 31-Jul-20 01:53 AM
Heyyyyyyy that's a pretty clever pull of the arc name
although I do see Jade's point
“Which would make you easier to keep track of and form deals with. It would nail you down in shape, form and demeanor, stop the Abyss from getting as much traction with you, and quite possibly slow down the rate at which the rift between yourself and Rose widens,” Alister said. “If you want to maintain the balance of your Other and your human selves, this is a damn good way to do it.” “Didn’t know all that. The answer is still no,” I said. “Why?” he asked, with uncharacteristic emotion in his voice.
Rejecting the seal of solomon kind of reminds me of the ideas presented in Twilight Of The Idols, wherein Nietzsche challenges his readers to shirk the ideas of modern society- gods, morality and the like -to build your own. He asserts that there are many who aren't powerful and Strong enough to do so, and end up succumbing to some other philosophy or set of ideals, failing to become the Ubermench because becoming the Ubermench is actually really fucking inconvenient. You sacrifice any and all guidelines for living your life, you're working in a way that society doesn't appreciate and will likely be punished for it, and you'll probably actually die a nobody or a maniac rather than followed by millions, as we tend to think.
I grit my teeth, frustrated. “Christ,” Alister said. “Let’s… not have you two talk to each other, okay? Make it a rule. Blake doesn’t want to make the oath. Fine. We’ll go with that.”
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha dealing with Rose and Blake has got to be just...such a pain in the ass and I don't quite like Alister enough to get zero enjoyment from watching him try to deal with their metaphysically exacerbated bullshit. Reminds me of every NPC in my campaigns who was not informed they'd have to deal with a party of really stupid and unmanageable player characters. Definite points for respecting Blake's decision and not trying to push for it once he'd made his argument, though.
“We’re standing at the center of an intricate spider web. One wrong step, and we hit a snarl,” Alister said. “Right at the center, right here, we’ve got people at each other’s throats. You two. My family against me. The demon, poised to get loose. More people, ready to go after Rose and me the moment the demon isn’t a concern.”
Ah, so that's why these are the people meeting: it's the "we've pissed off the entire universe and we need to weasel our way out of the consequences" squad
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A bird 🐦 31-Jul-20 02:02 AM
At least some of that respect for Blake's decision may be Alister remembering his speech about the tide being behind Blake and what happened when Sandra tried to fight it
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JayManiac 31-Jul-20 02:03 AM
Very very true, but a good move and a respectable one nonetheless- if for its intelligence or its human decency
Not sure why I respect it exactly, but I do
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Jade | i love you video games 31-Jul-20 02:04 AM
At least Alister knows how to avoid consequences (edited)
agree 2
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A bird 🐦 31-Jul-20 02:04 AM
"A bear walks into a bar. What do you give him? Whatever he wants" type deal
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Jade | i love you video games 31-Jul-20 02:04 AM
Yeah but I don't get the sense Alister is afraid of Blake, per se
Maybe he doesn't want to piss him off but I don't get the sense that's his motive here
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A bird 🐦 31-Jul-20 02:06 AM
Blake would know if Alister's main reaction was fear
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JayManiac 31-Jul-20 02:06 AM
Well, at the very least he's probably aware that having the bear wreck the bar is a possibility, and one that he's smart enough to avoid
And yeah he probably would
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A bird 🐦 31-Jul-20 02:06 AM
Blake sure is a monster, isn't he?
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JayManiac 31-Jul-20 02:07 AM
I think Alister's way too full of himself to actually be scared-scared- and yeah, just a bit
agree 2
I wonder how arc 1 blake would deal with a monster like arc 14 blake?
“Should we call them?” Alister asked. “Head off the problem at the gates?” “No,” Rose and I said, in the same moment. Alister frowned.
Aahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Alister: "lawyers?" The two contrarians, universally opposed: "nah"
Ilovethis 1
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A bird 🐦 31-Jul-20 02:10 AM
I wonder how arc 1 blake would deal with a monster like arc 14 blake?
Tbh, probably die from sheer karmic difference
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Jade | i love you video games 31-Jul-20 02:10 AM
What would arc 14 Blake do with arc 1 Blake?
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JayManiac 31-Jul-20 02:10 AM
Probably not kill him?
Which is a pretty low bar
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A bird 🐦 31-Jul-20 02:13 AM
I think Blake would offer Blake the option to promise to hunker down and protect innocents in exchange for the promise of not being attacked and Blake would be ecstatic to take it
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Jade | i love you video games 31-Jul-20 02:13 AM
That sounds about right
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A bird 🐦 31-Jul-20 02:14 AM
Blake arc 1 can be summed up as "leave me the fuck alone"
Pact as a whole: "no."
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JayManiac 31-Jul-20 02:16 AM
Shaking his head, he said, “And Johannes is… quite likely gearing up to respond to this problem. If he wants to throw muscle at it, we can hold out. If he wants to get creative, I might have to be ready to respond. More likely, he’s going to do both.” “He’s not going to be able to tear down the time effect, you don’t think, but he might work around it, or pervert it to his ends?” I asked. “I forgot for a moment that you were a practitioner, once,” Alister said. “You’ve grasped the problem.”
There have to be a subset of very dangerous Others who've still got all the practitioner know-how. This statement also kind of unveils Alister's pretty clear prejudice; he has a series of assumptions when it comes to Blake and clearly thinks himself above the Others in terms of intelligence and 'seeing the bigger picture' or something to that effect. Which isn't the worst thing in the world, but doesn't particularly lend to the healthiest working relationship.
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Jade | i love you video games 31-Jul-20 02:17 AM
Eh, I didn't have that uncharitable a read
Alister goes to school. He's around people who don't know how magic is most of the time
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JayManiac 31-Jul-20 02:18 AM
I dunno, it sounded kind of talking-down to me but maybe that's just a misvibe
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A bird 🐦 31-Jul-20 02:18 AM
That's Alister in general
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Jade | i love you video games 31-Jul-20 02:18 AM
Most Others can't use runes or whatever
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A bird 🐦 31-Jul-20 02:19 AM
He's basically the entitled trust fund kid
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JayManiac 31-Jul-20 02:20 AM
And fair, but people don't explain basic scientific concepts to their lab partners unless they're being a dick. I at least have a switch in my brain to where I can go "now we're in 'everyone has this level of basic understanding' place," and I go back to the cafeteria later and be in "I know the most about this topic here" mode
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A bird 🐦 31-Jul-20 02:21 AM
And fair, but people don't explain basic scientific concepts to their lab partners unless they're being a dick.
Hahaha I get your point, but you clearly haven't had the same experience with lab partners as me
same 1
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JayManiac 31-Jul-20 02:21 AM
I mean I've had that lab partner
but when I do I go "that one's being a dick"
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Jade | i love you video games 31-Jul-20 02:22 AM
And this is where we get to why I asked you to ping me when you do this chapter
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A bird 🐦 31-Jul-20 02:22 AM
I meant the reverse just as much. Someone who's floundering and hasn't even read what we're doing today
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Jade | i love you video games 31-Jul-20 02:22 AM
Remember how you said "everybody is gonna judge me for this but I like Padraic because he's a lot like me"?
Alister is my favorite because I am a lot like this
To me, what Alister is saying makes perfect sense. He gives the information he thinks Blake needs to know, Blake extrapolates, Alister is surprised
To everybody else, this scene showcases an asshole (edited)
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A bird 🐦 31-Jul-20 02:24 AM
We... May be something of a stereotype, Jade
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Jade | i love you video games 31-Jul-20 02:24 AM
And while, in life, I've gotten a lot better, most of the time I am simply pretending to not be like this
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jsoh 31-Jul-20 02:24 AM
are you claiming alister is an engineer
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Jade | i love you video games 31-Jul-20 02:24 AM
No, I'm claiming I'm an asshole
I mean, the kind of conversational one we see here
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A bird 🐦 31-Jul-20 02:26 AM
Now you've got me trying to think which Wildbow -agonist I'm most like
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jsoh 31-Jul-20 02:26 AM
the "oh yes you have a brain also" thing is very engineery in my experience
same 2
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Jade | i love you video games 31-Jul-20 02:27 AM
Yeah, like being around people who don't know how to use computers all the time and then being surprised when somebody is computer literate
Asshole depending on which person you are in the example
That was a good point jsoh
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jsoh 31-Jul-20 02:28 AM
i have the opposite thing where i just assume people know the things i know and build expectations from there, which also makes me the asshole sometimes
same 1
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JayManiac 31-Jul-20 02:37 AM
This is a fascinating take, and I'm so happy you're here for this conversation. "No, I'm claiming I'm an asshole" is pretty much exactly how I respond to the idea that I shouldn't like Padraic as much as I do. And I get why Alister thinks like this, I just think it makes him a bit of an asshole- I guess my problem is that he could've figured out that Blake can converse with him on the level of thought he awards to practitioners, he just didn't because he kind of doesn't think about other people unless it directly impacts his plans. It's a lack of consideration. And maybe that's just how it came off- honestly this read isn't strictly textual -but it was my reaction to it. Another thing: I think it's okay to be shocked when someone puts something together that you hadn't thought them capable of, but most people have the decency to at least pretend not to be like this. The sentiment itself is understandable and isn't even necessarily bad, but to express it so explicitly just seems a bit patronizing
Also bird, I'd love to hear your take on which wildbow -agonist you're most like
He plowed ahead, ignoring my reluctance, indicating me with his empty hand. “You’re close, though. Imagine, if you will, the scales. Blake on one side, Rose on the other. Stick Blake on the Rose side of the scale, things go full-tilt, stick Rose on the Blake side of the scale, same problem. Let one get too big, the other small, the scales tilt, and we get problems. More of a rift. Actions of the one hurting the other. We need to keep you on a level playing field.” When he looked at us, he didn’t seem to have the response he’d wanted. He finished, “You two need to coordinate.” “Shit,” Rose said, and Alister nodded in agreement.
Ah shit. He's probably right about this. Which makes it doubly annoying. So to clarify, they have to make sure they're not working too closely or two opposing-ly, and that they don't gain very many advantages explicitly against each other, or there will be Problems. I wonder what form exactly this coordination might take?
Coordination. Balancing the scales. Halves of wholes. I had Tiff. Rose had Alexis. I had Peter and Roxanne. Rose had Ellie and Kathryn.
Ah. That's the form it takes. These are certainly all choices. I bet Alister's just thanking the fucking spirits that Blake and Rose aren't in the same room anymore
So just to be clear we have the teams. Team Rose -Alexis -Ellie -Kathryn -Revenant -3 Nameless Revengers Team Blake -Evan -Green Eyes -Tiff -Peter -Roxanne -Faceless Woman, Feathered Other, Aesthetic Other, Ogre
Which is interesting, considering: we never got the Revenant in on the "hey so we're not gonna fuck alister actually you still in" conversation. i assume it probably happened? I mean they'd all like to know what the fuck is going on, but I'd be careful about being possibly betrayed, especially because these guys don't take super duper kindly to being treated like tools.
Also weren't there four satyrs somewhere in the mix, with Jeremy on the way?
Maybe that's where Blake's going now
The negotiation had been fast, swift, and fairly brutal. Ty had too big a tie to Evan, so him coming with me was a problem. Alexis and I were a problem on a number of levels. Too strong a tie, in my mind. Too much of a breach of trust, in my heart. I couldn’t look her in the eye, or coordinate with her.
Ah, so it's concentrating powerful connections that unbalances things, whatever 'tone' said connections take- which is fun, because it means we're forced to see character dynamics between people who haven't developed quite as much alongside each other- see, magic systems this explictly story-based are great for creating unique plot points and getting characters into positions that it'd otherwise make little sense for them to be in
Ilovethis 1
I absolutely love it
The High Priest was waiting at the far side of the street, after we crossed the road at the base of the property.
This makes a lot more sense; maybe I should've just kept reading instead of trying to call things that were five paragraphs down
“I need you to divvy up your minions. Give us some, but make it an even number. Half to me, half to Rose. The rest, yourself included, should go talk to Alister. He’s waiting at Hillsglade House, he knew you were waiting here, and he told me to tell you he promises no harm will be done to you.” Jeremy the High Drunk gave me a level stare. Thoroughly unimpressed.
What a way to start the discussion. "do this, gimmie stuff, talk to guy-we're-working-against"
I mean, Jeremy's not especially one for pleasentries, so this might actually go pretty well, it was just a...jarring way to start off
“Rose and I are splitting up. Checking the obvious suspects. It’s not Johannes, according to Alister. He’s taking advantage, and if it happens it happens. Jacob’s Bell disappears, along with all his enemies and Hillsglade House, he drains the marsh and expands east, ignoring whatever’s left to the south. But the cards suggest it’s not him. That means we need to look to the other practitioners and Others. Ones with territories that wouldn’t necessarily be part enough of Jacob’s Bell to get drawn into the abyss with the rest of the town.” The man frowned. “We gather who we can on the way, the junior council if nobody else, and investigate the possible threats behind the scene.”
A solid plan; then we're still rolling with the idea that it's one of the players we're aware of, which is interesting. I don't know which of them could possibly have the influence to do something on the scale suggested by Alister, although the closest possible one I think could be Crone Mara and Corvidae working together. I do love that we're gathering the junior council, because I like a lot of them, and I think this is gonna be a fun team to work with
“The Briar Girl lives nearby,” he observed. “Rose is tracking her down, with her group. We’re after the Hag. Or the remaining Duchamps, then the Hag. We’re better equipped to travel a longer distance.”
The Briar Girl is another interesting possibility, but unless she took to working with Mara- which I'm not sure is likely -I don't think it could be her either, at least not with a whole lot of backup from somewhere
“You have one Satyr and one Maenad. I’ll send the same to miss Rose. You don’t involve them in a fight if you can help it. If you get the Duchamps on board, they’ll act as bodyguards to those Duchamps.” I nodded.
Aww, looking after Sandra's kids
even now
They...probably need it
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jsoh 31-Jul-20 03:05 AM
also he probably still has to do that right
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JayManiac 31-Jul-20 03:06 AM
Because of vows made?
I'm not entirely sure
He nodded. “You’ve seen Johannes’ play?” “Play? No.” “You will,” he said. He touched a Maenad and a Satyr on the shoulders, then pointed at me. They nodded.
Ah fuck, this is gonna be awesome isn't it
“You, what?” Peter asked. “Hey! You can’t do that! You’ve gotta tell us!” Jeremy turned, and I saw a gleam in his eyes. A mean one, just a little wicked. More than a little mad.
Oh peter. Quit being such a colossal asshole. I mean, I know you won't. But please.
“Take it from someone who works for a god,” he said, spreading his arms, still walking, albeit backwards. “Some things just can’t be described with mere words. Don’t get my followers killed, or you’ll lose what little grace I’ve given you.”
Patience is a virtue, as are theatrics
Wings unfurled, briefly highlighted. Red eyes opened, gazing at us from a distance. A toothed mouth opened, and roared. A screech. I saw a flicker of flame, and brief illumination of a scaled body. The noise of the screech was enough to disturb the snow, pushing it away from the rooftop. To highlight other shapes. A man. Larger than the Astrologer’s creation, craggy in features, with a heavy beard. Tall enough I could see him head and shoulders on the far side of a two-story building. “Johannes is going full mythic on us,” Tiff said.
Alright what the actual fuck is this!?
I just have no idea- we aren't going to get through a wildbow story without at least one fucking enormous creature jumping in to fuck up everyone's shit, are we?
Not that I'm complaining
“Helping us on our way to the Abyss,” I said. “Huh? I don’t get,” Roxanne said, backing away a step. I could see the marks in her skin, standing out with how pale she was. “If you want to sink people, you gotta drop something big on them.”
Well that's a fun thought to wrap the chapter with!
Also just realized these are two different creatures and ho boy
That first one had better be a fuckin dragon
This is among the furthest points I've gotten in a fantasy book or series without seeing a dragon and I'm ready for the dragon
I wonder how exactly Pact would tackle such a well-explored trope in fantasy? There are so many directions we could go with this.
As for the second one...a giant? Do giants exist? I'm guessing less of the Jotunn variety but those are the giants I know the most about so I'm not sure where else to guess
I mean I know about the laestrygonians but I wouldn't imagine a creature from a single page in the odyssey would've survived to be here at full power now
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jsoh 31-Jul-20 03:16 AM
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JayManiac 31-Jul-20 03:16 AM
some Native American peoples had stories about giants too, but it seems like more of a european thing, especially with the beard- yeah, on second thought the beard just sort of kills that theory
o?
what might this be?
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jsoh 31-Jul-20 03:17 AM
thats a video game sprite of a laestrygonian
which is probably not in line with the myth i just think it looks neat
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JayManiac 31-Jul-20 03:17 AM
so maybe they're a bit more popular than I gave them credit for!
Maybe they appear somewhere other than the odyssey I'm not super 100% sure about that one
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A bird 🐦 31-Jul-20 03:20 AM
I think there's enough crossover in the concept of "Giant" for the Jotun and the beanstalkers and the cyclops' and the Bunyan's to coexist
Similarly with dragons
Really, the question would be more "which aspects aren't included?"
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Ishamoridin 31-Jul-20 03:22 AM
Don't forget the Nephilim etc from Judeochristian mythology
They're really everywhere
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JayManiac 31-Jul-20 03:23 AM
That's true!
I hadn't thought about them, but that's another one that would absolutely make sense to have retained power
I'm not sure that the giants from all the various mythos would just kind of glomph into the same kind of Other, so it might be good to specify, but then again it's possible that they were miscategorized and then began to become that category, like how various bogeymen took on a demonic nature after enough people called them demons.
I wonder if the Jotunn would've been subsumed into the category of giants, or if they'd resonate more with the fey, and are more glamour-based Others nowadays? (edited)
I always found the illusions to be the much more essential aspect of the jotunn, but the Thor movies sure didn't so hey who knows?
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jsoh 31-Jul-20 03:29 AM
i think like, the book lady proves that an other doesnt have to be real world modern day famous to exist
or to have continued on
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JayManiac 31-Jul-20 03:31 AM
Oh absolutely, it just seems like the kind of thing that would be an ancient power, especially with how Johannes works
Like, even the newer Others like the book lady or Blake himself draw from the various traditions and ideas, just put together in a new way- it's possible that this giant draws from lots of giant mythos and was put together by some process that's continual, like the Abyss
But I think that Johannes definitely didn't just create this thing, and since he caters mostly to Others, rather than practitioners, I doubt he'd be in contact with someone who could make it
so by that reasoning I'd guess it's a more ancient Other
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Ishamoridin 31-Jul-20 03:47 AM
The Thor movies kinda just throw all the Jotun illusions into Loki to be fair
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JayManiac 31-Jul-20 03:48 AM
I thought about that, but like...every other jotunn was just an orc
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Ishamoridin 31-Jul-20 03:48 AM
Yeah it's far from nuanced, but hey ho MCU
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JayManiac 31-Jul-20 03:48 AM
not that marvel's ever done well with portraying them otherwise, it's just kind of 🤷‍♂️
yeah
I don't need a super amount of nuance from the MCU, I just think that in particular is a boring choice that removes a lot of potential for interesting things to happen
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JayManiac 01-Aug-20 12:50 AM
Let's start off on a strong note with Dragons, because they're by far the easier of the pair. This reads as a pretty textbook Western Dragon to me, between the wings and the fire, so we're gonna take this sentence to acknowledge that Eastern Dragons do in fact exist, and then ignore that for the rest of the analysis. So Western Dragons are kind of assholes. Particularly, europeans often used them to represent the worst percieved traits (greed, brutality) and their main function was being a wild force of chaos that you could put against your hero if you wanted them to seem like a badass, from Belle Belle to Beowulf. They've represetned death, fury, natural disaster, and everything in between. I've seen them equated to the idea of fear itself, that europeans would manifest a dragon as a personification of their own fears. I'm not sure exactly how that could translate, but it might have something to do with demonization/nationalism/xenophbia? That doesn't sound quite right, but it's something to keep a lookout for.
Giants are a bit more difficult to pin down, actually, because apparently across all of history, humanity has come up with so, so many reasons to start believing in People, But Bigger. Whatever the case, some common themes are: a communion of the human body with the world or the earth. Particularly in Norse Mythology we have Ymir as the source of all life, people ascribing their own form to the genesis which creates all the life they can see. Boulders which resemble skulls, mountains which resemble breasts, etc. are also commonly cited sources of giant mythos. An anthropomorphic representation of the landscape. They're also typically cited as having been around before humans, sometimes as the first humans Exaggeration of some particular trait that the size represents, commonly glory or other strength adjacent things, such as with the Gibborim. Technically most of the Aesir- the 'main pantheon' of Norse Mythology -are also giants, and thus it could be said that the metaphor in use there is that giants exhibit exaggerated, powerful 'platonic forms' of the traits that humans do. an application of the human mind and deeds to the natural world, wherein people see some aspect of nature and equate it with something that a human would've/could've done if they were much bigger. Ruins of ancient civilizations were once thought to be the remnents of giants, leading to many of the myths that giants walked the earth before us. And for a more recent example, we have the likes of Paul Bunyan, who carved the grand canyon with his axe! (edited)
So if we're looking at a giant in Pact, my guess would be that it has something to do with the natural world and landscape- or possibly with an exaggeration of some particular trait. Might have to do with a masculine presence, bigger-is-better, men-are-the-appropriators-of-nature type deal.
All of that said, there are so many ways Pact could take this, and while I can speculate, there's only so much I can do. I have a universe where goblins are manifestations of greed and the fae represent childlike innocence and naivite (which is still pretty terrrifying when you give them incredible power and zero wisdom, understanding, or self-control, but it's pretty far from what pact does) and the two have basically nothing to do with each other, and I think that's also a valid direction to take the ideas in. I'm sure wildbow will toss ideas at me that make me kick myself for not thinking of, and ideas that I'll completely forgive myself for not thinking of because how the fuck do you come up with that!? Basically, these are some preliminary thoughts to keep in mind as we move into this section, but I'm really not gonna know until I get to see them in action.
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JayManiac 04-Aug-20 09:01 PM
To be clear, that's one of my own universes that I write stories in, not talking about pact goblins and fae- in fact, in that universe it's not a dichotomy at all, they're pretty unrelated. But the idea being that there's this childlike wonder associated with the fae that I wanted to expand upon. The fae of olde are wondrous, self-obsessed, mischievous, unaware of the customs and order of mortals, and kind of- by virtue of their imaginations -in charge of the reality that they perceive, in a way that you can't directly affect and usually just have to go along with. Just like kids! I actually came up with the universe after working at an art camp with 5-11 year olds, and just watching all of these monsters run around trying to impress each other. The pact-relevant point being that it's an equally valid (if not as fleshed out) way to take the idea of the fae. Pact also leans away from their natural-world associations, which something like D&D leans into- see, my aesthetic has always been sort of fae-adjacent so I'm perpetually interested and engaged with their various interpretations in media. There're a lot of comparisons to be made across the stuff I read/watch/play.
Ilovethis 2
With that said, onto 14.3!
“Oh man,” Evan said. “Is that a dragon!? That was fire in its mouth.” “That was a dragon,” our satyr said. “It disappeared.”
time to see how oh-so-wrong about all of this I was! Good to see it confirmed as a dragon and not some kind of dragon-like being so that all my analysis only maybe goes to waste!
“They aren’t like they are in the video games,” Tiff said. “Generally speaking, you don’t deal with dragons. For one thing, they barely exist anymore, for another…”
Well that's fascinating. So they can't really represent something that's increased in existence since the days of olde (meaning xenophobia and rampant nationalism are out as possibilities hhhhhhh). So now I don't know what my guess is exactly.
The satyr, Green Eyes, and the maenad turned to look in the same direction at once. I didn’t bother to check. I just moved, which meant I reacted only a fraction of a second after they did.
Good thinking- interesting that Green Eyes reacts to the dragon's presence while Blake doesn't. We've speculated that he has a kind of super-sense for abyss-related things, but that doesn't seem to apply here- it's possible Green Eyes only reacts because of how used to being prey she is, and the Abyss-sense has little or nothing to do with it. We just get Blake's inhuman quickness in reaction, which has also been a thing.
I’d expected something sleek. The silhouette I could make out suggested something like a bear in stature, more like a small building in raw mass. Broad, thick in build, and draped in looser scaly hide, with enough obvious muscle that my initial thoughts about its ability to fly were banished. Its eyes glowed, not like Green Eyes’ eyes did, but as if lit with an intensity of their own. The heat rising off of it pushed away the snowflakes that were frozen in the air.
So it can fly, or it can't!? Also, this is just a wonderful description. I'm also still under the impression that this thing is smart enough to have made a deal with Johannes itself, rather than relying on some intermediary.
Like thin tendrils of drool, an ignited fluid, molten metal or magma was escaping the corners of the dragon’s mouth. It drew its head back, almost until it didn’t have a neck. “Shit!” Peter shouted.
Only in a wildbow story does a firebreathing dragon feel this wonderfully unique
There was only the inferno. I was on fire. One arm, part of my chest. Burning surprisingly well.
You are made of dry wood, my dude
One of the four walls surrounding me was sky, I realized, as smoke cleared, and I struggled to get to my feet, to stagger toward that sky despite the lack of appropriate ground underfoot, the way my leg somehow wasn’t moving fast enough, and the way the overly bright flames seemed to claw everything back in the opposite direction, sections of brick wall, glass… Like the pull of a star.
It was compared to the Astrologer's creations, and humanity has long seen dragons in the stars...I'm not sure what any of this means yet but it's nothing I've seen before and I'm here for it
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JayManiac 04-Aug-20 09:48 PM
How eerie, to not be afraid, in the midst of all this. To not be terrified, my face screwed up in panic like Tiff and Roxanne’s were. Like the maenad’s face was, even. I was still disoriented, still trying to deal with the world having been one thing in one moment, and holocaust and ruin in the next.
That is a bit uncomfortable, yes- also, sorry, got momentarily distracted but I'm back.
“Extinguish rune isn’t working…” Tiff said. “Shit. What the fuck did you drag us into?” Peter. “What the fuck? Where is it?” “…I didn’t think it would, but I don’t know what else I could do.”
And resistant to rune magic somehow- in a predictable way, if Tiff was expecting it. It could be a pure power-level thing, to where they can't supply enough power to the spirits to counteract whatever this effect is- it could also be something else, but considering that shaman magic is almost the most basic kind, I'm going with the first option
“Don’t get burned!” Tiff said. “Dragonstuff is potent. I don’t think that fire ever goes out!”
Ah. Well that's fucking terrifying.
That explains why they've jumped to amputation rather than trying to put it out
does it burn underwater?
“It’s airborne, somewhere not too far away,” the satyr was saying, eyes skyward. “The dragon is.”
That's a definite can for flying
“Help Green Eyes,” I said. “Help her now, or I’ll fight you every step of-” “Don’t finish that sentence,” she cut me off. “Or I’ll leave you to burn with her.”
People under magical truth can really be a bitch to deal with, can't they?
Tiff spoke my thoughts, “That’s not a guarantee, especially for a weaker bogeymen. When we summoned her in the bathtub-” “Uh huh,” the maenad said. “There’s no guarantee the fire will go out if she passes on. With dragon’s breath, it could burn her spirit, even.”
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa that is not a comfortable thought- or situation, honestly.
What did Johannes do to get access to this thing's service!? What would it want? to terrorize the vestige of the countryside?
He didn’t manage to stop me from seeing the maenad put the tip of the shovel against the center of Green Eyes’ forehead. There was no handle to go with it. It was only a rigid bit of metal, now.
AAAAaAAAA NOOO
The maenad stooped down, and cut the hair and fin away, as if to be safe. It didn’t matter. The tail wasn’t moving. “Aw,” Evan said. “Awww, and eww, but mostly aww. Crumbs.”
Should I be disturbed that that's Evan's reaction to this!? Probably!?
“Ow,” Green Eyes murmured, as she saw me. “Oh wow, ow.” My eyes widened a bit.
Oh thank the spirits she's alright...ish. Maybe.
“My face, and my eye,” I heard Green Eyes murmuring. Not to me. To the faceless woman, ironically enough. “It wasn’t a very good face, but-” I saw the faceless woman reach down. I didn’t want to say anything, out of concern that a moment’s spite could make the faceless woman do worse. But she didn’t use her ability to knit flesh. She helped Green Eyes reposition, and I saw how Green Eyes’ hair had been combed down in front of one side of her face. A curtain of hair so pale it was almost transparent.
Awwww, that's so sweet! She didn't even use her face-knitting horror monster abilities, she's just a fashionista. I'm here for this unlikely (or perhaps likely) friendship.
“Dragons are… they’re sometimes called snags, or recursive loops, or um, shoot, can’t remember the word.” “Problems,” Peter said. “Problematic.” “Um. Sure. Most are. Some think dragons are what happens when something feeds into itself. Every dragon is different, and some are more elemental, or mostly elemental, or spirit, or deific. Something like a lesser god that worships itself, or an elemental that takes in more than it puts out. They happen only when the stars align right, and attempts to produce them tends to turn out…”
Oh this is fascinating and I'm kind of here for it actually- it's very different from my interpretation pre-read, but it's such an awesome take on the pure phenomena of dragons. Plus, it essentially lets each one be unique, to represent the wide variety of takes on them in fiction (and to give wildbow the opportunity to make more unique monsters because he likes doing that)
“It went wrong. So they’re rare and they’re unique and they tend to be feral, not always reptilian, but there’s something to be said for memory and the world remembering the dinosaurs or whatever, so it’s more common, as a given snarl needs to find a reference point, but-”
it's so wonderful- I sort of doubt the dinosaurs explanation, since I don't think that's exactly how the magic system works, but the dinosaurs thing might be how it works now that we know about dinosaurs and incorporate them into the mythos of the planet, so to speak. I'm working on what I think dragons represent and I have some ideas I'm pretty confident about, but I'll get more into that when I've got it more scaled out.
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JayManiac 04-Aug-20 10:22 PM
“There’s no polar opposite. Most are amalgams of elemental and spirit and animal and nightmares, on top of whatever else. You have to beat them at their own game. You get the dragons that are all poison, to the point that one drop of venom can clear out a lake. Then you have to just out-poison them. You get the dragons in some areas of the East that are more spirit and elemental, like dragons of the mountains and… it’s like you have to destroy a mountain by hitting it with a bigger mountain.” “How do you-” I started. “Nevermind. You’re saying the only way to kill ol’ firebreath there is hotter fire?” “No,” she said. Her voice dropped to be even quieter, as we approached the end of the street. “There’s another way. Most are violent, killing machines. So… if you’re brave enough, you can try the conventional means. Facing them in battle. Eventually someone succeeds. Usually with the backing of some major power. Usually a god. Which makes them rare.” “We totally have a god,” Evan said, “don’t we?”
and the idea that there's no opposite- that you have to use like-with-like if you want to get anywhere, or just take it down with pure force, is wonderful. I'm glad that this still takes on the flavor of all the myths I looked into for my interpretation, even if I was- not quite dead wrong, but not correct either. It makes mechanical sense for these kinds of things to have been running around throughout all the myths- and I think once you look a little deeper it makes pretty solid metaphorical sense too...👀 I also have to wonder- I think Evan's talking about Dionysus here, and it would make sense. I don't know off the top of my head if he's ever helped with killing a dragon, but the greek gods in general certainly have. However, jacob's bell does seem to have another up-and-coming god who might be able to lend a hand...
“Fuck,” I said. “What about giants?” “A hell of a lot simpler,” Tiff said. “Um. Secluded. Big.” “Basically,” the satyr said.
Neat. Giants are Big. I was right, case closed.
“They’re endangered,” the maenad told me. “Can’t breed, no gods old or rough-edged enough still around to make more. Except maybe where you’re from, but any that crop up there still aren’t going to be adventurous enough to move. Everyone knows it isn’t right to touch a giant. Or they should know.”
Interesting...so they're going the 'very old, first people' route here, which is fascinating. I'm not sure if we're gonna get any more, but this on its own confirms a couple of the things I was thinking about, while broadening or dismissing others. The protection by karma and by 'everyone' is especially strange, considering that there are almost as many myths about slaying giants as there are about dragons, especially in the Abrahamic mythos.
“Johannes has them because he offers a sanctuary,” the maenad said. “Just like our High Priest does for us, his followers, except Johannes does it for anything that’s willing to play by the rules. The giants have enemies, just like they have advocates, and even if the advocates vastly outnumber the enemies, there’s people who come after them, and Johannes gives them one more hiding spot, just like this. The dragon, that’s different.”
just friendly, philanthropic johannes, offering a reserve for poor endangered species.
He remained where he was, bent over, one hand still on the truck. I couldn’t make out his face. Only the back of him, one leg, and a kilt of what looked to be cow hides, threaded into a continuous garment with thongs as thick around as my remaining arm.
Definitely a european giant too, possibly even with greek tones- wait no that's sheep. Probably not nordic.
I saw his leg tense. “Balls,” Peter said. “I don’t see-” Evan started. “Go!” I said.
That joke was....low hanging
lol 1
(I did laugh at it)
The dragon reappeared. Perching on a rooftop, a matter of meters from the giant. The giant reached up, and dug thick fingers into the dragon’s loose-fitting hide. “That explains that,” I said. “The dragon’s master.” “Almost obvious in retrospect,” Peter said.
Yeah you know that makes a good amount of sense. And kind of lends to the idea that giants command forces of nature beyond the capabilities of humanity. Unfortunately that means that you can't exactly deal with the dragon without targetting an endangered magical species (kind of two endangered magical species')
“I need wood,” I said, as the flames embraced the parked car. “I need a body.” “I would love for you to have a body,” Peter said. “Would love for me to have a body when all of this is over, too. My priority, as it happens. No offense.”
Peter is such a dick, but so likeable in this sequence of everything going to shit; I havent' pulled all of his "everything in the practice is a problem" lines yet but I've been tempted just for their comedic value (and truthfulness).
I thought of the vision the abyss had given me. A view of my possible future. I thought of how the dragon had flown. Not arms. Wings. I set to building.
I don't know how exactly to feel about this, because currently there's just a kid screaming in the back of my head about how fucking awesome it's going to be that our protagonist has dragon/bird wings and I'm having trouble getting them to be quiet long enough to think about the consequences
Excellent chapter, I might be back to read another one later today (and possibly give my spiel on dragons/what I think they represent in the grand social metaphor that is pact's magic system)
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JayManiac 05-Aug-20 12:59 AM
Heya! I'm back to give a quick little spiel on dragons. Might be a bit further-fetched than some of the other stuff I've come up with but sometimes I think that until I really start talking about it and then through the course of the argument I convince myself; maybe that'll happen this time!
So this befuddled me for a bit there, because the description we were given didn't really fit the idea of fear that I'd isolated as a commonality amongst western dragons. But! The detail about dragons being uncommon nowadays made everything click into place. Throughout this book we've been talking about sort of pre-Seal methods of practicing, and how the Seal took the idea that practice and non-practice are seperate, and drilled it into the universe's reality. But during the course of conquering the entire world and affixing it to its Abrahamic capitalist ideologies, it had to run up against versions of the Practice that weren't structured like it.
You know how when you start to think about how two magic systems from two entirely different sets of media would interact and you get into one of those loops of "well if this character had access to this and could do this with it then she'd just get Infinite Power and nobody would be able to stop her"? My theory is that that can happen when cultures with different belief systems rub up against each other: wild, dangerous, uncontrolled magic that kind of breaks both of the systems it results from. If your system has a bunch of rules in place that prevent that sort of thing from happening, but the other system is built on a different foundation and those rules don't exist for it, then you can get a dragon. This would be why they're so different and unique: because each of them represents a different kind of breakdown in social contact and cohesion. This, surprisingly, kind of fits the ideas of xenophobia and fearing one's enemies that I was working with pre-chapter: people personify and fear the unknown, the parts of their adversaries that they see as monstrous (especially if they're on the wrong side of Solomon's Seal and need to be conquered).
The reason, then, that dragons are so endangered is because of the uniformity of the Seal and its unequivocal takeover of the Practice. Now that the world is operating more by a single set of rules, there aren't nearly as many opportunities for the 'glitch between the systems' nature of dragons to arise.
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JayManiac 05-Aug-20 01:01 AM
And the world is all the less cooler for it
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spinagon 05-Aug-20 01:01 AM
But more intact
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JayManiac 05-Aug-20 01:02 AM
True, but that also means that the slaying of a dragon is kind of akin to "I will overcome this cultural difference by punching it in the face. You're all christian now. Deal with it, Ohlone Tribe"
The Seal of Solomon has a pretty colonialist bent and that's kind of a major problem with it, even if it's convenient to have everyone speaking the same language
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JayManiac 12-Aug-20 10:05 PM
Heya Elliot! I've missed having you around for the 'reads!
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JayManiac 12-Aug-20 10:18 PM
I've got somewhere to be in about two hours, but maybe we can knock out 14.4 before then- I've been a bit busy for a few days and I've missed the chance to read (not to mention that I now have a quota to maintain if I want to catch up to Pale). When last we left off, Blake was taking some artistic inspiration from a dragon and also his vision of being a ruthless all-consuming bogeyman in the Drains! I mean he always was a fan of winging it, I suppose
I’d committed to walking the line between human and Other. If I felt like wings were somehow more of an appeal to my human side, despite all conflicting evidence, was that a bad sign?
Maybe? I think the Abyss is less picky than all that, if it makes sense. The Abyss sees the bird spirits and tree spirits within you, and finds it easy to work with those to channel power through you, rather than work against them. Things that appeal to your human self will be wound up with what the Abyss has in store for you whatever you do- it's just going to use giving you those things, to further its own essence. I think it's possible for blake to become more blake without becoming more human. And also, symbolism and surface level things are important, and it's just the flat-out truth that a human-looking body is kind of a little bit more human than a body with wings. Other-ness exaggerates a part of 'human' that fits with you and the power you identify yourself to, so...that seems pretty textbook for what Blake is doing.
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JayManiac 12-Aug-20 10:29 PM
Which said a lot. As I thought on it, I wasn’t sure I’d ever been able to remember exactly what projects I’d attempted and failed. There was only my crude exercise in drawing the circles around the demon Ur. Fragments here and there. That, in turn, led me to the understanding that the art wasn’t mine. I paused for a moment, hands freezing midway through my work. A quiet horror, almost a sense of betrayal, but far from specific, hard to place, in terms of blame.
This is fascinating- also really sad. We've had Blake pegged as 'the artist' of the pair, as opposed to Rose's scientist, but maybe there's something more nuanced at work- the trying to be the artist is Blake, but the result and the nature of the project itself was evidently something that went with Rose.
Had Rose experienced moments like this? She’d known what we were for some time now. Had she dwelt on it? Those elements that were missing? That dawning realization that some of the most intense, heartbreaking moments of frustration were because the other person had something we needed? Friends. The idea hit me.
Yeah...which is just, well- tragic, for one, but also makes a lot of things more understandable. Blake has every instinct related to interpersonal connections, and the not-thorburn karma to back it up- not to mention the people he was already connected to, or was able to find more connections to. I don't know if she dwells on it, but it's probably pretty hard to ignore when she spends so much of her energy in a day just trying to connect with people and get them on her side, and then Blake walks up having made friends with most of the unaligned Others in Jacob's Bell and also someone who was supposed to be working with the duchamps in the first place...she might find it difficult to ignore.
Twists of wood reached out, fingers like roots or roots like fingers, and gripped the larger branch, found weak points, and splintered it. Took it to pieces. Carried the pieces down, like so many wriggling worms, one catching the splinters of wood as another let them fall. Building the longer fingers I hadn’t wanted to build. A bat’s wings, not a bird’s.
If anything I think this is the confirmation that while the Abyss is working with Blake's desires, it's certainly putting its own spin on things that Blake doesn't really have a say in. He gets to fly, but not like he would've wanted, not with bird wings. This description is also really cool and I don't have too much time to dwell on it but I had to pull at least a piece of it. The prose is excellent here.
Fuck that, I thought. I grabbed at one bit of wood and I wrested it free from the little fingers of wood that were grasping at it, fitting it into another position. Too little. I used the Hyena, and I cut away at one of the fingers of wood, transplanting it up at the upper arm and elbow, where things were too thin to support anything.
Oh? It seems blake has come to the same conclusion, and Victoria'd it!
Tiny, like the legs of spiders, pincers, fish hooks, they stabbed and set themselves into the flesh that remained, around my mouth, near my eyes, at my forehead. Then they stopped. Waited. Asking. Offering. A deal with the devil, metaphorically speaking. Give up your face if you truly want wings.
Things humans have: faces things humans do not have: wings The conclusion seems fairly obvious.
Except I wasn’t there. The Abyss might have had a hold on me, but I was still free. I was a messenger, and I brought that ruin and change by nature. “No,” I said. “No. You’re going to give me the damn wings, and you’re going to leave my damn face alone. You’re going to do it, because I’m going to give you my word. I’ll help the Abyss in a way that counts. I’ll give you your damn meal, and it’ll be better than what you’d get by taking a piece out of me.”
Aahhahahahahahahahahahaaha- that's so concerning but it seems to be by far the most interesting option available so I'm down for it. I wonder how exactly he plans on doing that? Killing a dragon? they seem more like forces of change than anything. Killing the giant? Killing Johannes?
The branches at my back clawed the remainder of the sweatshirt to pieces. Scraps. The scraps, in turn, were carried off, dragged to their individual stations. Stretched. The membrane of the wings. As the individual branches settled into position, they reinforced the wings. Almost forming musculature.
Further evidence that this sweatshirt deserves its own interlude- it's a bogeysweatshirt, it should've been included in the green-eyes/corvidae/midge one!
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A bird 🐦 12-Aug-20 10:42 PM
CharmanderHi
👋 1
Being a bogeyman allows for a surprising amount of introspection after having literally just been set on fire by a dragon
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JayManiac 12-Aug-20 10:44 PM
I mean, what better time to do so!?
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A bird 🐦 12-Aug-20 10:45 PM
I don't know if she *dwells* on it
Who, the custom designed planner who didn't need to eat or sleep?
Nah she seems chill
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JayManiac 12-Aug-20 10:46 PM
Planning doesn't involve a lot of dwelling on resources not at your disposal that you cannot use, but I can see your point
I also think that analyzing is a very different, more distanced state of mind, whereas dwelling is more immediate, emotional, etc.
Just because she almost certainly does a lot of the former, doesn't suggest the latter
Interestingly, this beat about the sweatshirt ties into a thought I had that I'm not sure I ever shared: that you have to be naked for the Awakening Ritual because otherwise the clothes you're wearing will be clocked by the spirits as a part of 'you'. At least, the spirits in charge of that part of the bureaucracy would, and that would cause conflict, and eventually the spirits would either forswear you immediately, or as soon as you tried to wear anything else. Blake has entered into a different system, with slightly looser rules to it, and since he entered with his sweatshirt, that becomes part of his identity. So as his form changes with the Abyss, it uses his sweatshirt as much as it would use any part of him.
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Elliot (Boy) 12-Aug-20 10:49 PM
Blake pushing back on the wings was very https://tenor.com/view/yes-baby-goal-funny-face-gif-13347383 (edited)
agree 3
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JayManiac 12-Aug-20 10:50 PM
absolutely agreed
I couldn’t take off. Couldn’t fly. The twigs I’d been staring at on the ground were gathering at my feet. Giving more substance to my peg leg, so it was more of an actual leg.
He seems to pay a bit for it, but I think it's well worth it
Those theatrics were used very well there
I could almost imagine the Abyss mocking me, making the twigs give me the foot I needed as I ran, my wings extended behind me, fingers close together, to reduce drag.
I really like the note that Blake keeps referring to the wings using hand terms- it's a very efficient and specific descriptor, and unique in comparison to the (admittedly few) other protaonists I've read with wings (although most of those were 'i was born with wings' and this terminology fits for someone who wasn't born with wings and still needs to understand and describe them)
I leaped, wings extended, and flapped, bringing the wings down hard. The fire was stirred into life. Hot air reached me, rising beneath the wings. I didn’t erupt into flame, which was fantastic.
I love when magic and physics collide to create awesome, dramatic moments. Also blake's inner commentary here is just wonderful- I think you can tell he's having a little bit of fun with it, just because you're having a little bit of fun with it.
Testing my ability to fly, or to glide, while literally above a trail of fire was perhaps not my smartest move, but I didn’t have any fast routes to high places. Elevators wouldn’t work with time stopped.
You wield the fury of Kite Man himself, Blake Thorburn.
I was still losing altitude, perilously close to actually touching the flames, I looked ahead. Traced the paths the flame painted. More fire was better. It meant more heat, more air rising.
It also means more jacob's bell being on fire that can't be put out by any means, but if that's not your top priority I can't exactly blame you, considering you also promised to sow more chaos for the abyss, cook it up some fried terror and suffering, all that.
There aren't a lot of moments in particular that I can pull to capture the flow of this part, but it's just a really solid Wildbow Fight. We understand the factors and the concept, they're gripping and easily followed- the whole thing has a lot of motion to it and I just love being along for the ride
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Elliot (Boy) 12-Aug-20 11:03 PM
Blake irl
Ilovethis 3
(sorry it's 6am here so all I have to offer are dumb memes)
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JayManiac 12-Aug-20 11:06 PM
That's perfectly alright and appreciated! I'd usually be reading a bit later anyhow, there's just a whole lot going on in the latter half of the day so this is where we're at!
I don't know if botw works with actual physics but if so that's really cool
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spinagon 12-Aug-20 11:07 PM
It does mostly
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Elliot (Boy) 12-Aug-20 11:08 PM
The glider usually.... glides, but the fire creates updrafts you can use to gain height
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A bird 🐦 12-Aug-20 11:08 PM
BotW works well with what a clever eight year old would expect physics to look like
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Elliot (Boy) 12-Aug-20 11:11 PM
Yeah overall the physics of the game is a very smart brand of basic elemental powers (lightning, fire, air) inspired by basic real world physics (metal conducts electricity, hot air rises, etc)
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JayManiac 12-Aug-20 11:12 PM
those are some really cool mechanics
now I want them translated to bending- give the firebenders a specialized team of firegliders already!
Evan’s movements, flying around me, passing beneath me, gave me a push here and there to stay aloft. Can’t fly without help, I thought.
Still, if anyone was gonna have a power like that, it's better if it's you. I like that Rose and Blake map pretty well into ENFP and ISTJ, while we're thinking about Blake's particular specialties. I might be biased in my judgement there, seeing as ENFP is my alignment so I happen to associate a lot of those things, but also...I think the evidence builds a fairly solid case.
A sparrow and a wooden man with wings fighting a duo that had no doubt been together for a very long time. “Yes, yes, yes! Hahahaha! Love the wings! Best call you’ve ever made!”
I love Evan and how absolutely down he is for this.
agree 3
same 3
🐦 3
Firmly gripping the dragon, he hefted the Other. Legs straightening, arms going overhead, the giant hurled the reptilian beast skyward.
that, my friends, is what's known as a Fastball Special
I closed the fingers of my wings, but didn’t draw them close to my body. I pulled my fingers free of the elbow, and did what I could to hold the wings in position. I drew the Hyena as I dropped, straight for the dragon, the giant, and the flames. “Worst call!” Evan shouted, from his position far above me. “This is worst call!”
Oh wonderful- if the bravest, stupidest, most dramatic maneuver is what's needed to kill a dragon (which seems pretty likely) then Blake has the best shot so far.
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A bird 🐦 12-Aug-20 11:19 PM
Attacking a dragon is suicidal, you say?
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spinagon 12-Aug-20 11:19 PM
You got to aim for exactly one chance in a million
lol 3
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JayManiac 12-Aug-20 11:20 PM
So sayeth Discworld
I saw all of the typical weak points writ large. Eye, throat, the bulging vein along one arm, that might have been an artery. Most parts protected by skin that might have been as thick as my forearm was long. Thicker than the Hyena was, at any rate. Touch a giant and people will come after you, I thought.
I wonder if Blake will realize the value of all the good karma he's accumulated, and subsequently that this would be a really stupid move. I mean I don't exactly see what else he can do at the moment- undermining whatever loyalty it has to johannes would be the better way to do it, but that's not exactly an angle I can see the path to working. At least, not as clear as Blake can see all the weak points of this giant.
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Elliot (Boy) 12-Aug-20 11:22 PM
Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if something resembling the million-to-one-chance rule exists in Pactverse
Actually I supposed the "be dramatic, it's pragmatic" rule kind of is that
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JayManiac 12-Aug-20 11:23 PM
I have a whole video planned that might never be made about comparing and contrasting Pratchett's style of deconstruction with Wildbow's
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Elliot (Boy) 12-Aug-20 11:24 PM
Oh that's a very cool topic
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JayManiac 12-Aug-20 11:25 PM
I'd probably toss some more parodies and reconstructions at it for some flavor and comparison- would be a fun time, I'm working on it
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A bird 🐦 12-Aug-20 11:26 PM
I will literally pay for that video
That is a singularly perfect combination of my interests
agree 1
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JayManiac 12-Aug-20 11:30 PM
Well I'm immunocompromised and thus not going back to college this semester, so hopefully I'll have some time to get to it over this next semester- planning to come back with a more consistent schedule come september, so we'll see!
If you wanted, you could pay for that video, in a sense: by helping me make it
Just a thought! Anyone's free to pitch me collaboration ideas at any time- I might not always be able to do it, but if anyone's ever got an angle for one, they can let me know!
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Elliot (Boy) 12-Aug-20 11:33 PM
I have been struggling to break into video content for a bit now actually... a collab might help me get my head around some stuff. begins trying to think of ideas
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spinagon 12-Aug-20 11:34 PM
You have at least 24 hours of experience
agree 3
lol 7
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JayManiac 12-Aug-20 11:34 PM
hey, send me a list- or even just a list of topics you'd want to talk about, we can see what the overlap is and where we can work with it!
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A bird 🐦 12-Aug-20 11:34 PM
What type of thing would you be looking for in collaborated help?
One of Sunflower's friends is writing a thesis on Pratchett's take on monsters that I've been hassling to read
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JayManiac 12-Aug-20 11:35 PM
Oh I like that
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A bird 🐦 12-Aug-20 11:35 PM
same
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Elliot (Boy) 12-Aug-20 11:36 PM
Where do I subscribe to this thesis?
same 3
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JayManiac 12-Aug-20 11:37 PM
And for the kind of help: you're very good at asking questions, and I'm a lot less familiar with Pratchett's work than I am Wildbow's, so you can point me in the right directions and help me expand on them. If you wanted to record parts of it or even create a character that I voice, we could work something out in the script! It's free-form, whatever you'd want to contribute
I think of my best video concepts in discussions with people anyways, it's a good catalyst
Now to wrap up the chapter because I have to eat lunch and leave very soon
It landed point-first at the point where the giant’s hairline, at the very top of his forehead, sinking as deep as the now nonexistent hilt.
Welp. that's a choice that you've made.
To either side of me, the giant’s arms slowly rose. Not in response to me. Cupping his hands.
I know it doesn't say or even imply 'over his mouth' but my first thought was 'well he speaks dragon...Fus Roh Dah?
Ilovethis 2
“Oh man,” I could hear Evan, as he kept me aloft. “Oh man, it’s going to be so hard to keep you alive, now!”
I love this dynamic, and the (quite accurate) way evan's been thinking of it
But, even if it was assisted, even if it wasn’t perfect, I allowed myself to fly just a little longer. If nothing else, it would help with navigating the mess of trees that lay before us. Off to the witch’s hut, I thought. Trying not to think about what she might have set up to protect herself, when things were as bad as they were in Jacob’s Bell.
Ah, right- we've been travelling to her house this whole time. The meeting of the horror movies
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JayManiac 13-Aug-20 10:38 AM
Im living for this extended metaphor
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JayManiac 14-Aug-20 09:33 PM
So! Crone Mara- I see a bit of Conquest in her (perhaps ironically) in that she maintains her humanity throughout her immortal life by subsuming and transferring herself to new 'hosts', but also it works slightly differently, because Mara's going about it through taking their bodies and locking away their souls, whereas conquest takes everything and uses it to get a bit of wiggle room. Crone Mara is just so much more of a creep about it, though. It's probable that her magic predates the Seal, but that it was eventually subsumed into it- she exercises and is limited by all the rights of a practitioner, after all
It wasn’t frozen in time. Were we approaching the point where we were outside of the town? Or was she there, stoking the fire, keeping it active by being active?
I'd guess the latter- it's an effect that you can poke holes in, and I'd assume that's what she's doing. For the sake of consistency it probably won't actually become nighttime here.
My reasoning is that if she didn't technically live in the town, she wouldn't be able to do things like challenge mags for demenses, etc.
“It’s like the movies. You got the awesome badass cop, that’s me, here, and he has to fork over the dough to get the deets, right? Except I’m giving real dough, or french fries, or whatever. Token worship or sustenance. And they fib to me? Jerks!”
Oh man, I love evan
“That,” Evan said. “Hawks, I think.” “That wasn’t a hawk cry.” “You’re such a bird nerd!” “It wasn’t,” I said.
And I love Blake, too- when he geeks out about birds it absolutely reminds me of my partner, who's reading pact mostly because I told them it has a whole lot to do with birds.
“Going to be freaking awesome to have someone to fly with,” he said. “Someone to keep the monsters off my back. I mean, what’s the worst they can throw at us? You beat a dragon!” “I didn’t beat it,” I said. “I grazed it. A light scrape on the wing, to discourage, if nothing else. It might have come after us, if the giant had let it.” “Uh uh uh!” Evan said, “Theatrics! Words are important! You beat a dragon! And now-”
I mean, saying that he beat a dragon is kind of technically true, and could win him some points with the universe so I don't know if he should really be trying to undercut Evan here- I understand that it's not good for evan to believe that blake can kill a dragon, but if the universe believes it, might not be such a terrible strategy
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spinagon 14-Aug-20 09:48 PM
Maybe Blake can't kill a dragon, but he can sure cut a bitch
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JayManiac 14-Aug-20 09:48 PM
Beware the Dragon-Irritator!
“Turning back,” I warned him, as I dipped my left wing lower. “Left turn.” “Roger roger.”
Frantically googles to see whether Evan grew up with the clone wars and thus is doing a battle droid impression
(The answer is it's very possible)
By the time I’d pulled a u-turn, the birds were at eye level with me. Crows flapped, while the vultures simply kept their wings spread. Not coming straight at me, but still rising. Each turkey vulture had a featherless head. It looked like their heads had been skinned alive. Red, grisly, without much flesh stretched over the bone.
I can't tell if this is a magically distinct description, or if he's just describing regular turkey vultures?
I mean, I'm kind of guessing magical, because most of them don't look literally skinned alive- but also they kind of do?
An entirely different problem from the dragon, this.
Would you rather fight one horse sized duck, or a hundred duck-sized horses?
I think the answer to that one is far easier than the answer to "would you rather fight a horse or a hundred ducks?"
Because the duck sized horses, I feel, are less threatening than actual ducks would be
You just have to stand on a chair and you're good
with the ducks, there's no escape, you just have to start whackin
They descended on me. Five pounds each at most, they hit me in twos and threes. Landing on me, or flying just over me and pecking, scratching, gouging. “Fuck!” I spat out the word.
I mean ducks don't actually attack as viciously as they could
but if they did, you'd be absolutely screwed
I was supernaturally tough. What might have happened if I were flesh? If these beaks and talons were digging more than mere millimeters into my flesh? Picked to pieces until I couldn’t fly anymore?
I love this as an explicit contrast to the Pauz chapter
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JayManiac 14-Aug-20 10:04 PM
“Can’t fly and defend myself at the same time,” I said. “You can, you just need practice. Barrel roll roundhouse kicks, maybe.” “I can’t do a roundhouse kick to start with. Why would I be able to do one while flying?”
I want Evan to come up with every single ariel fighting move
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JayManiac 14-Aug-20 10:25 PM
“Fighting when the chips are down. Keep going when I’m missing an arm and a leg, when I’ve lost my self, or my enemies force me to relive my worst memories. You were there for that last one, I know.” “I was?” I blinked. “Yeah. Sorry. Forgot that just about everything prior to Rose taking over got erased. Yeah, you helped me through it. Thank you.” “You’re welcome,” Evan said, with a kind of sage gravity, as if he knew what I was talking about.
I was just thinking about this the other day, actually- I think that the connection between Blake and Evan just couldn't've been cut all the way through. They've fallen too easily back into their dynamic for that to be the case entirely, even if the surface level details aren't exactly restored. Evan feels the weight of this moment, and it seems like a part of his subconscious probably remembers
“The rock,” he said. “Hm?” “The rock. Less snow on top.”
I love blake's knack for investigation, and how it manifests in the practitioner world
Blake and Evan really make for an observant and knowledgable duo, with the instincts to boot
They follow their hunches and figure out the root causes well
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JayManiac 14-Aug-20 11:07 PM
I'm gonna pause here because I'm being swept up in a project and there's a lot going on atm, but we'll hopefully continue fairly soon when I can be Not Distracted
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JayManiac 21-Aug-20 09:44 PM
Okay, sorry about that, it's been a chaotic few days and I had several friends living at my house until last night and on an unrelated note my state is on fire again so the sky is orange that's nice - anyhow, we're back today to figure out what Crone Mara is up to and whether it's sabotaging the prospective lords and sinking the rest of the town into the abyss for funsies. Given how much she seems to hate white colonials and how well people like Alister, Sandra and Johannes fit that bracket, wouldn't actually put it past her. especially if, like blake theorizes, her house isn't frozen in time because it's not technically jacob's bell in some sense. I called it unlikely before, but if it is the case then she jumps up the list of suspects. I still don't know that it's her, because I don't think the book would point us directly to the assailant immediately, but it's possible that she, briar girl, and a number of the other suspects are all working together to accomplish this. It's also still possible that Padraic is involved, especially since he doesn't seem to think he'll be affected like the rest of Jacob's Bell.
Last we left off, Blake and Evan were being smart and Peter was being an asshole.
Again, no runes or ropes or wires. A triangular rock. Tall and triangular, shaped like a doorstop.
Until he said shaped like a doorstop I was in gravity falls mode and thinking It's Bill. I mean, that's kind of what the vibe is with this section of the book: some force on the horizon that wants to plunge the town into odd, disturbing madness.
“Hello!?” Peter called out. “Trap!” I replied. “Back up!” They did. It took a good thirty seconds for them to trudge back through snow.
Now don't get me wrong, Peter is a dick, but he's also that kind of dick who's willing to say what people are thinking and advocate for his own comforts, and Blake could've been a bit faster with the communication here. He's known or suspected a trap for a little bit, but let his gang just kinda stand there with no explanation, which he himself probably would've balked at if he were on the other end of it.
Three trees, falling, parallel with one another, across the middle of the clearing. The fourth fell diagonally. Poised to strike down anyone or anything fast enough to move clear of the initial deadfall. A dead tree, the branches long since fallen or broken, reduced to spiky protrusions jutting out from the trunk. The sound of splintering, shattering wood echoed through the crone’s glade.
Clever, and good to avoid. Maybe she doesn't want visitors.
“Magic?” Green Eyes asked. I frowned, looking at the fallen trees, and the poles that had been part of the mechanism.
Interestingly, it doesn't seem so- the only magic we've seen Crone Mara use is that which keeps her alive- I wonder if there's something to that, whether it's why she's kept her humanity so long despite being alive long enough that most people would be entirely Other-ified Padraic style, or if it's got something to do with hating the Seal and the way the Practice works in these parts...I mean, she used the birds presumably, so she doesn't use no magic. Eh, maybe it's all of the above, or none.
“Oh, great,” Peter said. “Innocents are protected, they say. It’s good to have some innocents along. Innocents are harder to affect with magic. You aren’t entirely magical, but you should go along. You’ll help the group just by being there, an extra set of skills. What happens in the first half hour? Dragon, giant, now falling trees. Are we protected? Noooo.”
Oh hush, you weren't even set on fire, quit complaining.
“You okay?” Tiff asked. She placed a gloved hand on Roxanne’s shoulder, on the crimson coat. Roxanne twisted away, scowling, as if she’d been burned.
I probably did need a reminder or two about how screwed up the Thorburns are- and how little this experience is probably helping. it probably is a lot to handle, even if they weren't technically affected by a lot of the magic
She tensed. “You stop doing that first. Taking charge. Telling us what to do. Being condescending.” “They’re not being condescending,” Peter said. “They really are superior. They’re better than us, and they’re acting like it.”
Uhhhh....this is an interesting take, and kind of suggests a few things about Peter. First that he thinks of things in terms of who's 'better' or 'superior' which we could've guessed but is surprising to hear this overtly, and next that he measures those things in some convoluted way that puts Blake above hi- okay well a lot of people are better than Peter by virtue of...well, any virtue, really. But if I had to guess, it's related to the last two quotes I pulled: the idea that blake is more physically capable, that he can fly, that he can do something when shit starts blowing up, and thus is "better" or more "superior" than Peter, who probably feels a bit helpless here. That's probably a lot of Roxanne's mindset here too, along with the whole "reeling from the world not working like I think it should" thing.
Peter raised a hand, then glanced at me. “You want to lead the way, or do you want to use us as cannon fodder?”
peter needs some self esteem
like, we've arguably known this or been able to put it together from page one
but still
“The problem, Roxie,” Peter said, “is that you’re used to being superior. Everyone has a way of dealing. Kathy? Attack, attack, attack. That’s her pattern. When the attacks fail? Undermine, sabotage the competition in less direct ways. Paige? Act better than she is, raise herself up, place herself on a pedestal. When that fails? She breaks down, and she breaks down hard. Recognize the pattern, and you know how to play someone. All that emotion gets turned inward.” “I don’t care,” Roxanne said. “Stop talking?” “Gotta talk, part of how I deal. You and me? We’re manipulators. Different environments, but we play the same game. Where we differ is in how we deal when the manipulations fail. I’m not so different from Ellie. I retreat. But where she changes things up, I retreat to study. I come back better, smarter.”
yep, helpless in a situation where manipulation can't really get you anything- and he's pegged Roxanne's problem too, pretty much as soon as I did, which is probably another sign that I should stop talking so much and let the characters analyze themselves. What Peter doesn't realize is that manipulation is pretty much key to the entire Practice, and that he'd be really really good at it under even slightly different circumstances.
Tiff stared. “Did she always have those knives? That harness-” “The witch hunter’s,” Peter said. “From the big bag they left behind, before Rose’s friends went through it. When she went to the bathroom, after we got back to the house. Our attention was on the Behaims. Hers was on preparing in case she needed to get cutthroat. That’s another little difference between us. She plans for failure. I like thinking I won’t fail, and still manage to deal if I do.”
Well at least we can maybe cross 'pessimism' off of Peter's list of flaws? At least in certain circumstances?
He's the picture of 'tons of self-confidence, no self-esteem' which are among the more annoying types of people to deal with, because nursing esteem without feeding arrogance and confidence is such a tricky game, but the lack of self esteem makes people like him lash out and push themselves around.
Peter commented, “That bottle there, that’s alcohol, Blake. She has matches too. Strips of cloth, if you didn’t see.” “Okay,” I said. “Okay? You do realize that she was planning for the eventuality that she might need to go after you?”
I mean...if I were a 12 year old paranoid psychopath being led through an unfamiliar landscape by a creepy tree person who says he's my cousin from another timeline and I hated all my cousins already and also I've seen him go on a spree of killing things that are substantially stronger than regular humans....I might prepare for the eventuality too?
I dunno, that's a lot of ifs but I think I almost got myself to a point where I relate and it's understandable?
I also think Peter trusts Blake a lot more than Roxanne does, probably because Blake has more actively involved him in plans and decisions, so he's invested.
“Maybe not,” Peter said. “But he should’ve recognized what you’re capable of as is. You’ve got that same aspiration that Paige and Kathy have. A desire to be better, but without Dad’s interference, and with natural intelligence and viciousness, you could be as scary a monster as anything here.” “That’s not true!” Evan piped up. “Blake’s a great monster!” “No,” Peter said. “That’s-” “He took on a dragon without flinching! You didn’t even see him killing people earlier tonight! He was brutal!”
sigh
I love Evan
but Oh My Gods
He's kind of gone from "yeah we're gonna kill all the monsters" to "we're gonna be the best monster" and while there were aspects of both along the way it's still a bit of a disturbing sentiment
but also hilarious because he's still trying to yell at the universe that blake is awesome so that later the universe goes "hey I guess blake is pretty awesome" and lets him get away with more shit
which is wonderful
but sTILL
“It almost sounds like you respect me.” Peter barked out a laugh. “Fuck that. You’re a spoiled little shit, and Dad pretty much ruined you. But this?” He gestured at her midsection, where all the weapons were. “I can respect this. Pretty much the best the Thorburns have to offer.”
Yeah, we're seeing more and more of peter's definitions regarding "better" and "best" and I'm more and more sure that I don't like where they're coming from
“What I don’t respect, what I think is downright pathetic, and what you need to stop fucking doing, is going after us. Because you’re doing it. You’re scared and I’m scared and I bet even the bloody mermaid is a little scared. But that fear is making you fall back on your emergency measure. Going for the wrong jugulars. Pay attention. Do this smart. Come on.”
A valid point. I don't suppose I can suggest that there aren't any 'right' jugulars to go for?
Sweet cheezits, I feel like Wylan
But someone's gotta be Wylan around here
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JayManiac 21-Aug-20 10:16 PM
A character from another book I'm reading: Six of Crows. Very fun, good characters. it's a fantasy criminal/heist novel, and 5/6 of the main characters are people who have experience with murder, who rob and cheat and steal for a living and have no qualms with violence- and then one of them is just this rich kid who thought crime would be more fun than living at home, and is routinely the only voice going "hey, isn't that bad and shouldn't we stop?"
agree 1
I remember when blake was like that
ahman 1
good times
“Sure,” the satyr commented. “We don’t know what it is, but it’s guarding these woods. Making it a guardian.”
Every time this satyr speaks I give him the voice of a specific party-frat-kid from my college and I find it hilarious. He's one of those people who explains very obvious concepts like whoever he's talking to is five years old and he's imparting vast wisdom. One of my only interactions with him was being offered LSD because I "seem like a cool guy". That was a complete aside, but I hope at least someone can relate.
Narrow, tall, naked and simultaneously sexless, with only dark pubes at the nether regions. Its flesh was mottled like that of a corpse, or maybe a baby fresh from childbirth, it had spidery fingers that each had two or three joints too many. It moved like it floated, leaving no tracks behind it, legs only periodically moving to propel it forward. The front of its head looked exactly like the back of its head did. A tangle of hair, blowing in wind that wasn’t there.
Am I crazy, or does this kind of match the description of some Other Other we've met in-story? My first thought was Inomenous but I went back to check and it doesn't seem to be him...either way, very creepy, and very putting-a-damper-on-mara-not-using-magic. That said, she uses less magical solutions when she can, and that's still significant
(I feel like I should clarify that I didn't take the lsd. Anyhow, moving on)
“Like most? What does it feel like?” I asked her. “The black fish,” she said.
Interesting...maybe some mechanism of the Drains that a scoorge picked up, and can now be summoned like that?
And, in the span of an eyeblink, where the terrain blocked it from view, it stopped. The eye carried forward, expecting it to continue, and saw only the usual darkness. The maenad spun in place. The thing was there. A matter of five or so feet from us. It floated the rest of the way, covering the distance before I could step back.
I'm not sure if it's because I don't watch a lot of horror movies, but this stuff is just so satisfying to me- I'm delighted by the classic horror movie monster tropes- but also it works so well in this context, because nobody's just a fuckin idiot, and they're trying to identify and deal with this thing as fast as possible, so it doesn't look cheap or cheesey and actually conveys tension well
I could make out Green Eyes swiping her claws at the thing. Touching only air. “Astral,” I said. Actually breathing wasn’t hard, my voice didn’t wheeze, but my words were affected as my throat was damaged. But-
Have we heard of these before?
“Nightmare? No. Um. Doom. Curse made manifest? Roxanne, when you looted the bag, did you collect anything that looked like a dreamcatcher? A necklace, pendant, rosaries?” “Why the fuck would I?”
Yeah...they'll be compatent practitioners when they actually figure out what the hell is going on, and what matters in this world
Roxanne is more on the pragmatic side, and this is a good example to show her that knives do not solve all of the problems you can encounter in the Practice. Though rocket launchers don't solve no problems, as exemplified by our good Mags.
.”Damn it,” I muttered. “They keep coming for me.” “I would,” Peter said, helpfully. “If I were against us, I’d go after you first, easy.”
Now Blake, I think that was supposed to be a compliment
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spinagon 21-Aug-20 10:38 PM
She needs astral knives
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JayManiac 21-Aug-20 10:41 PM
Astral HP: 33 AC: 11 Damage Invulnerabilities: poison, acid, fire, cold, thunder, lightning; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical weapons
“Um, was hoping for a bigger coin,” she said. In the time that it took her to extend her hand toward my shoulder, Peter reached into his pocket and retrieved another, larger, coin. A toonie.
Ah yes. Canada
I did in fact have to look that up
I liked my spine. It was mine. Or the upper part was. Borrowing one from a corpse just wasn’t the same. I suspected that if I lost my spine, I might be a goner.
Interesting, what Blake continues to think of as "his". He might be right here, or he might already be a goner
The small crow unfolded into a larger man. Corvidae. Our crow spirit, wearing a worn suit with a long jacket and tattered scarf. He unfurled into his full human form between me and the strangler. He pushed out, and drove the spirit back.
This just took me on a rollercoaster of "oh shit, he's always bad news oh fuck he's here to help mara" to "oh! He's helping!" to "no wait, he has to help but he's definitely here to also screw them over in favor of mara"
The fight was brief, as Corvidae slipped past Roxanne, reached into her jacket with an almost casual ease to grab the knife, and stabbed at the projection, succeeding where none of the rest of us had been able to. He sliced at it, and it dissipated into a thick cold fog, fading into the air.I stared at Corvidae.
I wonder if it's the nature of corvidae as a megaspirit that let him do this, or if he just knew which knife to grab and where it would do actual damage?
“One more body on our side,” Peter said, rubbing his hands together for warmth. “Great. And it’s someone that can fight off things like that? Better yet. Don’t want to get strangled.”
Yay. Now you have Corvidae here. As you're about to face Mara. I don't know how much of this is dramatic irony, but to me this seems like a good old dose of "and why don't we make it worse?"
“Mara, was it?” Roxanne asked. “You called her a crone?” “Mara, yeah,” Tiff said. I glanced back, and I took it as a chance to look at what Corvidae was doing. He was at the very rear of the group, trailing behind. Ostensibly watching our backs. “I like that you’re asking,” Peter encouraged Roxanne.
yeah, it does seem like it's been a good learning experience to the concept of "it's important to know things about what you're dealing with, because you can't be equipped to handle everything". Which peter pretends to have picked up on completely before this. But hey, he wasn't asking any of these questions before, either
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jsoh 21-Aug-20 10:53 PM
I wonder if a toonie would be magically special at all, being dimetallic and having a circle in its design and all
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JayManiac 21-Aug-20 10:55 PM
I mean it seemed like she was going to use a coin as a symbol of chance- don't know why she wanted a bigger one, though
Mara. She wasn’t old. She was young. Thirteen or so, not far off from Roxanne’s age.
Thanks for that good ol reminder that she's a horrible monster, as present as she is
The young crone’s breath fogged in the air. She didn’t watch us, but fiddled with a branch, snapping off a twig, casting it aside. “A comb?” the satyr asked. “No,” the maenad responded. “Don’t think so.”
The explanation of this terminology is very fun, I like it and I'm going to start using it
“You’re intruding.” The words carried. They had an impact that went beyond sound and language.
Alright, we're carrying on into the next chapter, let's go! I'm way too concerned about how exactly this goes wrong to stop now
Might as well get straight to the point. “Jacob’s Bell is being drawn into the Abyss.” “I know. Good,” the crone told us.
Oddly, this makes me suspect her less as the ultimate power that's influencing everything.
The crone didn’t let her finish. “You betray custom. One should give notice before trespass. The laws are with me in this. The laws are with me in any and all retribution I take.”
So she doesn't seem to have a problem with using the seal to her advantage, even if she might not otherwise like the 'laws'- she's also Right in that, capital R and everything
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spinagon 21-Aug-20 11:01 PM
Throwing comb behind you is very familiar to me
From Russian fairy tales
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JayManiac 21-Aug-20 11:02 PM
Not super familiar to me but not unheard of- i get it quickly, but don't pick it up immediately
“Meaning we should have called before answering, but you… had no intention of answering the call?” Tiff asked. “Yes,” the young crone said. “That seems like a pretty big flaw in these rules,” Evan muttered under his breath.
Yeah, that's not exactly the first one you'll find, either- explains why people like Laird are able to put their opponents in such impossible situations
That said, maybe tiff has a bit of a point here, and Mara will get a bit of a penalty for not conforming to the spirit of the rules
she'd have a much better point if she'd tried to call ahead- I feel like the spirits would be almost on her side if she'd done that -but as it stands, I'm not sure they'll take kindly to it
“Mara,” I said. “I don’t want to start something here. We’re not approaching with hostile intent. I don’t want to be enemies.” “No you don’t,” Mara replied. “But enemyship is as much my choice as it is yours. I choose to be enemies.”
One of those lines that just got me kind of nodding along like "yeah that's a pretty good point there"
“No you don’t,” Mara replied. “But enemyship is as much my choice as it is yours. I choose to be enemies.” I drew the Hyena. I saw the crone’s expression change. Not a smile. She wouldn’t give me that much. But amusement. Almost relaxed, more comfortable with this than she’d been with my blade in a sheath.
It makes sense that these two psychos might...not get along, but be able to understand each other
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spinagon 21-Aug-20 11:12 PM
Mightbe thinking "Hah, a sword. I can deal with this"
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JayManiac 21-Aug-20 11:12 PM
Right...just a sword
“I’ve only technically existed for a few months,” I replied. “I don’t think I’m long for this world. It sounds like you have a lot more at stake than I do. I can’t imagine you really want to pick a fight against someone with so little to lose.”
Blake is likely speaking her language with this one- and several people across jacob's bell have learned to regret this
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spinagon 21-Aug-20 11:12 PM
Who knows what this weird abyss dude might pull out
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JayManiac 21-Aug-20 11:13 PM
I mean I bet the dragon was like "huh, I didn't think he had wings, before" (edited)
“I nurtured those who followed after me or passed through, offered them my hand and my amassed knowledge, so they could be communities, a people. Many are mine. Hundreds of years of work. I saw things follow in our wake, things stirred into existence by our being. Your Others, echoing our intelligence, echoing our pride and fear and pain, to join those Others that were here before the first people. I am familiar with them all. I know what man is, and I know that your love and law and fairness are invention. Invention younger than I am.” These words had a power that went beyond a simple explanation. It was a declaration, and she was gaining a kind of power through it. I could feel it.
Ahahahahaaaaa this is fascinating- fascinating because I agree with her, that all these are human inventions- that the mere idea of Other is a human invention, and that it's all as meaningless as it is full of meaning. But she still seems to harken back to a more powerful truth, a truth absent of invention, and it's that that I disagree with. There were no Others before you saw them there, Mara. Before someone saw them there. Though they may have claimed to have come before you, they are no more than that which you drew yourself from the land.
“No,” she said, and she said it with conviction. “You know the power of your repetition. Three times, you do something. Three times you bind it to make it so. Agreed?” “That’s the gist of it.” “Invention. But at the core, there is truth. I have not counted, but I can still be utterly confident in saying that I have woken up in the same place for more than nine million of your days. I have gathered, hunted, cooked and eaten the same foods on those same days. I have been born, bled for the first time, and been reborn on more than one thousand occasions. The wheel of life and death turns forward and I am an indelible part of it, especially here. This is a pattern, this is my ritual. Now tell me, what is the truth of this. What does it make me?”
But that, too is an invention. An adjacent one to the ones you despise. You haven't seen enough to know truth, you've just been around long enough to get stuck in your ideas so thoroughly, that to you they might seem more solid than anything. You've built up these ideas, so that they might have more reality that what you see around you, but that reality is nonetheless based on the invention.
“Mara,” I said. “We’re not here to debate the definition of humanity.”
But please, please continue to do so
“Mara,” I called out. “Tell me, is there any way we could have done this fairly? Gotten a straight answer out of you?” “No,” the crone said. “There’s no way we’re going to get out of here without a confrontation of some kind?” I said. “No,” Mara said. “There isn’t.”
Welp. Shit
“Had that vibe right from the start,” I said. “Which brings us here. Talking.”
I just spent a number of seconds attempting to recall when everyone started to use the word "vibe"- this seemed like a more recent usage but it's, what, 2014?
“No,” she said. She pointed a finger at the group, finger extended to point just over my shoulder. “I want those lives. One can leave my woods for every one you kill. For doing the deed and getting blood on that broken blade of yours, I’ll give you your life at no cost, and I’ll give you the answer you want.” I glanced back over my shoulder. I could see Evan, Green Eyes, Tiff, Peter, Roxanne, the satyr, the maenad.
Uh......No!?
The maenad tensed as I made eye contact. Did she think I thought she was expendable?
Do you not?
Please?
“Peter too.” He didn’t move. “Peter.” I jogged my arm while holding the blade steady at Roxanne’s throat, making it clear that I would attack her. He raised his hands. Empty.
For all his talk of not going after the wrong jugulars...though, with how blake's acting and Peter's own opinion of his usefulness I can't exactly blame him for thinking that he'd be among the hyena'd
I warded the satyr off with one wing, folded around half of my body, and held out the Hyena, pointing it at the maenad, ready if she lashed out. I knew how fast they could be. I gave her a slight shake of my head.
Please please please please please have a plan, Blake
I've never asked you to have any sort of plan before but I sure as heck don't see a way out of this
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spinagon 21-Aug-20 11:30 PM
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JayManiac 21-Aug-20 11:30 PM
Huh- I wonder what I'm clocking as different in today's era, then?
I reached Corvidae, at the rear of the group. Corvidae, who had hidden himself out of sight, sheltered by the crowd. “You didn’t consider that I would take it as an insult if your first target was an Other so similar to my people?” Mara called out.
Ahahahahaha- not that that gets you out of the frying pan but I like it so far
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spinagon 21-Aug-20 11:31 PM
Probably just a resurgence of old slang
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JayManiac 21-Aug-20 11:31 PM
“Aren’t insults an invented thing?” I asked. “For you to be insulted…” A distance behind me, she didn’t react.
Yeah, yeah...I deal with this kind of thing a lot, too
“Hello, Sparrow,” Corvidae said. “Will you just watch this?” “Yep!”
Yeah, I'm concerned about Evan. But maybe we'll deal with that after we deal with the lingering source of tension throughout this whole chapter
I think that Jacob's Bell will likely be in a better place once corvidae is not in it
as much as I kind of like him as a concept
“We’ve flown together,” Corvidae said. “We flew together, and then you flew off, and then you lured an owl to come after me.” “Mischief is in my nature. I didn’t let it harm you.”
and as good a job as he's doing with arguing for mercy
I returned the Hyena to the point that I was holding Corvidae at bay. “No?” Mara asked. “No,” I said. Mara didn’t move. Didn’t do anything, not even exhaling, but the effect broke. Time resumed.
Welp- the bluff has been called, and now comes the not-bluff- I'm gonna break quickly for lunch but I'll be right back
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JayManiac 22-Aug-20 12:58 AM
An entire forest came to life around us, and the puppeteer Mara Agnakak was pulling the strings.
Yeah I figured that this was about where it would become impossible to stop reading for a little bit- this is some awesome imagery. The stopped time that responds to influence is such a good way of conveying the theatrics here.
She existed as a static entity. A closed circle, not unlike the dragon.
This kind of reaffirms my conviction that dragons are where the world was allowed to find loopholes through magic- as a kind of magic that's existed since before the Seal. Mara fit in a little more, but I suspect she's got a bit in common with dragons.
“You’re doing it all wrong,” he said. “I am not interested in your perspective.” “Blake had the right idea. You want to get revenge? Bloodshed? Letting Blake live is the best way to do it! He’s a maniac!” “One that is fighting to salvage this town,” Mara said. “I’ll stop that here.”
This is another point in the 'Mara is at least working with the force that's trying to bring down Jacob's Bell' collumn. I still think she's not the only one, but she certainly seems to have that goal in mind. Also Peter's fucking mouth just keeps being hilariously awful. I love this last-ditch attempt at convincing. Peter's another one of those characters I can't help but like, possibly because they're assholes to people I dislike even more. He reminds me of Kirito from SAO Abridged (the good one).
“Wake up!” Peter said, raising his voice. “One town? Have you not paid the slightest bit of attention to the Thorburn family? We’re fucked up. How does someone as immortal as you are not see the long term implications of letting us live? We’re the worst, most artificial, broken human beings you’ll find around here!” “You’re asking for clemency, based on the fact that you’re everything I despise?”
See, when he gets going there's a fair amount of charm to it XD. One can't help but be entertained. Okay, so Mara might not be entertained, but that's because jokes rely on social expectation and she thinks society is a facade. Which it is.
“If you really hate modern humanity, if you hate everything we represent, you should be encouraging us to spread, to do our screwed-up thing to this cancerous non-humanity that’s filling the world. Do you know how many lives Roxanne here is going to ruin as she grows up?” Roxanne shot him a dirty look. “Roxanne and I legitimately thought Blake was going to murder us in cold blood. That’s how fucked up we are, as a family. Let us live, we continue to fuck up the other families, screw with or kill Johannes, and Jacob’s Bell becomes worse for all the people you hate. You win, and it’s easy, and it poses no risk at all to you.” “If I let this argument sway me, I would become what I despise.”
I'd argue that she kind of already has. By allowing and encouraging Corvidae to mess with people- hell, there are readers who think that he's responsible for the entirety of the Thorburn Line, and I don't think it's that crazy of a theory. In her hatred, all she does is create more of what she hates- she's caught in a cycle. That's not to say that letting the thorburns live here would end that cycle- it might even continue it, depending on how much of what peter says here is accurate -she's just already too far gone and doesn't even realize it.
“Fuck,” Peter said, on his heels. He glanced at me, then Roxanne, and bounced right back. “Fuck you. You’re wrong. You lose power when someone calls you on bullshit, don’t you? Well you’re wrong, you old bitch. Humans exist to evolve, to adapt, to improve, and sitting here like some wart on a dick, doing the same thing every day? You’re less human than the sparrow, or the flesh-eating mermaid!”
If I were the spirits I'd be giving this so many points right now- sometimes we just need someone to cuss out a hypocritical bastard, and Peter is here to provide
“Practice,” Tiff said. “Simple actions, made into powerful ones with tens of thousands of years of repetition. Train a bird, tune a sound…” “This is how she operates?” Evan asked. “No,” Tiff said. Her voice came from another space, as if she were moving. I hadn’t heard the footsteps. “She’s a blood hag. She’ll have Other powers, and practitioner powers. This is just what someone can pull off if they just happen to be immortal and very patient.”
This is so creative- there almost would be something human about it...but it's something human taken to an extreme, which makes it Other. Not that Crone Mara would admit to that
“Corvidae’s working for Mara!” I hollered the words. “Working for Mara?” Corvidae murmured. His voice went perfectly with the noises of the scavenger birds. “No, no. I couldn’t do that, see? Our deal stipulated that I was to assist you. Work against lone enemies. So. In the interest of doing that…”
I love Corvidae- I mean, he's awful and he was always gonna make this mission a disaster, but he does it so smoothly
She held out the Hyena, balancing it on one hand, so it teetered slightly. “Enact your judgement. I am life, birth, death. By this token, give the monster a heart, and return his weapon to him, impaling-” A gunshot rang out. Mara leaned back, swift. The vague light of the moon and the city reached her face, illuminating it.
Oh? this had better not be rose
Rose strode from the woods, butt of a hunting rifle touching one shoulder.
she's just determined to make this even more of a shitshow, isn't she
The Knights of the Basement, armed with guns, joined Rose, Kathryn, Ellie, the Others, and the Behaims.
sharkhi
Before she could, without even glancing to see what I held, I took the object that Corvidae had given me, and I dashed it against a tree. Rose fired. Mara moved in the same moment, away from the bullet, simultaneously turning to glance at me. To see a small cloth doll with a weird leathery face being dashed to pieces. The bullet didn’t strike home, but I was pretty sure that she’d been grazed. Clipped in an ear. One hand went to the side of her head.
Well, at least he was kind of helpful- I don't know exactly what that did except for presumably extinguish the soul of a young girl, but it was..something?
a tree, braced against branches, and he was standing clear of her lunging range. “I can,” Corvidae spoke. “Allow me to consult my notes.” I’d faced way too many smug motherfuckers to let that slide. “Shoot him!” I shouted. But Corvidae was already drawing something from his jacket. A hand mirror. Bound in paper. “Don’t shoot him!” I shouted.
AHahahahahahahahahahahaha
what a fun/horrible note to end the chapter on
I loved getting to see more of Mara's philosophy, and how she's different while somehow being just like any Other. she doesn't ever really acknowledge just how thoroughly she's slipped into this version of reality that she calls 'artificial'
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JayManiac 24-Aug-20 12:44 AM
Let's see if we can't knock out 14.7 today as a bit of a treat, shall we? I only have around an hour, so no promises, but maybe I'll be faster this time! Who knows?
“He’s not ours?” Rose asked. “Corvidae?” “No,” I said. “If ‘shoot him’ didn’t make it clear.”
Ahh, to see the Thorburn heirs back at it again! Working against each other instinctively, constantly contradicting and giving just about everyone in the vicinity a migraine! Especially each other! Why was it a good idea for Rose to come in-person instead of just sending blake some backup again, especially if she had more assets and was trying to keep things balanced?
“In the interest of good faith, I’ll assist you, as you requested earlier,” Corvidae said. “You’ll need to be stronger, miss Rose, if you’re going to face Mara Angnakak. This is the best way I know how.”
See, in fucking with the white people like Mara wants, Corvidae is releasing a literal manifestation of a whole bunch of the shit that she hates- I think in her endorsement of him, and likely in a lot of her actions surrounding the town, she's pretty hypocritical
The mirror changed course, curving in the air. It landed in soft snow, handle sticking up. I wasn’t the only one to turn to look at Rose, a distance away from Corvidae, fist held out to one side, expression grim. Her expression broke, head bowing a bit, eyes closing, hand going to the side of her head.
Hey! She used Sympathy! Which...wow, bold move, but a good one- assuming everyone here knew and was fine with Rose's connection to Conquest. I suppose they might not know he's in that mirror
“Why interfere?” Corvidae spoke. “I was helping,” “You are the worst helper!” Evan said.
I mean, arguably a whole lot of Others fall into the Jackass Genie trope, but many of them are mostly just doing it with a goal in mind, like Pauz siccing his creatures on Blake- Corvidae's goal is mostly just to cause pain to those who wronged his people, which....is like everyone. So he's explicitly maybe the worst helper.
That said, if he isn't the worst helper, and he probably isn't, technically, then Evan had better watch his mouth, even if this was pretty awesome
I didn’t like that they were here as Rose’s, but if I could put that aside, damn, were they ever beautiful people. I respected them, I even trusted them. “The cavalry,” I said.
Yeah, the Knights are the best- I love that they're back, and at the same time I'm so concerned that they're back.
“How are we doing this, Mara?” Rose called out. “If Corvidae agrees to share the information we need, you can expect us to disappear post-haste. We have no reason to stay, and no reason to fight. You shouldn’t expect any visits from us in the near future. I don’t know about you, but it sounds awfully nice to me.” “No, you got it all wrong,” Peter said. He adopted a tone, “Nice is a construct, a human invention. Humans are not, when you strip it all away, ‘nice’.”
Gods, Peter is such an asshole and I'm so here for it in this particular instance. Mara's one of those people who's just frustrating to deal with, and sometimes it's nice to see them annoyed to no end- I might have a bit of a petty streak, at times.
“No compromise. I intend to kill each of you in turn,” Mara spoke. “One by one. I can ward off the spirits and powers that would carry your companion’s souls to their eternal rest. Bind soul to dying body, so that their self can endure the moment of death for centuries. The act of rotting and being ripped apart by carrion birds, a dim, broken awareness.”
She's stuck herself so stubbornly that she doesn't realize she's stuck to the wheel, and helping it turn.
In a way, we were balancing the scale, each of us maintaining an equivalent distance from Mara. If the scale was slightly askew, well, that was the way things were. Our movement meant that we alternated between being in light and shadow, where ‘light’ was purely subjective. In the gloom, ‘light’ wasn’t even moonlight. Only the lights of the city bouncing down off the clouds, helped just a bit by the moonlight that could seep through.
Ilovethis
Several of the veteran practitioners and Others in the group tensed, myself included. A few people with guns focused on their aim. But they weren’t ready for a word. “Die,” Mara said. The heavyset man reacted to the word like he’d been slapped. A step backward, gun pulled back and pointed away, as if he were afraid he’d reflexively pull the trigger.
Uh......
is that, like...Power Word Kill, or something!?
I chased Mara, careful not to put myself between the people with guns and her.
I know she intends to kill you all and maybe she's going back for backup, but if she's running then maybe it's because she realizes that she can't win? And you should stop chasing her and take this wonderful opportunity to book it!?
“Don’t let her touch you!” Rose called out. Green Eyes hesitated, stopping at a ridge. “She only needs to touch you to kill you!” Rose elaborated.
Welp, that's terrifying- and also it seems like she can maybe kill you with less than that- I sort of maybe just realized how out of their league everyone here is, just how powerful Mara could actually be. Nine million repeated rituals has gotta give you something. Then again, there are faster ways to go about getting power, working through all the methods that Mara says are fake.
So maybe our guys have a chance anyways?
Mara was a survivor, more than a fighter. She had sway over life and death, as evidenced by her attempt to give me a heart that she could stab, and her ability to kill with a touch or a word, but her actions, her approach, had largely been to deter. Increasing the response of the birds, so they got more intense the closer we got? The traps? All of it had been to keep us at arm’s length, allowing her to dispatch us as she saw fit.
I love this analysis we're getting from blake- I always enjoy it when the protagonists have to analyze the capabilities of a new threat, figure out upon which symbolic and narrative themes it functions, and thus how to deal with it.
Picking off the weakest first? Going after Peter because he’d taunted her? Or going after the combatants? Her cabin was in that direction. Retreating to a place where she was stronger? Picking up a weapon? Too many questions.
This has a bit more momentum, so I'm gonna be jumping around more during the actual fight unless something catches my eye
Wings splayed, legs in the air. My hand traveled the length of its body, getting slick with blood, traced the line of the beak. Corvidae? She had killed him? Or was it a decoy? If it wasn’t, he’d moved by some other mechanism. Becoming a crow, getting carried? Then why this? To mislead?
it would surprise me, to see Mara toss a valuable tool away like that- not to mention possibly her only companion? She's some kind of human, and still needs things like that.
I heard a muffled thud. Spinning on the spot, I saw the Crone standing over Alexis’ body. “The last thing she saw was you turning your back on her,” the crone said, looking down at the body. “Were you close?”
UHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
stare 2
psyduck
I moved around. Two long strides. Evan was still on my shoulder. I caught hold of Mara’s hair. The Hyena touched her throat. I’d won. I didn’t feel like I’d won, but I’d won.
Holy shit, this entire sequence
I have no idea what to say
Part of the reason it felt so hollow. There were things I didn’t get. Why had she killed the bird? Corvidae?
Corvidae couldn’t move. Not until he was freed. Or no longer bound.
Maybe she only killed his mortal form???
I moved. Stabbing. Striking at open air. I found flesh. “Kàgàgi,” Mara said.
I'm still not sure I'm right, because I don't know if I followed that 100% correctly, but holy shit I think Blake just killed Corvidae
Corvidae stood before me. Hand extended, an inch or two from Evan. His arm went limp, and he dropped to his knees. He broke up into feathers. I saw only a glimpse of a lock of hair in one hand before the hand disappeared. Letita’s hair. Glamour. I checked. Alexis was no longer in the circle.
Oh thank the gods- I also fully forgot he had that until right exactly now, but I remember knowing that it was going to come back in a big way
But alexis is alive!
And Corvidae isn't!
so double sharkhi all around!
sharkhi sharkhi
To make use of him like that, she’d killed him. That much was true. But she was a practitioner. She’d called him right back.
Fuck, I somehow didn't catch that plan, but it's brilliant- I should've been able to put together that that would work. So should Rose- I suspect that's how a lot of creatures get turned against their masters Tromos-style
“Kill me, then,” she said. --- “No,” I said. “I’m not that kind. Now come on. You have some questions to answer.”
Knowing what Mara's done, and considering what she just tried to do/pretended to do, I am fully confident in saying that Blake has killed people for way less. Hell, even that guy who was using his children's souls to power weapons is more innocent- she's done that like at least three hundred times
Twice tonight, an ally in the guise of a friend had turned on me. Would it happen a third time? An important time?
👀
Well now that you've had that thought, the answer is 'probably'
if you'd never categorized it that way, who knows?
Okay, we'll roll right on into the next chapter and see how far we get! 14.8!
I’d spent so very long in darkness. Ever since the fight with Ur, really. The Drains, the mirror world, where small patches of light were surrounded by vast tracts of shadow. While I’d watched ‘Alexis’ die, I’d become aware of how very cold I was. Not necessarily emotionally cold, but in terms of my humanity. There was a lot to be said for having that warmth emanating from within one’s own body. It meant that no matter what happened, no matter what emotions or events we experienced, we at least had that simple aspect of humanity.
Ilovethis
But something swelled deep within me, as the sunlight touched my body, reached past gaps to touch things within, and touched the exterior, that little sliver of flesh I still retained, down the center of my face. The light was warm, and it approximated the sort of warmth I’d been missing, existing in such cold, dark places.
I also love this, but...why is there sunlight!? Is the timestop measure already wearing off, or did mara do something to destroy it? Or will it resume as you enter the town proper?
because if it's dawn for the town...then you have to deal with Johannes soon
The Behaims and Knights were seeing that Mara was confined, and were drawing a circle around her. If Mara had been talking, I would have wandered over to that end of the clearing, but her mouth was closed. The treeline blocked her view of the plume of smoke. Only a matter of time. I wasn’t sure what her reaction would be to the burning of her house.
So Peter and Roxanne have like...totally killed and/or released the souls of like hundreds of little girls, right?
we don't really know the implications of that, but let's hope they're good
heck, maybe Mara just drops dead as the magic that was keeping her alive is no more- I kind of doubt it, but she's so tied to the land and her tending to it/shaping of it that I wouldn't exactly be surprised
Old fashioned Rose, in old fashioned clothes, hair tied back into a short braid, with two lengths framing her face. Her expression was serious, unsmiling. She held her arms out to either side for balance as she made her way through the deeper patches of snow, mirror in one hand, her rifle slung over one shoulder with a strap. I waited a few seconds, then moved forward. I still managed to meet her halfway, even though I’d given her the headstart. We met each other’s eyes.
I don't suppose the whole 'let our guard down and talk' thing applies to the two of them?
“Don’t have to worry about them anymore. I still worry, I have concerns for the welfare of Evan, and Green Eyes, and for… our friends. But I don’t succumb to the grip of terror and panic like I should.” “How nice for you,” Rose said. She looked at the wing I was holding. “Is it fixable?”
On the other hand...
Rose stepped forward, putting her hands on the wing. I flinched, but, after a moment’s delay, I let go. She held the wing, maneuvering it as she brought the stump to the hole at my back.
this is kind of sweet, but also really concerning knowing what we know about what happens when these two are together
She frowned. “Killing, not just attacking. It got rewound, but… very easy to imagine myself at the end of your blade, having seen that. Now it seems you’re transcending normal human limits.” “He flies!” Evan said. “He transcends with style.”
That said, I can't help but see this conversation as a good thing. maybe it's naive to think that things will be better if these two can understand each other, trust each other a bit and empathize, but hey
“He made this quip, and it cut me pretty deep. Commented that he wondered if what he saw in our interaction was what he had to look forward to in the marriage.” “Ah,” I said. “Ouch,” Evan said. Rose shrugged, looking away. “If I can show that I can function like a decent human being in the company of the vestige-cum-bogeyman that’s destined to destroy or be destroyed by me, well, maybe that counts for something.”
Maybe it does? I hope? Counts in my book, anyhow
“Don’t say that!” Evan said. “What do you mean?” “Don’t answer, don’t clarify. You’re talking crazy!” “Like I won’t survive the night,” I said. “Or I won’t be me anymore. If I lose my eyes or my mind, they’re the only part of me that are still Blake. If they go, then it isn’t much different from being killed by a dragon or a crone or whatever else. I’m having a really hard time picturing life as it’ll be in two weeks. A few errands I should run, favors I owe. Ur, the witch in the Drains, the Abyss. But when those errands are done…”
I somehow doubt (all wb book spoilers) that wb took a break from breaking his protagonists in between twig and worm, so I think that might be a safe assumption. It's also what people have been telling him basically all book
“Flying! Adventures! You, me, and maybe Green Eyes if she has to come along and if she promises to stop calling me a chicken nugget! Winging through the air without a care, dang it! Over water so Green Eyes can do the dolphin thing and jump out of the waves! And then we’re supposed to fight monsters, and I go full throttle firebird Evan and raaaaaaaagagargh!” The incoherent sound he made as he finished was a little more emotional and raw than he might have intended. More like he was screaming at me than finishing his sentence. He sat there, panting hard, tiny body swelling against the confines of my hand with each huff.
Aw buddy....
man, I love Evan
even after all Blake's put him through he still wants this- and so do I! It's probably not in the cards, but...if only.
This is just adorable
And sad
sadorable
agree 3
“All this time, I’ve been so frightened about the possibilities, that you could turn on me at any moment, that everything I am could be consumed and subsumed, a monster taking my place, and you don’t even care?” “I care!” I said, wings spreading, advancing a step. I became aware that Knights who’d been standing on the other side of the clearing were now pointing guns at me.
I really do wish the conversation hadn't gone this way, but I'm not exactly surprised
“I care,” I said, relaxing my posture. “I want to ride a damn motorcycle again, I want to hang with Evan and my other friends and fail at art and try my best at being a broken human being, helping people. I want it so bad it aches.” “I want it too,” Rose said. “But when I looked at the two of us, I can’t help but feel you burn brighter, or darker, or colder, I don’t know, it doesn’t make sense. I don’t like what happens when you burn, Blake, when you go after things you wanted, and I couldn’t help but feel you wanted it more, somehow. Enough that you’d tear yourself to pieces, even as you fought me over this life. Destroy us both. And there was this feeling, this belief, that I was the only one who could win and not destroy us both in the process.”
That...is an interesting point. As horrible as it sounds to say, it makes sense that if someone were to win it'd probably be better for both of them if it was Rose. And the more they harp on one of them having to win, the more true it is
“…I don’t want to be the sort of person who wins that fight, I guess,” I said. “Because I can’t help but feel like I can’t do that without becoming the monster I’m afraid I’d have to become.”
and it seems like Blake agrees
“Rose,” I said. “Yes?” “I forfeit.” I saw her swallow hard.
Well....shit
If Blake's chances at a happy ending hadn't already gone...well, down the drain..this is probably the final straw there
I'm curious to see how he acts moving forwards, having done this
“If I try to win this tiny war of ours, over Russel Thorburn’s life, or Ross’s life or whatever his name was, and you or your husband haven’t crossed some line? Assume I’m too far gone. Evan, that goes for you too. You can both tell the others without lying.”
I suppose that the best ending I can hope for now, is that Blake doesn't become the kind of thing that'll try to take back his life, which is heartbreaking
“Okay?” she asked. “Okay,” I said. “Yeah. There’s tonight still to do, and this is contingent on you looking after the others, Evan in particular, and-” “With regular purchases of video games,” Evan cut in, more than a little sullen. “Even if it means regular purchases of-” “Blake,” Rose said, cutting me off. I stopped. “It’s okay,” she said.
Fuuuuuck- if this is a goodbye it reads like such a heartwrenching one
I love the note that the universe is still trying to whisper in blake's ear, try to convince him that this is a fight he needs to win
Rose nodded, then hesitated. “What?” “I have one thing I need to ask for.” I went still. “I know I’m already asking for and taking so much, but… can we please not call him Russel? I really can’t picture us as a Russel.” “Ross?” I asked. “Russ?” “Ugh. Awful,” she said, but she smiled a little. I managed the smallest smile back. “Rusty?” I offered. “Forgive me! I give up!” Rose said. “I yield!”Rose nodded, then hesitated. “What?” “I have one thing I need to ask for.” I went still. “I know I’m already asking for and taking so much, but… can we please not call him Russel? I really can’t picture us as a Russel.” “Ross?” I asked. “Russ?” “Ugh. Awful,” she said, but she smiled a little. I managed the smallest smile back. “Rusty?” I offered. “Forgive me! I give up!” Rose said. “I yield!”
Just to make me feel that much worse about it, we have the first moment in a long while that Rose and Blake seem like siblings to me- or barring that, at least actual friends.
the idea of this happening as the sun rises is so cinematic and beautiful and perfectly targetted to rip out hearstrings
A smirk? I was frozen in place as I watched her continue onward. The tension, anger, and stillness eased out of me as I saw her raise a hand to wipe at one eye, then the other. Not a smirk. Just overwhelmingly relieved.
yeah, I'm my own kind of relieved by this, even as it's awful to go through.
It's a kind of resolution
“Mara,” I said. “Monster,” she replied. “You’re going to break your word,” I told her. “I’m not picky, but I want you to start by telling us what, if any, involvement you have in Jacob’s Bell being swallowed up by the abyss.” “Start?” the young crone asked me. “Start. Because when you’ve told us that, you’re going to swear oaths and you’re going to break them. Over and over, until we have no doubt that you’ve relinquished all relationships with spirits and the practice.”
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahaha
This is wonderful
so much worse than just killing her
“You started the wheel turning, Mara,” I said. “If you refuse to swear, then you’re killing yourself, in a way. You’re stopping the wheel from turning. I don’t think you’re capable. You have no choice but to swear it, because if you swear that oath, you get to live to the end of this lifespan. You have to live, given the choice. You don’t avoid death for as long as you have, if there’s any question.”
I love all of this, in a sadisticly satisfying sort of way- I love that Blake has figured this out about her, and how he intends to use it
“You have little idea what you’re about to walk into. One small piece of knowledge stands between everything here and ruin. If you wish to talk about a lack of choice, then you should know you have little choice but to take my offer. You must spare me.” “Blood Hags survive for as long as they do by taking the lives of others,” Tiff said. “Not to be confused with sanguine hags, like Bathory. From what Mara said, she took an immense number of young lives to live as long as she has. Stepping into their shoes. I don’t know about you guys, um, I’m really not feeling the mercy.”
I'm with Tiff on this one
I didn’t give her an answer to her question. “Take the first step on that path by telling us whether you’re involved.” “I was the architect of it all,” she said. “I’ve been striving to these ends since the township was established.” There was a dull rumble. Cracks sounded elsewhere in the forest. Birds took to the air.
That sounds to me like some bullshit
“Laird Behaim lives with a dark thing, one of the demons your kind deals with, living in his corpse, peering from the wound,” Mara said. More trees fell. More birds took to the air.
My dude, this is not working- clever lie though, I might've believed you if I didn't think you were going to lie at least a few more times
“Yes, I know who is responsible,” Mara said. Not a single tree fell. “Who?” “Rose Thorburn,” Mara said. I could hear something rumble. As if the very earth was cracking.
You know, that almost got me for a second
it would've been the perfect horrible twist to the entire previous conversation
“Straight answers,” Rose said, stern. “Who’s sinking Jacob’s Bell?” “He’s been safe in his demesne all this time,” Mara answered. “Sometimes the most obvious answer is the right one.” “Johannes?” Rose asked. “Yes,” Mara said. “In the time you’ve wasted here with me, he has left his demesne. Until I forswore myself, I was watching. Paying attention to my surroundings. If you leave now, and your path isn’t barred, you should get there in time. But your path will be barred. You’ve lost, for your arrogance.”
What!? But I liked him...dammit, how the fuck did I not see that coming, even though it was glaringly obvious to see coming!?
Alright, I'll likely get to reading a bit more on tuesday, or maybe tomorrow- i'm excited to get back to Johannes, considering all I've said about him
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JayManiac 24-Aug-20 10:43 PM
It was very beautiful- part of me really felt like Evan in that scene- powerless, inarticulate, desperately trying to get Blake to stop saying the things he was saying...yeah, just an excellent chapter. With any luck I'll be able to get right up to the interlude today before stopping, almost wrapping up arc 14!
The hag and the house. Whichever one we left behind, we were screwed.
I don't exactly see why someone needs to stay with mara, except to keep threatening her and getting her to forswear herself- but that doesn't need to be more than one person, probably, and the rest can go confront johannes at probably-hillsglade
“I would like a word with you, monster,” Mara said. “Perhaps-” “Well fuck you,” I said. I turned back to Rose, “I can fly, I can get there faster.”
Yeah, at this point I'm pretty certain that that's the right answer, Blake.
Everything she says at this point is probably specifically meant to fuck with you
They made agonizingly slow progress. I knew I could fly faster, glide faster, especially now that the sun was up. How ironic, to be a bogeyman, a creature of darkness and night, and yet to be limited in this way.
Did I miss the idea that Blake's powers are fueled by the sun? I didn't think they were, though I got the idea that the sun was important to a more human side of blake last chapter
“Look at the pair of you. Rose and Blake Thorburn. Your heart sits at the center of your being, Rose’s head rests at the center of hers. But the darkest places have taken your heart, and a working of the universe has taken your other‘s head.” “Riddles,” I said. “If you pay attention, there’s more to it,” Mara said, “I hope you’ll be desperate enough to offer my release in exchange for a prompt answer. If you wait, I’ll still give you the information and the lies you want, but you may well be late to arrive.”
Okay, so maybe not just to fuck with them, but I'm sure that whatever she says will also be worded to fuck with them
“I have watched the Thorburn family since it set roots in Jacob’s Bell. Since your ancestor first experimented with the darkest practices, and did great wrongs to her enemies, securing a place to live, a husband, wealth, and all things she wanted in life. The cost of these things she bought was passed on to her daughter, who did much the same. You have been bred to clutch, to grasp. For existence, for material gain, for power. It runs through your bloodline as hair or eye color might. From daughter to daughter, the sons tainted by association. Even as a distant bystander, there are only so many times you can watch things play out before you start to see the patterns.”
to me, this solidifies Mara as just another part of the wheel, imposing and reinforcing its patterns upon the world- she has a philosophy that pretends to be contrary to it, but ends up feeding it all the same
“Cost?” the young crone asked. “By seeking to end my existence, you have deprived this world of more than you have given it. What cost, for all the knowledge I harbor? For the stability I bring? If all lived as I did, the world would never stop turning.” I almost laughed. “What cost? Everything,” I said. “You want to talk about the practice as currency? What value is it, if it’s never spent? You lock it away here, when a child brings possibility. Potential.”
Exactly! She's imposing the mindset of tradition upon the world when it could be subject to a new mind, new change, however small
She spoke, “But I’ll answer the question, all the same. Everyone I mentioned gets their wish, except you. Everyone, I believe, will come to quickly regret it. Even the Sorcerer. They’ll only get a mockery of what they sought.”
yeah, that sounds about right for how things seem to work around here
Mara could technically lie, she could work around the practice. There would be bad karma involved, but she had the ability to spout lies. But as a liar, well, it wasn’t one of her strengths. “Shit,” I said. “Scratch that statement.”
Yeah, I'm going to err on the side of believing mara here too, if only because the idea that Johannes could talk this town into disaster without even realizing it is way too in-line with everything we currently know about him.
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JayManiac 25-Aug-20 12:46 AM
Sorry about that, got spontaneously dragged into a call with a few friends who are actually going back to college- I'm back and ready to keep going!
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A bird 🐦 25-Aug-20 12:47 AM
CharmanderHi
👋 1
same 1
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JayManiac 25-Aug-20 12:48 AM
“Satyr, maenad, watch the crone,” I said, raising my voice. I was already turning to run. “Peter, Roxanne, Sarah, Ainsley, Green Eyes, move!”
So he's still trusting Mara's judgement that all of this will happen, which is...probably sound. I'm still struggling with the idea that Johannes' solution is to sink the town into the abyss and leave him as the ruler of basically-nothing
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Wildbow 25-Aug-20 12:55 AM
Part of the southern half of the town, to be fair. The upper half is business and stuff, and the lower half has room to expand east once Hillsglade House is gone.
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A bird 🐦 25-Aug-20 12:55 AM
He'd still have his demesne, which is half of town
Imp'd
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JayManiac 25-Aug-20 12:56 AM
Ah, I thought he was sinking everything except his demesne
if he only planned on sinking the area around the house, it'd make more sense- Alister seems to think that it'd have consequences beyond that, though
I also suppose he has faysal, whose power revolves around the idea of opening pathways- if he just opened or widened every pathway from here to the drains then the two of them could theoretically plunge anywhere they wanted into the abyss
Especially if the pathway that the cabal opened is still 'primed' or somehow open
Johannes wasn’t going to Hillsglade House to fight. He was going to offer a deal. Logically, rationally, everyone present could well find it an enticing deal. Everyone gained something. Those that didn’t stand to gain anything had been dealt with in various ways during the day.
That sounds like Johannes all right- we don't know exactly how it'll go wrong, but there's a 'nuke' in the attic that might not go quietly into the abyss...or might be able to straddle it like Ur did
“Yeah,” I agreed. “But-” “Go,” Peter said. “You told me to ditch you before, you were dead weight. Now we’re the dead weight. Fly.”
Peter's ruthless pragmatism is way more endearing than I'd like it to be
same 2
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Megafire 25-Aug-20 01:01 AM
Peter is the best.
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JayManiac 25-Aug-20 01:01 AM
Okay so I just searched the channel
and nowhere have I actually said Peter is the worst
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Elliot (Boy) 25-Aug-20 01:02 AM
Peter is an “I hate to love him” villain
agree 1
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JayManiac 25-Aug-20 01:02 AM
but I'm sure I've conveyed the sentiment
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Wildbow 25-Aug-20 01:02 AM
Searching the channel: Megafire saying "Peter is the best" 39 times.
lol 3
(Not the actual number, am just joking)
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JayManiac 25-Aug-20 01:03 AM
I see this is a trend, megafire
I respect it, even as I try my damndnest not to agree with it
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Megafire 25-Aug-20 01:06 AM
I would not be surprised!
Peter Thorburn is probably one of my favourite characters in Pact, if not the favourite.
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A bird 🐦 25-Aug-20 01:07 AM
angery
🐦
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Megafire 25-Aug-20 01:08 AM
Oh, yeah, Evan is some stiff competition.
But I love my sarcastic bastard boy, okay?
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A bird 🐦 25-Aug-20 01:08 AM
I'll accept it
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JayManiac 25-Aug-20 01:08 AM
and what's fun about it is that I'm sure I've said similar things, because he's so fun and so interesting that you forget that a little context nudge would make you fucking despise him and curse his name every time he opens his mouth
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Megafire 25-Aug-20 01:09 AM
Oh, he's an absolute shitheel.
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A bird 🐦 25-Aug-20 01:09 AM
He could, if he wanted, destroy this whole group
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Megafire 25-Aug-20 01:09 AM
And the main reason he's actually entertaining at this point is that the situation around our main characters has gone to shit enough.
Because man, I certainly hated the guy after the first chapter.
But now that we're here, well...
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JayManiac 25-Aug-20 01:12 AM
what's fascinating to me is that he simultaneously thinks (or perhaps knows) that he's smarter than most people, and acts like he's on a higher plane of awareness that he has to catch you up to- but also he's kind of actually that smart, seems to have zero self-worth, and thinks nobody should care about him. (edited)
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Wildbow 25-Aug-20 01:13 AM
Fair assertions. I think there's a way to connect it, but I don't want to be like, the author just giving away the intent/idea behind it all.
(unless I get the thumbs up)
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JayManiac 25-Aug-20 01:15 AM
To me the ideas seem more related than contradictory- the thought that he has a lot of self-righteousness (in a sense, applied more to logic than to what's actually morally good) but very little self importance. I'd love to hear your thoughts, I've taken my swing at it
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Wildbow 25-Aug-20 01:16 AM
If you're incredibly smart but you still end up on the ass end of society, shabbily dressed, no prospects beyond what the next scam brings you, you sorta come to realize that being smart isn't the be-all and end-all of it all. And you can then be brilliant while still thinking you don't have what it takes to ~really~ succeed.
Re: self-righteousness, I think there's people who put a lot of emphasis on justice, and there's people who put a lot of emphasis on injustice. And he's more the latter. He sees everything he didn't get and how that placed him where it did. People, like Roxanne, are admirable and valuable primarily when/where they can contribute to that next scam, or demonstrate quality that wasn't handed to them.
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JayManiac 25-Aug-20 01:23 AM
That's a very good addendum to the self-righteousness- we don't really have a word for 'self-righteousness, but through a lens of injustice' (personally I'd propose everyone-else-wrongedness, but that might get some pushback). The idea that he can be so sure he knows how the system works and put so much weight on how it judges him really serves to clarify the viewpoint. I'm feeling like I can piece together how he got that way, and I'm not sure if there's a readily-available way to work on that.
Fell, the Hyena, June, the Duchamps, the Behaims, the High Drunk, they’d all had their tries at killing or maiming me. The line between enemy and ally grew so blurred.
Speaking of 'hate to love them' villains, or that sort...Pact really is one of those stories where the characters can be aligned or against each other for any number of reasons, due to the nature of connections, obligations, goals, and alliance being played with throughout the story. You could also add The Astrologer and Isadora to that list- heck, Evan might be the only character in the story who's a perfectly consistent ally. Even Blake once maimed Blake and left him to bleed out on the floor. Not cool, Blake.
Rose had been too late. Not in terms of a great fight, some trap, or other issue. Johannes had talked to the Drunk. Won the man over to his side, or at least set the tone. Dictated all that came after. Rose could hardly arrive and attack when the High Drunk was standing by, having a civilized discussion.
Aahhhh...shit. Just when Jeremy's desire to do good was putting him on the side of things-being-better, here comes the well-dressed devil to exploit it. I'm not even sure Johannes knows that what he's pulling is one big con; he certainly doesn't know it'll take him with it. I'm wondering if that might be a theme of his story- I hope we'll get to see soon.
“Johannes explained what he’s doing,” Rose said. “Mara kind of told me,” I said. “She thinks this is a mistake. I don’t even know what it is, but she thinks this is a monkey’s paw”
Okay, step one to actually convincing people: maybe don't cite your source as the batshit crazy old lady who wants nothing more than to condemn the town, and recently acquired the ability to lie. Like, I get it, and it makes sense, but also...you're in an argument, not a race.
“A controlled sink. We transplant a portion of the town to the Abyss. We send the demon upstairs with that section of the town.”
Okay, that seems like it has a potential to go wrong...I understand the theory behind their plan, though.
I'm still trying to figure out what exactly will be the disaster here
“If banished, it can be summoned by another diabolist,” Alister said. “If we send it elsewhere,” Johannes spoke, “My familiar can strike at the demon. There are old, forgotten gods in the Abyss. He can put this demon right in front of those gods, and they can kill it.”
See, again, I understand the theory, but I don't think the abyss is this untapped well of power these guys seem to think it is
the Light God was awesome, but honestly, he couldn't even kill Ur: a so called 'minor' demon, in comparison to something like Babs
Expectations were the enemy. My instincts were the problem. Assumptions and simple labels were ruinous here. I spoke the words, knowing that being wrong could ruin me, at this most critical point in time, but I had to show confidence and state it clearly, or it just wouldn’t do. “Faysal the angel and the Barber aren’t adversaries in this,” I said. “We’re playing right into Faysal’s hands. He’s the threat.”
Oh Fuck
Wherever I thought it was going, it wasn't there
same 3
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Elliot (Boy) 25-Aug-20 01:37 AM
Yeah I remember going to have a long sit after reading that
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JayManiac 25-Aug-20 01:39 AM
I've been looking at Faysal as the foolish angle who fell into Johannes' hands for...for so long now. I've been trying to reconcile the idea that Johannes is bad news and his methods are gonna lead to some terrible outcome, with his appearances so far in the story, most of which have been of a kind, helpful, powerful practitioner who doesn't even seem interested in taking underhanded measures or being disingenuous
I knew the answer was probably along the lines, of 'he doesn't know what he's playing into'
but somehow- even though I say this kinda shit about angels and warn people of them all the time I didn't suspect Faysal
Fuck, I don't even like dogs- how did this get me!?
(clarification: dogs are fine, I've just spent most of my life being terrified of them)
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Wildbow 25-Aug-20 01:41 AM
Heh
(At the moment, not the dog fear thing - I had a fear of big dogs as a kid)
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JayManiac 25-Aug-20 01:46 AM
(I assumed- you seem delight in pain, but typically it's just the pain that you cause to your readers 🙂) (also yeah, all it takes is one guard dog without a fence, another one who probably meant no harm but didn't know how fragile 5yo humans are, another one whose owner had an inaccurate estimate of biting tendencies, one who acts all nice and friendly before conspiring with horrific monstrosities)
Now I wonder if every time someone like The Girl With The Checkered Scarf got a bad feeling about Johannes was a time where Faysal was there, but they just attributed it to Johannes because they don't typically suspect angels either
I met everyone’s eyes in turn. Rose, the High Priest, Alister, my friends. Then Johannes’. I wasn’t getting resounding support. No voices echoing my suspicions.
You don't say!?
lol 2
I mean, all of these people know somewhere within them that expectations are traps that you should avoid falling into. But also: who are they going to listen to? Something that pulled itself off the universe's shoe, or a literal manifestation of karma and Right-ness? They don't even have an abundance of choice in the matter, since I'm guessing that Faysal is even more loaded with good karma than the likes of Mason The Benevolent.
Not to mention that the monstrous one is saying something that amounts to 'these two universal opposites are working together'
Again, expectations, but again, it's gotta be pretty uncommon
Man, it really fits that the Final Boss of Pact would be an angel
teaming up with a demon, that is
the threat that we knew was there all along, and the threat that didn't look like a threat at all
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Elliot (Boy) 25-Aug-20 01:55 AM
“Rookie diabolist fights angel” is frustratingly obvious in retrospect (edited)
agree 5
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Project Waffler 25-Aug-20 01:57 AM
Haha, that is pretty cheeky
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JayManiac 25-Aug-20 02:00 AM
“I’ve been through the metaphorical grinder since this all began,” I said, my voice low. “Virtually everyone here has been my enemy at one time or another. I’ve seen alliances form and be broken, marriages and families shattered and united. It keeps hitting the same notes. The line between enemy and ally is never as clearly defined as we think it is. I’m a pretty good example of how labels don’t always apply in nice, clean-cut ways. I can’t believe that, given all the time they’ve been around, that angels and demons haven’t found a way to cross wires or cross paths at some points.”
And it carries a surprisingly resonant theme through the book: that good and evil are tricky, and lines between adversaries are more frequently drawn via individual interests and circumstance. Just like Blake was willing to work with Pauz to subvert Conquest, Faysal is willing to let loose Barbatorem to deal with some unimaginable thing that we can't be sure of. I do hope we realize Faysal's motivations by the end of it, and why he thinks that working with Babs is a good idea- I have no doubt that it'll be within his nature somehow- he couldn't be this powerful of an Other if he denied his nature as an Angel. Man, I want to go back and reread his whole spiel to Blake about Angels and Demons now.
I’ve had my life taken from me by the fallout of two different demons doing their work. Angels are apparently, according to an angel, only a step down from that. I don’t know how much involvement your pet had in your decision to do this, but I do know that, according to the book that serves as Familiars 101, powerful familiars can eclipse the practitioner.” “You may be underestimating how strong I am,” Johannes said. “You don’t even factor in, Johannes,” I said, my voice hard. “They operate beyond the bounds we do. They destroy, and they create. Those of us here, the humans, the faerie, the goblins, and whatever else, we’re only changing what they’ve left us to work with. There’s very little we can do to even compete on their level. A major, if forgotten god was only just keeping an even ground with what I was told was a moderate demon. You want to tamper with the Barber, and you think anything is going to stop it?”
What a fascinating take on Angels and Demons- the idea that they might be so divorced in power level from the humans. I'm not sure how I feel about how it fits in- at the same time, we've seen the impact that someone's individual beliefs can have on the world. When it comes to a collective belief like that of demon and angel, it's possible that they really are this unstoppable.
That said, Blake is going about this the wrong way
Johannes is already going to be extremely hard-pressed to accept this line of thinking, considering what it means for everything he's done. And if I know Johannes- and I think I just might -he's an egotistical bastard who won't take too kindly to being told he's a non-factor in terms of power. You don't get to build that kind of power in this world without being a little self-important, either as a result or as a driving force. Blake is more likely to make him even more defensive than put him in an arguable position.
Rose and I were at odds with one another. Not enemies, but still at odds. If we could cooperate, so could the angel and demon.
Hey, that's a real good point
I love that dynamic of angel and demon reflected onto Blake and Rose- possibly even as the key to Blake figuring this all out.
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Elliot (Boy) 25-Aug-20 02:09 AM
so which is which?
lol 4
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JayManiac 25-Aug-20 02:10 AM
In all seriousness, that's like asking whether faeries or goblins are closer to angels
to which the answer is: doesn't fuckin matter, angels are dickheads too!
Ilovethis 1
I suppose it'd be the fae then, seeing as they both at least look good while doing it
“Victory is in my grasp,” Johannes told me. “The Behaims are strong, but not unbreakable. The Duchamps have fallen. I’ve shown you all my strength. If this were a court case, you could consider this my offer of a plea bargain. If it were war, which it is, I’m offering peace. There is no longer anyone in play that cares to have Jacob’s Bell. Let me have it, let the others be, free to relocate if they see fit, and even if we are not creating or destroying as angels or demons might, we’re still creating a great work of change. That has to count for something.”
Dammit, he actually believes this- it makes so much sense that he'd be the one led astray, with his perfect solutions to everything.
The lawyers were keeping us in this position. Just desperate enough that we might take their deal, take an out, join their firm. Putting ourselves in a position where we were contributing to a greater cosmic decline. Was Grandmother working against that? Was Rose? How?
👀
Not bankruptcy, but something simpler. Something older. Controlled failure? “What gender is Kathryn’s child?” I asked. “Male,” Rose said, without a moment’s hesitation.
Well, shit. If Rose's intention was to squash the Thorburn line, setting her heirs up for total failure...that would make a depressing amount of sense
in that case, she's probably the one who made certain Laird taught all his kids that diabolism was a plague- that part never seemed to fit until now
Grandmother wasn’t a hero. She wasn’t a good person. She had sacrificed us, she’d set us up for failure. But she’d done it with purpose. A game of something like chess, giving up set pieces in a set order, to play a long game and hide the fact that she was intentionally losing.
This was her Black Lamb's Blood, in a sense: the only way she could think of to do right by diabolism, was to use it to destroy itself?
Weighing the odds, she might well have thought that clearing the slate, in whole or in large part, even committing those wrongs to do it, was worth the many, many Thorburns who might die further down the road, or deal with demons as many of her predecessors had. Damning herself in the process.
I still don't get exactly how this relates to the problem at hand. Why do grandma's goals matter, and what's the way to work towards or against them if that's what they decide to do/
?
Evan flew to me. “Some might say that calling your familiar in the middle of a meeting is like drawing your sword,” Johannes commented. “I’m pretty harmless,” Evan said. “Look at me. I’m a bird, I’m a kid. I’m dead.”
I love the callback
headcanon: this is a catchphrase for him.
I hope we hear it a third time
“Blake?” Rose asked. “We’re on the same page?” “No,” I said. “That may never happen. But I think we’re thinking along the same lines.” “Convince me,” she said, her voice quiet.
Ilovethis
“Nothing to hold me up,” I said. “Jacob’s Bell is the same. This house is the same. Connections matter. Everything we’ve dealt with to this point, they’ve proven how much those connections matter.”
I'm reminded of Isadora's metaphor: the stones tied to each other, falling into the lake, getting washed into the drains. There's no way to safely sink the house without erasing things you don't want erased.
“The whole reason the house was worth money, is it’s connected to other things. Briar Girl’s forest, the marsh, the town. It’s tied to our family. You want to sink it? I’m thinking it’s going to get pulled into the Abyss, and as if it’s tied to everything around it, it’s going to drag other things with it. One of those things might well be me. If I took the deal, it would be me, minus the Otherness. Just a human in the Abyss.” “Me too?” Rose asked. I spread my arm and my partially-folded wing. “And Alister, because he’s tied to you? Drawn into a dark place, where there is only unrest, never a moment’s peace? It could pull in every prominent figure that’s tied to this city. That’s why Mara was so terrified that her house was gone.”
Maybe y'all should take one of Isadora's classes, I think she's probably got some interesting points. Do i hate that we're now proving her right, when she'd be one of the professors I'd argue incessantly with? Yes. But I admit that her theory behind this seems to be sound.
Johannes shook his head slowly. “All I’ve ever wanted was to better the relationship between man and Other, as Solomon did. Even with all the ugliness, I believe this world is better with magic in it. I swear to you, none of what he says was ever my intent, or more than an inkling in my mind.” “But,” a voice spoke from the hallway, “It was mine.” The dog strode into the room.
I don't know if words can properly describe to you just how flooring this sequence was
it's so cinematic, and there's stuff to pick apart right up to Johannes' final statement here. He really shows what he thinks of himself right here, and why it'd be a problem even if he wasn't angel-kibble
“The demon would have had its way with all of you, freed of its confines, able to prey on you, until the Abyss caught it once more. A firmer, longer-lasting binding than any that man could achieve,” Faysal said. “The Seventh Choir of angels exists in abstract. We cannot and do not typically win direct confrontations. The demon gets what it desires, to undo the working that binds it to man’s word by taking the Thorburn family and associated individuals to pieces, and I achieve what I desire, stopping it in the longer term. Worth cooperation in the short term.” The room was still. “Well,” Faysal said, “That plan is spoiled. How unfortunate. It would be much tidier than this. Still, with most relevant parties here, we can get started.”
Ozymandias!!!
This is such a good Villain Moment- I suppose angels pull those off fairly well.
“Faysal,” Johannes said. “By these pipes-” There was a distortion. A folding of space, complete with brilliant light. Faysal disappeared. “Damn,” Johannes said.
Right, the pipes- just to reassure Johannes that he always had the upper hand that he'd never use- useless in the critical moment
The entire structure distorted, the walls sucking in, as if by an immense pressure, then ballooning outward. Glass and wood cracked. As floorboards and sections of ceiling twisted, light shone through. The light was soon marred and masked by the smell of putrid meat. I could smell burning hair.
Fucking shit
What the hell is the plan now!? Let it out so it can chow down on all of Jacob's Bell!?
The noise was akin to an entire city folding in on itself. There wasn’t a sensation that wasn’t amplified a million times over, every inch of me that vibrated was shaking like it would simply tear into splinters and sawdust. Bone threatened to crack. All light went out. When everything stopped moving, we were in a heap. The stairs that had led up now led down, haphazard, some only attached on the one side, others broken, some three feet below the stair that had sat next to it.
Ilovethis
The imagery as the house's contents are turned into the Drains, a demesne consumed by the Abyss- is absolutely fantastic
just the little note of the stairs leading down now, tells you everything you need to know
But also where the fuck is Barbatorem? is he down here too!?
The house had distorted, and now sat warped. Bookshelves lay along every wall, largely empty, and even as I watched, script appeared on the spines, as the words were being penned in on the blank spines of books. Water and dirt flowed in along the sides, streaming along the surfaces, turning what had been conventional novels into sodden messes. A library? I thought.
I guess we know how Abyss' form now...I can't wait to see everything this house symbolizes turned into the direction of the abyss, used to grind up ideas and warp them into bogeyversions of themselves
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Elliot (Boy) 25-Aug-20 02:39 AM
(Reminder that Barby smells like burning hair)
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JayManiac 25-Aug-20 02:39 AM
I know he was there, and I know this is the abyss now
but I'm not sure if he's still up there and just sent them down, or if he's down here too
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Elliot (Boy) 25-Aug-20 02:40 AM
Ah right
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JayManiac 25-Aug-20 02:41 AM
One snowflake, however, didn’t move. Distant, at the edge of the Abyss, I could see it. But it was humanoid. Impossible to look straight at, as space distorted around it. The dog. The angel.
I'd guess it meant he was down here, though, and that the collapse itself was Faysal's fault
“Faysal,” Johannes said. He’d collapsed onto his back, and he looked hurt. Between a rock and a hard place, I thought. With monsters all between. “He says ‘stay’,” Johannes said.
Ooof
what a way to be absolutely betrayed
I feel so bad for him
I really did like Johannes, and sort of always have
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Elliot (Boy) 25-Aug-20 02:43 AM
But, 10/10 dog joke
agree 3
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JayManiac 25-Aug-20 02:43 AM
I don't know if that was Faysal being so cleverly cruel, or a bit of gallows humor from johannes
if it's johannes, i feel even worse
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Qaysed 25-Aug-20 02:43 AM
best joke any dog has ever made
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JayManiac 25-Aug-20 02:44 AM
nothing to elicit sympathy like being reminded that we're both the type to think we're super clever for coming up with that in a really shitty moment
Anyways, that there's the chapters- we're coming up on the final stretch here and I'm wondering just what the fuck the book could have in store for us next. We seem to know who the final antagonists are, and what their capabilities will be
I don't quite know when I'll be back to read, but I'm looking forwards to what I assume is Johannes' interlude
sharkhi 5
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JayManiac 27-Aug-20 01:33 AM
Well the point of the Otherverse- in my humble opinion -is to show us our world, its concepts, and the ways we understand it, through a lens that personifies those ideas, explores their intent, and shows us our place among them. Currently, our place among them would seem to be something between "the pawns they maneuver around to suit their needs" and "the dirt they scrape off of their shoes when they come into the house". Again and again we're shown the ways tradition and the use/abuse of systems builds up an idea and gives it more power than a single person can really ever stand up against. What is each individual when compared to the loftiest ideals of angel and demon, of Right and Wrong? But there's an aspect of Pact that I find...hopeful? I mean, Blake seems to be banging his head against the system, never making progress, but from a certain perspective it seems like he's at least done something by unseating Conquest, killing Mara, potentially ruining the duchamps and their line, etc. It seems simultaneously that this is a time of great change and reform, and that things will merely continue as they have been despite it. Here, in this part of the book, we're shown the things that could be beyond the scale of our protagonists to influence. Again and again we've been shown how our ideas of good can be warped and corrupted and tear us apart.
I don't quite know where this is going- hell, I have no idea where I'm going with all of these ideas -but they're all kicking around and tussling in my head as I jump into this interlude.
Also: my partner pointed out in their liveread yesterday that 'Faysal' means 'Judge' and I can see that the last arc is called 'Judgement' so maybe I should've seen this coming even more than I already should've seen this coming
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A bird 🐦 27-Aug-20 01:38 AM
If it helps, I don't think I've seen anyone pick that
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JayManiac 27-Aug-20 01:39 AM
I was wondering if I'd heard it before- perhaps not
Maybe, to give your question one more answer before I dive in: Pact isn't a book about humans facing demons. Pact is more about humans facing the immense scale and power of the concepts they've created and reinforced, and what power we have to change or escape them.
As for what it'll say...I suppose we'll have to wait until the end to find out
and by that I mean probably the end of Pale
though I'll have a more complete answer after arc 16 I hope
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A bird 🐦 27-Aug-20 01:44 AM
Thanks Jay! Just wanted to get a before shot in anticipation of the Pact video where you try and synthesise all this
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JayManiac 27-Aug-20 01:45 AM
And it's much appreciated, Bird!!
The wind blew, pulling dry bits of vegetation from the low, rust-colored shrubs and sending them dancing over the rocky floor of the tundra. Snowless, but frozen. When the wind didn’t blow, it was nearly silent. The only noise would be the shifting of the earth, reacting to the pull of gravity, the noise of dirt stirring beneath nearly still water. The vantage point the angel had chosen wasn’t a high one, but there weren’t many options for high vantage points.
Ah, so perhaps not a Johannes Interlude, but a Faysal one- I forgot these could be about Others too, for a second there. How does an angel view creation? And what drives him to the decision he's made by the end of last chapter? Was it premeditated, always? Or merely an opportunity he couldn't afford not to take, even at the expense of all he and Johannes had built? Did he believe in Johannes' plan at all? Or was it always a fragile step along the path to Barbatorem's defeat?
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A bird 🐦 27-Aug-20 01:50 AM
CharmanderHi
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JayManiac 27-Aug-20 01:50 AM
I also did go back and read Blake's converstaion with Faysal, just to prepare
he makes a big show of wondering whether- with Man's backing, angels can beat demons
I almost wonder if he's not a bit responsible for Rosalyn's ability to bind Barbatorem in the first place, in order to prepare it for this kind of move
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A bird 🐦 27-Aug-20 01:56 AM
It's a very interesting little interaction, isn't it?
I often get distracted by the fact that he gets the Pipe of Summoning Green Eyed Friendo +1 at the same time, though
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JayManiac 27-Aug-20 01:58 AM
it's something that I did take note of, but I was also distracted at the time
that...might've also been the week I decided to read all of the chapters and then got through like an arc of them before collapsing at the steps of All Pact Up
Sorry 1
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A bird 🐦 27-Aug-20 02:03 AM
Interesting that that exchange happened in the arc called Mala Fide, too
"in bad faith"
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JayManiac 27-Aug-20 02:03 AM
That's a really good point
man, screw this dog
Once, he had built. He had been a theme, spelling out a thousand narratives simply by being, like so many pens touched to an endless scroll of paper. He inked out paths and behaviors on the broadest scale. When man had come about, he had been reflected in man’s thoughts and behavior. As man became intelligent, so had the angel. He had guided man and been guided in turn, a symbiotic relationship.
People who've been following my liveread will know that I take the perspective that Others are human-derivative. Which is why it's so fascinating that we get a being who seems to remember things prior to humanity- it challenges that notion, although I would pose the answer as roughly "angels were created believing that they predated their own creation". Faysal even admits here that as a concept he was not given sentience until humanity gave it to him, so maybe this is 'truth' in a way- that prior to humanity there were these incomprehensible concepts which underlayed the foundation of reality, and then through humanity's eyes they were given a kind of reality through being comprehensible, and that's what it means to be one of these first "Others". However, I doubt that the first humans envisioned angels in the way that Faysal approximates, so I'd posit instead that Faysal remembers incorrectly the origins of his power, and has been essentially 'retconed' into his eternal existence.
Man, however, created its own demons. Some were obvious, while others stirred in the midst of the noise and chaos and took form. Sentiments became figures, fears took form, and in some cases, man abandoned his kind to join the storm of thoughts and ideas. To become the monster.
Faysal's viewpoint here reminds me of Rosalyn's- the idea that every Other is a demon or derived from a demon. You don't see him mention faeries or goblins anywhere, and this description of demons could describe a lot of Others we don't necessarily call that
Also: I want interludes from like 5 different Others who were there for various creation myths- I think it'd be fun
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A bird 🐦 27-Aug-20 02:06 AM
Note Mara's take on the Others that sprung up in humanity's wake
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JayManiac 27-Aug-20 02:07 AM
she, too, had this idea of more primal Others that were here before humanity, that I'm still not exactly buying
The creating ended, and man took the center stage, bringing change to that steady, stable creation. Born from chaos and noise like anything else, a chance configuration of molecules, man carried that change and chance with him. Each movement brought change, like a stirring of dust swelling and spreading out from underfoot. As man’s power waxed, the creators’ power waned. Soon, man’s power would wane, and it seemed ruin would follow.
I love the great swell and fall of creation that Faysal seems to imply here- one viewpoint we'll seemingly always reinforce through our idea of entropy, moving forwards. It's also such a contrast to johannes' argument that we're "winning" against the Others.
Once the angel had created. Now, he only maintained. He mended that which had been destroyed, and he watched as the world spiraled to an end. A distant end, yes, but an inevitable one. A great distance away, glaciers cracked and erupted, and they fell into the oceans. Here, in a small inlet, the local fauna was suffering, as the salinity of the water rose.
I love how the writing shifts scales here to show the universality of what he's talking about here. This whole thing reminds me of (Cosmere) Preservation and Ruin from Mistborn- I'd actually love to do a comparison of Pact and the Cosmere, as they're two of my favorite magic systems
His day had passed. Things would change, they would find ruin, and the ruins would settle. There was no emotion at this, no concern, no anxiety. It simply was.
This 👆 strikes me as no small bit of Bullshit. I don't know that even the most powerful, most removed of Others can escape the semblance of emotion, when it comes to orienting their nature
I think I'll probably have to cut it here- I don't think at this rate that I'll be able to finish tonight, so I'll pick it back up at some point. I'm not sure when I'll have the opportunity to do so, but I'm having a blast with picking things out and I know I won't be able to give the rest of the chapter its due at the moment.
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JayManiac 01-Sep-20 01:16 AM
Sorry for the prolonged absence; a weekend excursion and various other time commitments have been keeping me busy but I'm ready to start getting back into this chapter. I think I will have to end up taking this Histories in sections, and I'll tell you that I probably won't finish it today, but I'll tackle the next little Faysal section this afternoon and hopefully get to the rest tomorrow.
People milled through the streets. Every one different, every one a harbinger of change, given the opportunity. Collectively, more powerful than he was.
What's really interesting about Faysal's perspective- okay, there are a lot of really interesting things but one of them is absolutely the contrast between how Blake (and co.) see Faysal, especially in that last argument. Where Blake sees the scale of Angels and Demons as far beyond what they can affect, this literal Angel over here can see that- in the bigger picture -people are in charge of what the world becomes. His estimation of his own power is paltry when faced with that of demons, or many of the other things he deals with. Surprisingly humanist perspective, for an Angel. And yet he's said nothing to the tune of trusting their judgement, or that their change is a good thing. I read a kind of hopeless fear in this description of people; one that might just explain why he did what he did.
Here, amid so many footsteps, a storm of being, he wondered if mankind could take him to pieces simply by going about their day.
He seems to understand the creative potential of humanity, and I'd hazard to say that he even agrees with me about the origin of most Others...though he might see them all as demons. This chapter's writing is just brilliant, by the way: this line I just pulled is a beautiful one.
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spinagon 01-Sep-20 01:19 AM
Well, he says all of people collectively are stronger than he is. But he's not the only angel.
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JayManiac 01-Sep-20 01:20 AM
I was under the impression that he was saying these four-hundred people were stronger collectively than he was
the one's he's observing after he says that
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Elliot (Boy) 01-Sep-20 01:20 AM
Idk if it’s a hierarchy/power level thing
I’d say it’s more about roles
thistbh 2
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JayManiac 01-Sep-20 01:24 AM
I think faysal absolutely has an idea about his power to affect change versus the humans' power to do so. I'd agree that it's more about roles, and that the kinds of power in play are so different in limitation and structure so as to be nigh-incomparable, but I think Faysal is a little obsessed with the comparison
as angels are, perhaps, wont to be
There was an ecosystem here that needed balancing, too. The monsters would run aground with the local goblin population. Both would be weak when the practitioners at the nearby church stepped in, they would be ruined, but not entirely destroyed. In a year, the angel could return. If the practitioners were too strong, their direction dangerous, the angel could tease them into action by stirring the pot. Distract and weaken.
I love the idea of this angel making the small adjustments of the universe- and how depressing the idea of entropy is in his context. a lot of this section seemes to be Faysal just kind of tuning and retuning the universe, using what power he has to its fullest extent. With a mindset like that, I can see why it's so appealing to slow the universe's slow descent with a blow like killing Barbatorem. But I think, for many of the reasons that Blake lists about the porousness of the Abyss, and for his ironic underestimation of the vestiges of humanity he sent down, it won't turn out in his favor. I wonder how far his sight extends, how aware he is of how things will play out?
The angel atop the balcony hopped down, just as the old woman beside him awoke. She startled, trying to follow him despite the disorientation of recent sleep, but he was already gone. Already at the side of the man at the mouth of the alley. His brother’s side.
Ooo, I hope we get to see more of this guy's domain as opposed to Faysal's; I love when Wb can riff on a concept like that and build it out more, and I'm super curious about the other kinds of angels
It was heady, distracting, to be in the midst of this. Harith was a source of calm in the midst of a storm.
We see faysal's foresight, and we see that which confuses or distracts him- and which might lead to his failure
Maybe I shouldn't be so confident that Faysal won't get what he wants, but also...I don't think the universe makes it that easy for you; he's definitely miscalculated somewhere, and I think this interlude could hint at what form that miscalculation takes
“Humanity surges in strength,” Harith observed. “It surprises me at times.” “Me as well. I’ve wondered for some time if I should encourage it or discourage it.” “Makes little difference.” “It makes all the difference in the world,” Faysal said. “Assuming we want to stave off the end of things, supporting humanity could make all the difference.”
I genuinely don't know the right answer here- but it also seems like Faysal has drifted from the argument he once made. I wonder why? Did he see something in Johannes which confirmed this for him, perhaps? I still wonder how premeditated this betrayal was, and whether he ever believed in Johannes' plan?
“It makes little difference, because we can’t and don’t know. We must ignore humans and look to balance. Stability. If the demon’s destruction is analogue to our creation, then stability is the balm to mankind’s change. The humans are strong, and have seized the reins, taken to taming wild things. Including us. With a little help, they’ve willingly taken to engineering their own balance. They are best left to their own devices.”
Ahahahahahahahaahahahahahaha- I mean most of this is fine, but 'stability is the balm to mankind's change' is the funniest thing in this chapter so far. If stability were the balm to change, then wildbow books would not grow increasingly unstable until their protagonists were forced to change. This sounds...like some bullshit. I think there's a misalignment of concepts here, probably because demons and angels are not, in fact, innately foundational beings any more than humans envision them to be. There's more to the equation, so their worldview will always be a bit off.
Fae, for example, are just as Other as demons, and quite powerful- but when faced with this Faysal's worldview would probably classify them as...like, mini-demons of no consequence, or almost-man, or something equally wrong (edited)
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Elliot (Boy) 01-Sep-20 01:39 AM
It’s hard to know how much my opinion of Faysal comes from after this point so I’m going to actively not engage on this even though I really want to.
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JayManiac 01-Sep-20 01:40 AM
That's quite valid- I had the audacity to ask a friend who'd finished pact their opinion on Johannes before arc 14 and they said something similar
I'm just gonna trust that
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Elliot (Boy) 01-Sep-20 01:41 AM
Haha yeah basically
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JayManiac 01-Sep-20 01:43 AM
“Two problems have arisen in one place. I’m otherwise occupied, and you’re not. I thought to ask your help.” “What problems?” “One is a demon. It is freshly bound and may not be bound forever, as the bloodline that did the binding may now be disintegrating. It has been called a few times, and in answering the call, it is traveling a path. Wearing down the road, if you will. I know paths are your specialty, gatekeeper.” “The other problem?” “A man. A practitioner. He is building something.”
Harith: no no no, you can't deal with people, just focus on demons and get your head out of your ass. We're not community service, we got other shit to do. Also Harith: I got an appointment at 2 I need you to go fuck w/ this human he's up to some shady shit and we can't let that slide.
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Elliot (Boy) 01-Sep-20 01:44 AM
“How dare he build something! That’s our job to neglect!”
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JayManiac 01-Sep-20 01:44 AM
XD
Pretty much- I still don't agree with Johannes' scheme, but the Angels' plan is...maybe worse
“Building? Buildings are your specialty, Harith. The third choir’s.” “But the building is a subtle one, and subtlety is your specialty. He is laying the groundwork for something big, that much is clear, but here we stand, off to one side, watching and wondering how he can build so very quietly. Or why.”
I'd forgotten that there was absolutely some sort of secret we're supposed to be on the lookout for- an answer as to how exactly he was able to claim his demesne. I kind of overlooked that on the list of reasons that I'm excited to read this chapter, but I'm absolutely excited about it. I think I'm fairly clear on the why- from what we've heard Johannes say to the likes of Mags and Blake -but the how remains mysterious
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Elliot (Boy) 01-Sep-20 01:53 AM
Theories?
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JayManiac 01-Sep-20 01:59 AM
So there are two main things that he has going for him that stick out when it comes to getting his demesne: his familiar, and his implement, both of which are confirmed not to have been used in the ritual and subsequent defense of his property. I suspect, in fact, that his pipes are the result of whatever force let him conquer the North End, as opposed to the other way around, but I can't really figure out what it is
He's hyperintelligent, versatile, and charismatic to no end, but those qualities in and of themselves don't make a practitioner, and certainly don't lead to acquiring the kind of power for this ritual.
I'm almost tempted to suspect diabolic intervention, possibly on the part of rosalyn, but I'm not sure
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JayManiac 01-Sep-20 02:10 AM
Johannes glanced over his shoulder. Two bogeymen, a foo dog guardian, a ghost, and a faerie with a great rat pelt drawn over her shoulders stood ready.
See that's the other thing: his methods seem..inefficient. We know that most Practitioners specialize in one or two things in order to accumulate power in those fields. Johannes works with everything, but I was also under the impression that he had to have specialized with something in order to get to that point. Apparently, though, he just likes to have the versatility, which we know can come at a severe disadvantage, as people who can't be placed into a category often are. It's possible that he creates an identity out of the jack-off-all-practices mentality, but even then I feel like that's not enough to skyrocket him.
My only remaining guess is that he either inherited, found, or was given access to a treasure trove of knowledge surrounding Others- or perhaps given the resources of an established practitioner (with or without their consent) and used it to quickly collect servants and Others. His understanding of society, unending charisma, and keen mind might just be enough to get him over the moon with that as its trampoline
(also, change of plans, I've got another 45 minutes to read so I'm doing that)
Help, borrowed, bought, and coerced.
I wonder who exactly is 'investing' in johannes, such that he can borrow?
He turned forward once again. His finger tapped. His eye reread the page on Demesnes for the thousandth time.
This is such a great little beat of characterization here, the preparedness to compliment the confident aura
Drawing in a deep breath, he spoke with confidence. “I, Johannes the piper, the sorcerer, the vagabond, hereby-” “-Stop,” a voice spoke out, soft, almost as if it were completing the sentence for him.
So he's built a bit of identity out of being the 'vagabond' and while I'm sure that's good for karma and charm and solidifying a power base and all that it seems like the opposite of what'd let you put a lot of power into claiming a demesne
Looking at the man with the sight, Johannes could see how the man fed into everything around him. Where other connections were straight lines, the man shimmered, as if connections tied him to every speck of dust, every splinter of wood. When he looked, he could see connections to more distant things. To himself. There was no tension, no rigidity to the lines. The rules, very plainly, were different, where this man was involved.
Which is a powerful thing, but a limiting thing as Faysal attempts to change, and see.
“I can see it from here. I’m not quite aware how, and I can’t say whether it’s to your benefit or detriment, but you’re about to act, and your actions will upset the balance. That’s enough for me to take notice.” “You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Johannes said. “In this case, it may well be,” the shining man told him.
Man, I love Johannes- he's absolutely the character I relate most to, and this kind of response is certainly part of the reason. And I kind of...agree with him. I think part of the problem that we should be working against in undoing the seal- insofar as that's possible -is the sure dichotomy of angels and demons, the very idea that there has to be a balance, forces of creation and destruction. I don't mean to say that angels and demons should all just get along, but the attitudes of angels and people alike are making that difficult, and are making this more about that constructed dynamic than about making things 'better'
I challenge the premise of angels vs demons, and the idea that that cycle has to continue as it has been
Johannes spread his arms. “I’ve invested a lot into this. Even the timing is pretty important. A good few of the neighbors are off on summer vacation, or off in Toronto. First weekend of summer, after all. Unsporting, but what are you going to do?”
he's so likeable- which, first, means he's probably got loads of karma from somewhere, and second, makes him really fun to read. I'm sure I'm going to learn that he's done some more horrible shit, and I already don't agree with his preying-on-the-vestiges plan, but...he's certainly one of my absolute favorite characters
Johannes was only fifteen, but his demeanor was one of someone older. His long hair was tied back into a ponytail, flush with the nape of his neck, and his face had yet to grow scruff. A gun, a laptop, and a set of papers sat on the top of the bar. A cheap construction of wood that put everything at chest level, without Johannes having to sit down. The laptop screen glowed, showing the same text that appeared in the book. “The practice is about dealing,” Johannes said. “Everything has a price. The trick is to skew the deal in your favor. I don’t see how this is different.”
And a teenager with a ponytail no less- I get why eliott said I should do a johannes cosplay now. And I really want to take him up on that. I'm having too much fun. Also, I'm maybe beginning to think that this kid might just be really good at the Practice
“Attack,” Johannes said. “Arthild.” His pet Faerie went on the attack. Her features distorted, and she swelled in size. A rat, big enough to fill a smaller room, hair sparse, flesh purple with the veins just beneath the surface, stomach bloated and writhing. One of the darker faerie, a lucky find, his ace in the hole. He’d spent four months screwing with the rat population until something took notice. He’d expected a spirit, he’d picked up the faerie instead. One from the winter court, the sunless court.
Yeah, there doesn't seem to be any huge trick to how he got this faerie to work for him, just good ol fashioned understanding of the practice. Somehow accumulated at a young age. So there's something, and there might be something to the 'lucky find' too, but I can't be sure.
It's possible it's just been one of those 'you're lucky until you're not' situations, and Johannes was just able to be lucky until he was duped by Faysal
Also: the Winter Court is new, I think
or old
maybe it doesn't exist
fae government is always changing its mind about what it's always been
He’d had to learn the pipes to use the artifact’s power. With the tune, he was able to sway the otherwise senseless swarm of rats. What might have been a distraction or psychological weapon became a tool. The rats swarmed the shining man.
Or maybe he accumulated power with the pipes, such that he didn't need to technically use them in the defense of his demesne. We still don't know where he got those
Johannes startled as the shining man entered the lobby of the hotel that was still in construction. He had his laptop open, and a cable stretched behind the front desk he was sitting on. He tapped the top of his screen. “Architect of convention? You wouldn’t be an angel, would you?” “I am. You’re trying my patience.”
I love that we see this rule of three at play here
There was a flash from the room behind as the door swung closed. A flash in front, as he passed through the double doors. The angel waited for him in the convention room of the hotel.
I've said it before, but Faysal's power has such creative potential and my heart sings to see it used
He hit the light switch, one light on, one light off. The blacklight lit up the room. It was now lit up lines and diagrams, words in script and spots of bodily fluids that had been given to power the working.
So far we've got use of technology, being clever, and the pipes- which is honestly a believable start for this kid
Trouble was, he hadn’t known who or what he was up against. If he planned too broadly, he risked something powerful simply striding through and ignoring the effect. If he was too narrow in having certain traps for certain foes, he risked having the wrong weapon at the wrong time, or simply not having an answer to a given threat. He’d plotted that room and that trap with that in mind. The binding wasn’t for the enemy. It was for the bullet, which he had gone to great trouble to give a name.
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha, this is a wonderfully clever solution- characters like this are just fun to read, especially when you've realized their imminent downfall.
Most were inducted into the practice as they entered puberty. Johannes had been a part of it since birth. He’d inherited it, and he’d inherited very little else.
Interesting- makes sense, but it's also curious. Someone's effort to avert the status quo by not passing their power onto an heir, perhaps? And this is perhaps confirmation that he didn't inherit the pipes, which is another mystery we might not solve
He had, in a roundabout fashion, grown to loathe the status quo. He’d found his mission, and very recently, he’d reached the point where he couldn’t postpone it any longer. Now the status quo was coming for him in the form of an angel.
Ilovethis
I'm once again kicking myself for not seeing that connection- we've been fighting the status quo all this time, of course an angel would get in the way
He drew slips of paper from his back pocket, and scattered them into the air. Each was inscribed with a name. Vestiges of people. Each one appeared in turn. Imperfect. His work in this field was better than most, but it was still crude.
Then again, I suppose Johannes does specialize at least a little bit- I hadn't clocked it as a specialization because he works much more broadly, but it is what allows him to work so broadly.
“I, Johannes the bard, the sorcerer, the miscreant, hereby make a statement. Let this be my claim.” There was a flash of light. The angel appeared opposite Johannes. “I claim only those places and spirits as far as the reach of my voice,” he said. “I claim this space and only this space. I claim the connections here and only those connections.”
There are so many common motifs with my own sense of self- I love his titles, his use of voice as a vector for his power- this ritual is just awesome
Also, the only way this makes sense is if he's blasting it all over town- microphones are another motif I identify with
“I claim this space as mine, as I dislike that which lies elsewhere. I would return to old times, stable times, and let this place be a sanctuary, both for Others that would come here, and for myself. For I do not like where things are going elsewhere, and I would hope to change the destination.” “Or delay it?” the angel asked. “…Or delay it,” he said, eyeing the angel warily. “Let this be my challenge. All who would deny me this demesne, declare your right to challenge me, and find me here.” The words were ominous, and they held power.
Invoking the old is a good idea here, though it limits things in ways that johannes might not like- truly, the most irritating part of this is Faysal. Johannes wants to change the destination, but relents to the status quo's 'or delay it', giving even the barest of lip service to that idea, and therefore reinforcing it. He relents because he doesn't want mr. status quo to rip his throat out (creating a path for his blood to escape, of course) but it's still quite annoying, especially given what we know about Faysal.
He worked his way to a standing position, facing the angel. The angel reached out to touch the microphone.
Ehehehehehehheehheheheheheheheeh
I hope we see more of this kind of thing in Pale- it seems like Others aren't entirely prepared for that
“There are others,” the angel said. “Many will challenge you for even a small, closet-sized space. Some Others do not want neighbors.” “I made the speakers quiet,” Johannes said. “Had to make it my voice, all the same. Needed the quality to be top notch. Should’ve been whispers, but it’s hard to test, spur of the moment.” “Your voice was quiet, but they heard all the same.”
This is clever, and I didn't fully put it together
Such a gamble, though, because you do need the spirits to hear and recognize the claim, but can't let anything else hear it
he's made it easier, certainly, but there's always going to be an Other who can hear about as well as the spirits, I think.
“I liked the declaration,” the angel said. “The sanctuary. Returning to old ways. So much of humanity is focused on rushing forward. Shall we discuss in the moments between your challenges?” “Sure,” Johannes said. “Sure. But can we do it while moving? Let’s get out of this closet, first. If it’s goblins, I have things I can do.”
And of course Faysal attaches to that appeal- but what he knows of history is largely a construction of the present, and likely doesn't include the likes of Crone Mara or Corvidae's father. It's limited, and he doesn't realize that.
His eye had been given away to one powerful goblin, a goblin queen turned partially into a goblin. His arm was a ragged mess, and might have to be amputated.
We saw the words goblin queen in reference to a practitioner before we saw them in reference to a goblin in Maggie's Histories, but I don't think I clocked that.
wonder if it's the same one?
Quite possibly
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JayManiac 01-Sep-20 03:04 AM
I mean it'd make sense that the goblin repsonsible for rallying such a force of town-destroying beings was once a practitioner
“Will you stop me?” Johannes managed to ask. “I’ll leave you be, provided you don’t disclose how you did this.” “Yeah,” Johannes said.
Fuck. Okay, that's the kicker. Johannes used modern technology in a simple way to gain a helluvalot more power than he should've, and even Rosalyn couldn't figure that shit out. Heck, Blake has had surprisingly few moments of using technology to his benefit during the practice, and aside from a few things the junior council does, that's a bit of a trend. Again, I think, and hope, that we'll see a lot more of that in Pale. But, back to the point: faysal you dipshit. Of course, a magician never reveals his secrets, but what the fuck man. You can't think to hide this kind of thing forever. The Practice is changing. Maybe it'll have undeniable footprints of its cultural predecessors, and maybe this'll only make the Seal more reinforced, but the status quo is changing, and I think changing the destination is a fine goal.
As always, faysal can merely delay the inevitable
now I see why he doesn't think he's that powerful, compared to humans
He studied the practitioners. Studied Johannes. He felt no fondness for the man. No fear, anxiety or worry.
Because you're an asshole.
👆 just in case I ever need reminders that Angels do not equal Good in the slightest.
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Elliot (Boy) 01-Sep-20 03:08 AM
Well I think they equal Good. It's just that Good is not good
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A bird 🐦 01-Sep-20 03:09 AM
the greater good
CharmanderHi
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JayManiac 01-Sep-20 03:09 AM
Heya bird!
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A bird 🐦 01-Sep-20 03:09 AM
I have really gotta start checking this channel first
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Elliot (Boy) 01-Sep-20 03:09 AM
Also I love the reveal of Johannes' demesne. I had soooo many big theories involving The Abyss and all this cosmic shit, turns out he's just good at microphones
agree 1
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A bird 🐦 01-Sep-20 03:10 AM
He's so damned interesting, Johannes
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JayManiac 01-Sep-20 03:10 AM
I absolutely love it- it's so telling for the possible future of this world
I've also considered a microphone as my implement, along with the mechanical pencil
cementing Johannes as my favorite
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A bird 🐦 01-Sep-20 03:11 AM
The method is so modern, but the goal is so rooted in the past
cementing Johannes as my favorite
The only question I ever had about that was whether you'd like him more than Evan
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JayManiac 01-Sep-20 03:12 AM
I meant more my favorite practitioner
which technically doesn't include Evan, Green Eyes, or even Blake
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A bird 🐦 01-Sep-20 03:12 AM
Blake counts as a little bit of everything, to me (edited)
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Elliot (Boy) 01-Sep-20 03:12 AM
"define Blake" is my response I think
thistbh 3
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A bird 🐦 01-Sep-20 03:13 AM
Johannes is a bit of a mirror to that. He uses a bit of everything
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Elliot (Boy) 01-Sep-20 03:13 AM
There's a lot to compare between the Johannes we see in 14.x and Blake I think (edited)
agree 2
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A bird 🐦 01-Sep-20 03:14 AM
I have Thoughts on the differences, but that's an after the liveread thing
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JayManiac 01-Sep-20 03:15 AM
I mean, it's after the liveread
I didn't pull anything in particular from the last few paragraphs but that's the chapter
But yes, history has a stranglehold on the present in a way that you can hardly imagine loosening, which is why this can all seem hopeless despite the change on the horizon
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JayManiac 01-Sep-20 06:59 PM
Agreed- I think that while it can be difficult to break away from the bounds of karma and the status quo to find admirable traits you're absolutely right about Blake's unique willingness to take the obvious problems in the world onto his back and make sure that they're dealt with, or that he dies trying. It can be easy to forget- with everything going on -just how on-side I was with Blake and why: because he dealt with the Hyena when nobody else would, he tried to deal with Ur when he didn't have to, etc. The moments when I realized that Toronto was just full of people who could've helped with the Hyena, who left it to this week-old practitioner instead..that was a real wake up call.
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Sebastián 01-Sep-20 07:02 PM
It's very telling that the two groups that actually tried to deal with Ur was a week-old Practitioner and a group of amateur-ish but determinated group of people. And both suffered heavily because of it
While the entrenched and powerful never lifted a finger
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JayManiac 01-Sep-20 07:03 PM
Yeah, it really makes you go "wait, all these powerful people left a problem that blake could deal with unchecked for 60 years!?"
and then you realize that it's a reflection of our own world and you're like "oh yeah, no, problems that everyone refuses to address because it's inconvenient sounds run-of-the-mill, carry on"
Like, Johannes and Sandra are a mid-tier, because they're nice
if a problem shows up on their doorsteps, they'll go "oh, let me help with that- genie-butler, bring her a fresh blanket"
but they're otherwise content to sit back and pretend that they're making things any better just by existing
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Sebastián 01-Sep-20 07:10 PM
True. But on the other hand... Ur's responsability was Conquest's, and he's an absolute ass, so it's easy to see why it was never taken care of. And the other practitioners know better than to tangle with a demon, and if someone in their circle wants to do the right thing all they have to do is point to the knights and say: 'Do you want to end up like them?' (edited)
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JayManiac 01-Sep-20 07:14 PM
Yeah, everyone just seems to "know better" than to spend valuable resources doing something decent
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JayManiac 01-Sep-20 07:56 PM
I mean, it sure does seem like if a teen girl's not collapsing at your doorstep, nameless, then you aren't obligated to lift a finger
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Sebastián 01-Sep-20 07:57 PM
yeah! and all this in an universe where Karma is A Thing!
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JayManiac 01-Sep-20 08:01 PM
well but the thing is
karma is a lot more harsh if the spirits can see you ignoring a problem
which only really happens when, like I said, it shows up on your doorstp
it's a lot harder to see inaction when it's not provoked inaction
so when Blake forces them to face the jack-shit that they've done, the spirits might just go "hey waitaminute" but still not nearly as much as if the spirits had been able to see them get and subsequently ignore the opportunity to fix things
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JayManiac 01-Sep-20 08:52 PM
But there are also easier ways of getting that positive karma
that risk less resources
it's not a big enough karma payoff that they couldn't make it up doing much more stable, repeatable, safe things
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Sebastián 01-Sep-20 08:54 PM
True. There's also the fact that, in Ur's case, we can't really know how many times someone tried to do the right thing. For all we know, a lot more people in Toronto tried to deal with it at one point or an other.
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JayManiac 01-Sep-20 09:04 PM
True- but I feel like the more dealable threat- the Hyena -is pretty indicative of how many people would've tried to deal with Ur
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spinagon 01-Sep-20 09:05 PM
It's like the Others, only the evil/crafty ones are left alive
Kind and good-meaning practitioners die out
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JayManiac 01-Sep-20 09:09 PM
Seeing what became of Blake...yeah, that makes sense
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Sebastián 01-Sep-20 09:12 PM
yeah... the oldest practitioner we see is Granny Rose.
Which is... sobering.
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jsoh 01-Sep-20 09:13 PM
well, mara
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JayManiac 01-Sep-20 09:14 PM
ah, even better
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spinagon 01-Sep-20 09:16 PM
She's not even human anymore
agree 1
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JayManiac 01-Sep-20 09:16 PM
Alright, lets see how far we can get into Arc 15 today!
The individual floorboards underfoot felt like the boards of a rope bridge, each one suspended but unsteady. Not all of the boards were capable of supporting the weight of a human being.
we begin back in the abyss. Yay. Love this place- I wonder where they'll end up? Faysal said that areas were shifting and changing, so it's probably not the tenements- maybe the house has folded into another part of the abyss?
greeneyes 1
The abyss was building again, pulling down sections of the house that had lingered, clinging to the sides, one section of wall providing enough material to build six or seven walls, down here. We climbed, and the environment all around us settled into place, crashing, cracking, splintering. Bookcases tipped over and spilled out their contents, and small avalanches of loose wood, bricks, tomes, and stone found solid ground, dancing off unseen surfaces, careening this way and that, and settling into shapes that resembled bookshelves, sometimes only a stick caught between rocks or larger texts, with a book or two resting on it. Each impact seemed to knock us down. Sometimes an inch, sometimes a foot.
I love this new environment- it seems like the house itself is becoming its own section of the Abyss? Which makes sense- it's a demesne, and this process is what was originally theorized to have been the origin of the 'above abyss' that exists below the Cracks. I don't know that I'll have a ton to pull just as we see it settle into a more resolute chaos, but I'm enjoying it
“Fuck you!” the Behaim woman cried out, nearly drowned out by the bell. “Fuck!” I blinked. “I could have made it!” No you couldn’t have.
You know I almost forgot that we're stuck in the abyss with the behaims
which is the surefire way to make the abyss even worse of a shithole
they've gotta be prime tools for tearing other people down- we'll make respectable bogeymen out of them yet
“You might as well have thrown me over the side!” “Don’t tempt me,” I said. “What? Say again!” I didn’t clarify.
Savage. Exactly the correct response
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spinagon 01-Sep-20 09:21 PM
Fucking Behaims
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JayManiac 01-Sep-20 09:22 PM
Everyone told this woman "hey, we're in the abyss now, let's listen to the people who know what that means" and she's like "actually can I talk to the manager?"
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spinagon 01-Sep-20 09:25 PM
Is Karen a Behaim enough name?
Maybe Karmen
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JayManiac 01-Sep-20 09:27 PM
Not quite old, obscure, and ugly-sounding enough yet, but we'll work on it
The abyss had an intelligence to it. There was an organic flow to the way things happened, the why of it. Obvious enough with the way it had showed me select visions. There was a strategy. The strategy here was simple. Attacking me by forcing me to make a choice. Leave her, or fall behind.
I'm not saying leave her, because that would be mean. However. Will she survive anyways if this is her immediate reaction, before the abyss has really started to get its claws in?
Also will the abyss want to keep blake now? It is the third time he's been down here
I smelled burning hair.
You know, I almost forgot that they're here with their houseguest
An object came flying through the darkness, striking her in the temple. It might have been a bat, might have been a brick. Her handhold gone, legs spinning out from under her as her body twisted with the force of the hit, she simply slumped to one side, slipped beneath the lowest shelf in a bookshelf, and disappeared over the brink.
Yeah, that was pretty much the way it was going to go.
I am mildly distressed, because I know this is almost certainly the first of many casualties of this experience- whether she's dead or worse -and sometime soon we'll actually start losing important people who aren't trying to get themselves killed
however.
I am not quite as distressed as I could be
Aggressive. The Drains had been slow, patient, deliberate. The Tenements had been more like an adolescent, intelligent, but not above pulling the wings off of flies. This was something else. There was fury. Chaos. Was it the influence of those of us who were here? An echo of Molly’s anger, of the war in Jacob’s Bell? The demon?
I think the answer is yes, with a whole lot of added 'this is thorburn central what did you think it'd be like?"
I love that the abyss sections each have their own character, their own personality based on whatever's happening aboveground, the nature of the place pre-abyss, etc. They're all the same kind of thing, but they each take it in different ways.
this seems like a dangerous one to be in
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spinagon 01-Sep-20 09:35 PM
A shithead abyss
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JayManiac 01-Sep-20 09:35 PM
to match the thorburns
Though it was barely illuminated, I could make out the Barber, my eyes fixed a few feet to his left, while I scanned him with my peripheral vision. He was muscular, with scar tissue covering much of his body, suggesting lash marks, the rest of his skin bruised and ulcerated.
Ah, lovely- so we're not gonna do the whole "i wonder if he catches up with you/what he looks like now/everything" we're just gonna toss him at us now- this abyss is different
Results over suspense- just like rose
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spinagon 01-Sep-20 09:37 PM
What is with this book and enemies you can't look directly at
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JayManiac 01-Sep-20 09:37 PM
I mean the only two so far are the same kind of creature
with some terrifying reasoning
For a heartbeat, I considered grabbing the shears. Then I saw the Barber reflected in the gleaming metal. I swiftly backed away as much as I was able. He tore his way free of the blade’s surface, and the entire hallway lurched with his weight as he set foot on the floor.
Ahahahahahahahahahahahaha NOPE
Sweet cheezits that is a cool power
but also such a nope
A hand settled on the right side of my face. The heel of the hand touched my jawline, the fingers reached just over the top of my head. Calloused and otherwise scarred enough that the hard edges grated against the wood on the side of my face.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa fuck thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat
I twisted, striving to grab at something, anything, but my feet were too high up off the ground, and there was nothing in reach to my right. My head snapped sharply from far left to far right, until I thought I might damage branches or spine doing it, just trying to avoid looking at him. Simply closing my eyes would be admitting defeat, giving up any and all chance of spotting some clue or tool I could use.
I love how down and in-the-dirt this fight with a demon is- it's so different from Ur but it's so much more disturbing for just that reason
Until he reached out and clasped the chain. Passing some kind of energy into it. Or taking something out. The chain disintegrated, and I could hear an echo of a goblin’s scream, in the noise it made as the pieces scattered. Tk.
I don't read horror so I don't actually know if this is just straightup horror but it feels like straightup horror
In case you ever needed clarification on Lung's 'fear of the known'
the Abyss is also just full of the unknown too, so that adds to it
but this fight with the barber is brutal and terrifying and suspenseful and all of it
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spinagon 01-Sep-20 09:45 PM
These demon battles do have some Lovecraftian vibes
Ur is very reminiscent of a shoggoth
It was a terrible, indescribable thing vaster than any subway train—a shapeless congeries of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and un-forming as pustules of greenish light all over the tunnel-filling front that bore down upon us
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JayManiac 01-Sep-20 09:48 PM
I love that
ur has slightly more of a broader spectrum of form but I like the comparison, and I think they each do what they're supposed to
I should read some actual lovecraft- what I've seen is some good writing and fun concepts
the whole 'paranoid xenophobe' thing is a bit deterring but I think it'd be good to regardless (edited)
Further up, much further up, I could make out the others. Rose had recruited a bogeyman. A pale man with newsprint on his skin and a great paper-cutting knife. They were making headway. Covering ground.
I love seeing new bogeymen- it's like 'parahuman' where it's a format that wildbow can just jump on and have so much fun with iterations of. Each one is just a few simple motifs and a personality- depending on how far gone they are. Very different from the demon things, but it's just a part of the story I find very fun to keep exploring. Much like parahumans, I never really get tired of seeing weird bogeymen- they're just so twistedly interesting
the abyss is just one of worm's entities
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JayManiac 01-Sep-20 10:06 PM
She was talking, making grand, sweeping gestures. With each gesture, the children around her flinched. Teacher, students. Was there a section of the Abyss that was a school?
Ahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahaha
no yeah, absolutely
public school is implicitly serving the abyss' purpose of tearing down creativity and making life hell
Lots of private schools too
Newsprint-face, now the students and teacher. The Abyss was pulling together Bogeymen and Abyss-residents with a theme.
interesting...texts, learning, books, information..maybe this abyss' flavor for theater is just different
I love themed bogeymen
I don't recall whether we know enough to say we saw that in the tennements or the drains
green-eyes is a pretty clear example
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spinagon 01-Sep-20 10:09 PM
What would you call this section of the Abyss? (edited)
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JayManiac 01-Sep-20 10:09 PM
But also! this is probably hooked up to the place where bookeyman-girl with the flesh bound book and all the pages was pulled from
I mean The Academy, The Bookshelf, The Tome, The Library, The Pages....I don't really know?
The Pages is maybe a stretch but it'd be fun to tie in that conceit of the book
The teacher collected a book, lifting it free of the shelf. She opened her mouth to speak, gracing us with a view of something that looked more like the inside of a worm’s gullet, studded with hooks and teeth, then raised a finger. Wait.
Ilovethis
Ty and the others managed to rescue Tiff before the renovations continued. With the last set of rising columns and slabs came bookcases. Returning that which had fallen, adding more.
I wonder if this is the moving-about that faysal sensed, or if this is just going to be how this place functions? it's not what we've seen in other places like the Drains, but I'm not entirely certain that it won't just be like that anyways
“No,” Rose said, her voice sharp. “We’ll take Evan’s word for it. And you…” She pointed at the teacher-Other. “Shut up. I don’t know what you are, I don’t care, you don’t scare me, and I refuse to let you waste our time.”
I love the note that as soon as we get to the abyss Rose just gets so much more likeable because karma's not exactly a thing down here
Isn't this just exactly the vibe of what we've all wanted to say to at least one teacher?
What a badass
Ellie, for her part, displayed a remarkable enthusiasm in kicking one child down the stairs. Not surprising, but remarkable.
lol
“Books,” the teacher said. “Oh, how I have missed a good book. I do think I’ll enjoy this relocation.” “Do you?” Rose asked.
So this was the Academy, but now it's more like a Library or Bookshelf
“Hell,” Rose said. “At least for certain types. Look inside.” I could see concern on the teacher’s face. “Rose,” I said. “Barber.” “I know,” she said. “But-” The teacher shrieked. She dropped the book.
See there are still a lot of these unknown elements that are just...freaky, and then you move past them like "huh, bet I didn't wanna know"
I saw Rose with a gun to Kathryn’s head. Kathryn wept, lying on the ground, propped up with her one good arm. “Move!” Rose said. But Kathryn didn’t budge an inch.
Oh shit. You'd think the thorburns would've gotten the hang of the abyss by now- then again, maybe there is no getting the hang of it
Kathryn lay across a sprawl of books. Children’s books. More square than rectangular. The scrawled figure on the covers and the open pages bore a striking resemblance to her. My eldest cousin.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck did you not see what just happened to the last guy!?
I picked one up. Saw Kathryn flinch. It was open to the last two pages. But, Big Bad Kathy told herself, even if my son doesn’t love me, and even if my husband hates me so, I love myself. I do, I do! I glanced at Kathy. I looked down at the last page. I do, Big Bad Kathy lied to herself. I do, I do, I do.
Yeah, fuck, I really didn't want to know. if every abyss is just going about its business with whatever intelligence it has, doing what it knows will tear people down...well, the tennements are an adolecent, and this place is a Thorburn. It knows how to tear everyone to shreds exactly where it hurts- the very thing that we all love Peter for. Welp. That's that.
Kathy had met my eyes. They weren’t eyes anymore, but scrawls. Crayon scribbles. A tear leaked from the corner of one.
I wonder if we'll see a bogeymen who looks like stolen childhood and crayon scribbles and creepy childlike imagery in Pale
Kathy didn’t respond, but moving slowly, she did pick up her books, and she hurried off in another direction. “Don’t read the damn books!” Rose warned the others, as we moved onward and upward.
Fuck.
It's tempting
what words could you read on a bookshelf in the abyss, that could just absolutely destroy you if you read them?
I'd almost be curious enough to look
same 1
almost
It's a more real, grounded version of a lovecraftian unknown element. Lovecraft has that one shapeshifting character who can turn into a form that will drive any human absolutely mad to see it, and this feels like that, but...more believable, more tangible, more personal. Wildbow's creature has a form that would drive you and you specifically mad to see it, and there's one of em for everyone.
Anyhow! Onto the next!
The tolling of the bell picked up, and with it came the monsters. Floorboards creaked and shifted, as if they weren’t all nailed down or supported, but we weren’t standing on rope bridges anymore. Things were solid, and sounds in the walls suggested that they were still being built, moment by moment. Deeper constructions, beyond the surface level.
I love the shifting chaos of this environment- I can't pull every description because they're all over, but this is such a cool conceit for the story to be happening in the midst of all of it. really adds to the action.
I tackled the nearest one, driving him into his companion. Evan flew away, to the far side of Nick, to push at a lost soul that was approaching with a makeshift spear in hand. Ink black, because he was ink. He hit ground, and the ink splattered in lines and loops, spelling out words, drawing images.
Thematic bogeymen are so cool- it's like a creative exercise of 'riff on this general bag of concepts for an arc or two to make cool monsters' and I'm so so so here for wildbow doing that.
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JayManiac 01-Sep-20 10:56 PM
holy shit that art is awesome
Lonsheep really did it again, that's haunting, I love it
The gore itself ran red-black, colored with ink, and the blood spread out in turn, forcefully enough that a chunk of skull was sent spinning off to one side. The blood penned out a story in red around the corpse.
what's black and white and red all over!? this guy
There was a scream, a man’s, and I tensed. Now that they were high enough to have few options, the pillar was getting in their way. Rearranging, or employing some trap. I was getting a sense of how this place worked.
So the rearrangement is a part of its design, which is awesome
I suspect it really is worse as it's settling, but I somehow doubt it'll ever stop
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spinagon 01-Sep-20 11:07 PM
I was getting a sense of how this place worked.
You don't say, abyss person
lol 1
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A bird 🐦 01-Sep-20 11:13 PM
CharmanderHi
Alright, lets see how far we can get into Arc 15 today!
None of these boards can support the weight of my excitement!
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JayManiac 01-Sep-20 11:16 PM
I think blake means that he's getting a sense of this section of the abyss specifically, but that's fair spinagon XD
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JayManiac 01-Sep-20 11:28 PM
I recognized the one bogeyman. The papercut girl from the library. She’d been the one that had been turned back on us by the witch hunters. Old fashioned clothes, old fashioned hair. Where she’d been prim and crisp before, each page of her body was bloodstained, she worked to breathe, and she bent over as if in pain.
Hey! What did I say?! she's back!
Her book was gouged, and blood leaked from it, a slow, steady drip. Her expression was one of hate.
ah shit
she's back
I might have to pause here for today, because I've got lunch and then a whole bunch of other things to do afterwards- working in two chapters was not in the cards
I might be back later to finish, I might wait till tomorrow
depends on how fast I can get my other responsibilities taken care of (edited)
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JayManiac 02-Sep-20 02:45 AM
The other was a brute of a man with a cracked old leather tome for a head, a great paper-cutting guillotine blade in one hand, wielded like a sword. He had hardcover books slipped into the breast pocket of his dress shirt and the pockets of his slacks, one smaller book tucked into a rolled up sleeve like someone might with a pack of cigarettes, and they fit easily. He had a belly, but not to the point of being morbidly obese. I could estimate him at six hundred pounds, easily, and it was more muscle and height than fat. A literary ogre.
Alright i'm back and this guy is hilarious. I can picture a literary ogre with a book for a face being an enemy in like a gravity-falls-vibe thing and I can't get the animation style out of my head, but at the same time this is a lot more disturbing.
His voice was the trigger that set the Others to moving. Lost souls mobbed, and Bookbrain lurched into action. The papercut girl hung back.
Bookbrain XD
Whatever I was, I still needed physics to fly, and a folded wing with a fifty-pound weight attached to it was the bad sort of physics.
This environment is very action-packed, which on one hand is very fun and flowing to read, but on the other...doesn't really make for excellent commentary beyond oh shit. I'm really enjoying it, but there's not a whole lot to say right exactly now.
Pockets of chaos. I closed my eyes, and I heard the bells. Was it even Molly anymore?
I wonder if the abyss has taken the sound of the bell as it was reverberating when the house fell, and if that's just going to be a constant sound that everyone hears here for eternity? It's possible that there's just still a way up and that's where the sound is coming from- a crack big enough to claw your way out of -but I'd also buy that it's an abyssal recreation of the effect, because it decided it was fun. And because that's one of the things that's pretty close to the Abyss anyways
I found fresher footing. My eye was fixed on the spine of a book. The Killing of Angels. I turned my eyes away.
Ohohohoho, that's some good bait
same 4
agree 2
I almost went "wait, grab it, it might be one of Rosalyn's original ones, etc." before realizing that I was justifying grabbing this absolutely-a-horrible-mind-trap
As she was lower than me, I spat the candle out at her. As attacks went, it was meager, pathetic. It didn’t even reach her, and it was stupid to imagine the candle might have remained lit while one flew through the air. She watched it spiral down, and looked up at me with a mean smirk on her face. Her eyes widened as she saw me flying straight at her again.
Oldest trick in the book. Not really. I'm actually sure there are plenty of very old tricks in these books, and that the books themselves are also tricks. I shudder to think what could happen to someone as unstable as, say, blake if he actually read some of these. There are absolutely things they could say that would not be good for his team.
I saw the Barber on the ground. Six stories down, but he was unmistakeable. Cutting through hordes, reveling in the chaos. A limb cut free here, a hand around an individual’s face while the scissors passed through to snip off a tongue.
Why exactly did Faysal think that anything down here could deal with the Barber!? I still think that this plan is 1. incredibly shortsided 2. going to backfire in faysal's face 3. not going to be nearly satisfying enough when it does, because it'll also mean horrible pain for all the characters we like, too
His plan is literally "yeah there's probably some sorta lesser god down there that can handle him, that's definitely how that works" (edited)
Wheras what actually happens is he tears through (pun intended) a bunch of bookeymen, before bursting out of the cover and wreaking faysal's shit, along with everyone in Jacob's Bell.
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A bird 🐦 02-Sep-20 02:59 AM
bookeymen
Ilovethis
same 2
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Wildbow 02-Sep-20 02:59 AM
Ha, I missed that
😁 2
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JayManiac 02-Sep-20 03:11 AM
A bullet penetrated my chest. I very nearly lost my grip. “Shit! Sorry!” One of the Knights called out. Nick snatched the man’s gun from him and passed it to another Knight.
This is an odd beat- doesn't seem to matter much when Blake's kind of...not bulletproof or bullet-resistant, but kind of bullet-indifferent, but I wonder what it's trying to tell us? Is it just that he's easily mistakable for one of these Others, or is that particular quality worsening as he stays down here? Or is this guy going all Abyssal on us already?
when i say bullet-indifferent, that is in fact in comparison to flimsy humans
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Elliot (Boy) 02-Sep-20 03:17 AM
I read it as "he's pretty indistinguishable from the rest of the denizens"
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JayManiac 02-Sep-20 03:17 AM
That would make sense
Behind them, Ellie screamed as a haggard old man reached between books on the shelf and tried to drag her closer. Her back to the railing, she kicked the man in the face. Ellie seemed to like doing that, as it happened. The railing, in that same moment, gave way. Karma? Whatever it was, Johannes and a Knight reached for her.
Was it ruled that Karma has less influence in the Abyss? It's entirely possible that this is close enough to the 'surface' that karma can still influence things?
The Other screamed, long, loud. The scream was interrupted as something else behind the bookshelf seized it, tearing it away so quickly and so suddenly that only part of his hand was left in my grip.
You know what this reminds me off, oddly enough? Weirdmageddon, probably because I watched it recently w/ my partner. Just a bunch of strange creatures eating and tearing and brutally killing each other with no rhyme or reason to it, because why not?
I say it now because I'm pretty sure there's a scene where one of the monsters eats someone, and then a bigger monster eats that monster and it's one of like 10 different things going on in that moment
weirdmageddon was pretty disturbing for a kids show.
anyhow
Looking where the Other had attacked from, I saw the spines of books. Gibberish, running ink, scratched spine, and a book titled The Lies Rose Has Told You.
I admire this willpower- that would probably read as exactly what it says on the cover- I think a genuine tattletale'd version of all the lies Rose has told would in fact probably be very bad for this party
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Elliot (Boy) 02-Sep-20 03:23 AM
Was it ruled that Karma has less influence in the Abyss?
Either in or out of story, what makes you think yes/no for this?
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JayManiac 02-Sep-20 03:25 AM
well, when Blake was first sent to the abyss, it seemed like Karma didn't have a hold
but that's possibly because all of his connections were cut
it's possible that while we are in the abyss, these characters still have their connections to the world (we know you can get down here without falling, as the cabal has done that) and therefore karma still affects them
that's my working theory, if we continue to see karma affect things
but also it's possible that karma has no bearing on what happens here
because it's just as shitty to everyone
equally
the abyss is the true route to equality
“You keep doing this,” Evan said. “Jumping on the grenades.” “I think the Abyss knows it,” I said. “It keeps encouraging me to.” “Well stop! Because the guy that’s made of wood is the guy that’s gotta stay behind with the fire and the demon? That makes no sense at all!”
Ho boy
if Evan is just realizing this now...
It doesn't matter if it makes sense, little buddy, Blake's gonna do it anyways
“Quiet!” I hissed, “We’re in a damn library!” For a moment, he seemed stunned. He blinked.
I mean, I suppose it makes sense, but also...this caught me as off-guard as Evan; I almost giggled out loud
same 3
“You’re making it awfully hard to keep you alive. I don’t know if I’ll get another chance to say it before you do something else that’s stupid, but you keep playing with fire? Dragon, demon, The third time counts.” “Faysal, maybe,” I said. “Dunno if he has fire, but it could be angelic, light, energy…” “Fay- No. You’re not getting it, you nincompoop. We do this as a team. We kick his butt and you live, and then we figure out where we go from there!”
I love Evan; this is wonderful, and I don't think Blake entirely gets it, even still
Ellie spoke up. “What are you talking about? Kathy just got magicked or something and we’re so supremely fucked, and you’re seriously thinking this could turn out okay?” “You’re not?” Evan shot back. “How can you get through something like this if you don’t believe you can?”
We're getting our double dose of I love Evan today because this is fantastic
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Wildbow 02-Sep-20 03:33 AM
Blake shucking off the karma on entering the Abyss might be related to the break from the Thorburn family.
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Elliot (Boy) 02-Sep-20 03:33 AM
his welcome to reality gift to Rose
lol 1
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JayManiac 02-Sep-20 03:34 AM
that makes more sense- it wasn't his first conclusion, which is why it threw me, but I think that's the more likely explanation.
at first, he thought that there just 'weren't spirits down here to give a shit about karma' but that doesn't track as much
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Elliot (Boy) 02-Sep-20 03:34 AM
I love the quiet in the library reveal. I didn't even realise we were hunting for a mystery until Blake solved it - but on a reread, there's so many fantastic clues that this is what's happening.
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JayManiac 02-Sep-20 03:36 AM
Sure enough, now that the were being quiet, the influx of Others had stopped. The Library was relaxing.
Yeah I don't know that I'll be rereading to catch it, might just have to listen to the DiP walkthrough of the hints, but as soon as he says it it clicks, and I just think it's so cool
The Quiet Place ripped off Pact, heard it here first.
“We make noise if we move,” Rose said, her voice low, still carrying well with that Conquest voice she had a way of tapping into. “But if we stay still, we sink.” “Lose-lose,” Alexis said. “It’s the way the Abyss works,” I agreed.
I also love it because it's useful but isn't necessarily the solution. it's the kind of reveal that's just more details of the problem.
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JayManiac 02-Sep-20 03:47 AM
“We don’t fly, you little moron,” Ellie spoke. “Why am I just now realizing I’m arguing with a bird like it’s normal?” Johannes spoke for the first time, after his long period of silence. “Don’t let appearances deceive. The angel Faysal is powerful enough that only a god or a demon might pose a challenge. This bird…” “Is awesome,” Evan said, with confidence.
I love how Johannes thinks that Evan might be some wise and powerful familiar creature with the strength to save them all. I love it because it might be true. He really breaks his long silence just to give a Practice lecture about Evan. I love it
The High Priest nodded. He sounded so weary, but he was one of the oldest people here, not counting the two remaining Behaims who weren’t named Alister. He sounded so calm as he asked, “He’s earned the right to be optimistic, hm?” Evan piped up, “Damn straight. I survived for a long time, being hunted by a monster, and I kept up hope until the day I died, and you know what happened after I died? Still hopeful. So if you think you can change my mind about us being able to get through this, you’re going to have to do better than the wolf-goblin-hyena thing did, you’re going to have to do better than a personification of Conquest did, and you’re going to have to do better than all the other practitioner schmoes did, along the way.” “Schmoes?” Alister asked. One of the schmoes.
Poor Jeremy, he didn't deserve this. But more importantly: Evan's speech here is fantastic, and blake's little commentary @alister at the end is the cherry on top. It's refreshing to see some well earned, healthy self-confidence.
I caught a glimpse of his, as we ran between bookshelves as tall as buildings. He looked haggard, strained. His long hair was sticking to his head with sweat, and the candlelight glittered in his eyes. “I wanted to help you,” he said. “Faysal said we met when Molly Walker died. I think my approach to you was the same that it was to Rose. A refuge for a vestige, a kind of peace with a diabolist. As much as that’s possible.”
Yeah, as much as I agree with Bird's critique of Johannes, I do believe him here, and I still feel bad. He's at fault, to be sure, for many many reasons- but I think he thought he was doing good, and it's a little heartwrenching to see him so broken.
“Yes. I’m not sure what the future holds,” Johannes said. “I’m inclined to hope it’s merely a short, brutal, violent end. Not the-” “Barber,” Alister finished. Then, as an afterthought, “Don’t look!”
What a transition- Johannes sounds so defeated, and I'm sure he's right to be
I found a space to climb down to, and found myself in the midst of Ty, Alexis, and Tiff. My former friends. They looked so worn out. Mara told me they wanted a way out. Escape. I don’t blame them.
😬
I looked at the group, searching for signs. Possession? Was the Barber occupying one of them?
It is the arc title, and that is quite disturbing
What had been the base of the hill, now the edge of a crater. The path out of the Library. The ‘roof’ was like the cover of an oversized book, bound in something tougher than paper, harder than leather. Sitting dead in the center, spearing that cover, was a scuffed pair of shears
Oh shiiiiiiit
The Barber had beat us here. Now he waited between us and the way out. Waiting for us to come to him.
I have absolutely no time for another chapter, but I cannot wait to get into the next one.
same 3
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JayManiac 02-Sep-20 06:11 AM
Always! thanks for writing such an awesome story; it's taken me a bit to get through, but it's so much fun and I feel like I've learned a lot from the experience.
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JayManiac 02-Sep-20 07:28 PM
The top of the pillar was bright compared to the rest of the library. Smoke rose from innumerable candles, lighting up the surroundings below us like a distant, quiet, grim little city.
For some reason, this description in particular is very effective at drawing me back into the environment. It sets the stage, evoking that spotlight-type imagery, and reestablishing this epic, daunting setpiece. I somehow hadn't picked up on it before, but the entire Library has this really fun- I want to call it tim burton-esque -aesthetic of wonderous but crooked and disturbing (a little more on the disturbing side in Pact's case). It's a little jarring to realize that, considering I'd never made the connection, but I really love it now that I have. Certain parts of Jack Skellington's house, or the strange city in boxtrolls, or the kind of grimm aesthetic that his alice and wonderland has going (regardless of how well you think it accomplished that aesthetic), have the same kind of feel that this does. I can picture it stop-motion animated. I'm gonna stop talking now and read the story.
For a moment, I wondered if it were a trick. A deception. I’d nearly been fooled twice tonight, after all. But the shears that impaled the center of the rooftop had a weight to them. Everyone present seemed to sense it. We were deer in headlights. Frozen, afraid to move. Afraid to make a sound. I didn’t even feel fear in the conventional sense, and I was virtually paralyzed.
This is so good. I know that it's not always good writing to have a character go 'im feeling afraid rn' but for some reason the building on this question really works
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Wildbow 02-Sep-20 07:42 PM
My personal feeling is that saying 'afraid' and making the audience do the work of figuring out what that means is a problem
Vs. painting a picture that helps capture and portray the feeling
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JayManiac 02-Sep-20 07:47 PM
Certainly agreed there- and this does a good job of driving it home, considering that we're still in the establishing-the-situation beats of the chapter and we have to quickly but skillfully build out the picture of the tension we ended the last chapter on.
Alister stood right at her side, his arm touching her shoulder. She shared a glance with him. It wasn’t a pairing of love. It was a pairing, all the same. He’d helped her make the first step in reaching out to me. That counted for something. Helping her on her way to being better.
There have been a number of beats with these two that kind of take me aback in terms of this being a good pairing. I didn't expect them to get along nearly as well as they seem to be. Neither seems especially fit for emotional intelligence, but they're certainly getting by.
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JayManiac 02-Sep-20 07:58 PM
Rose reached out, touching Nick’s gun. She steered him around, pointing the gun at the stairs. She pointed to other Knights, and directed them to do the same.
This is why practitioners should all learn ASL. Actually, that's a fascinating question: does sign language work as well with the practice? On one hand, it's a relatively underused language with not quite as much historical umph as, say, english or french or german. However, a lot of it is built on cultural symbols that are fairly intuitive for someone who's experienced the society that surrounds it, and some of it is arguably built on even more foundational symbols that are intuitive cross-culturally. Like the sign for 'hi' will be a very cultural remark- in Japanese sign, it involves making gestures similar to quote-marks with your hand in order to symbolize two people bowing to each other, whereas in ASL it's something between a wave and a salute. Very culturally influenced. But the sign for something like 'fire' or 'tree' is cross-culturally recognizable as 'you're making your hand resemble a fire/tree'. So- although even that is rooted in culture -the spirits might view it as something more foundational, simply because the people who use the sign do. I wonder how exactly one would channel such a thing through the Practice? There could probably be a gesture-based shamanism that replaces runes, or the idea of turning your hands into symbols for different things could be expanded on in a number of ways...
anyways, that's my rant that didn't need ranting today- it might not be the last, and it might not even be the first
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JayManiac 02-Sep-20 08:02 PM
That...is an entirely fair response to what I just said
I was reminded of a chessboard. The rooftop was square, and the way things were spread out, we had Behaims in the rook positions, my friends, Johannes, and the High Priest as the knights and bishops, admittedly odd-numbered, and Alister and Rose as the king and queen. The Knights and my cousins weren’t on the board, but instead lurked at the edges along the rear and one side of it, guarding or otherwise watching the stairs. Many of the Knights had knives or machetes on hand. Ellie and Christoff were only an extra set of eyes. The Barber sat in the middle, yet to take form.
Have you ever heard of Monster Chess? It's a version where one side only gets a couple pawns and a king, but they get two turns for every one turn the full-set side gets. It's really quite fun. The Monster almost always wins, though...
There were no pawns. No Others, satyrs or maenads had survived this trip to the Abyss. Too fragile, perhaps.
well it does have a habit of eating godstuff. I wonder if they'd become bogeymen too, or if that's reserved for humans; well, I suppose if Corvidae counts, then it's fair game.
The timeless knight emerged. Alister immediately dropped to the ground. He brushed away snow and scratched into the surface of the roof with chalk. This was his maneuver, his trick. He had a means of binding the Barber. The rest of us were supposed to buy him time.
I love how many different kinds of conflict this book can throw at its characters- I also like the timeless knight a bit better when it's fighting the barber
With the first touch of chalk to roof, the Barber reacted.
here we go
Something big, on the side of the pillar. Whatever it was, it was making noise enough to draw others. By the rules here, the other denizens of the Library would be attacking it, but the noise suggested it was drawing closer. It wasn’t slowing down, even while under attack.
and we've also got the first capitalization of Library by the book itself, I'm pretty sure sharkhi. If only it was just the barber, then they'd only be a little bit totally screwed
The Barber pushed, the armor didn’t budge. The armor pushed, and the lance inched closer to the Barber. Sparks flew as it grazed the shears. The lance’s tip penetrated flesh, just at the Barber’s collarbone. Blood welled out.
Ehehehehehehehehehe bulba
I let myself fall from the pillar, and I could see the effects of just that noise. Things were climbing free of the bookcase, and among them was a massive worm made of a series of overly obese humans, most with their respective heads shoved into the nether regions of the humans ahead of them. Here and there, there were ones that had it backward, mouths stretched wide to a macabre degree, teeth sunken into the shoulders and back of the one behind them, a limb or two jammed into the one ahead.
stare
Can..we go back to fighting the Barber?
I love the details that don't match up with the rest of it- like the abyss can't put together a consistent human centipede and everything's always gonna be a little off- it's just the kind of cherry-on-top body horror that this book is so good at delivering
but also pls, there's even more description that I'm not gonna pull because I might have to look at it again
Even if the Barber made noise, the Library would act. That was good.
I think that all things considered, the Abyss has done a pretty shitty job of actually killing Barbatorem
Faysal should leave a 2 star review on yelp and hire someone else to take care of it.
Runes. I thought I might have recognized them. One of the first I’d learned. Silence.
2nd lvl illusion spell- a good one to pick up to stop verbal casting or horrible peoplepart monsters from ruining your day!
The Hyena’s blade hit shears, and the presence of the Barber’s hand on the shears meant they didn’t budge a hair. He didn’t raise his head. I dragged the blade across the shears, hard, aiming to score the metal, to damage it. Nothing.
hmmm- the properties of the hyena that make it different from that of a regular goblin are speculated to be diabolic in nature, correct? Or at least, that's what conquest made it sound like when Blake undertook the job. So I wonder if its just scraping up against more of that right now, trying to burn down a wildfire? It's possible that the hyena's damage is so negligible that it just doesn't visibly show when up against something like the barber, but I think the former theory is more likely.
I suppose the hyena's properties come from three places, actually
1. it's a goblin, and it's good at spreading ugliness 2. it's demonic, and it can tear things apart and keep them there, its wounds don't heal 3. similarly, it's a bogeysword, and very good at tearing things down, such that when combined with the wounds not healing, it both enhances that quality, and prevents things from returning to their original state, which is why it can do something like kill mara permanently.
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Wildbow 02-Sep-20 08:30 PM
The centipede is one of my favorite Others in Pact
same 2
😩 1
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JayManiac 02-Sep-20 08:37 PM
Okay, that makes more sense than just 'hope the abyss deals with it'. He can probably do that kind of thing, though I don't know if he'd have to enter the abyss to do it
The centipede is one of my favorite Others in Pact
Sigh...of course it is. It's horrifying.
(edited)
She pointed a rod at me and the Barber. It was wrapped in paper and charms. I wasn’t sure what to expect. The Barber wasn’t going to be affected by much. Which left me as the only viable target. I realized what the words had probably been just as the lightning struck.
I do not, in fact, realize what these words probably are. I don't think that we've heard of an object or spell that can do that kind of thing, and I have no idea why alexis decided to use it on Blake here, unless it was supposed to affect the barber. Blake seems to have more of an idea, though and I'm not sure if I'm missing something
Unless it was "oh, i know what'll get blake out! shooting lightning at him"
which is...maybe a better plan than I'm giving it credit for?
Ellie resumed climbing. She bent down, and she gave Christoff a hand, blocking his view with her body. I watched as the two of them ran the length of the stairs, along the roots, and into the middling ground. The outside of the Library.
Oh thank the gods at least someone got out. Now, it was Ellie and Christoff, so don't thank them too hard just yet, but...hey, worse than jeremy getting out, better than nobody getting out.
Would the angel stop them? Would they wait?
I don't think Ellie has a low enough self preservation to wait for anyone
that's a bit of projection on blake's part, likely
But we were buying time, weren’t we? Alister was drawing his diagram. I just had to keep him occupied.
Why do I feel the distinct possibility that Alister is gonna get himself and Rose out with this and won't exactly have a problem leaving the rest? I really want to give him more credit than that, but it's just what jumped into my head
But we were buying time, weren’t we? Alister was drawing his diagram. I just had to keep him occupied.
I think faysal would probably have a couple things to say about that- dead ends, roads that just lead back to the abyss, etc.
I was close enough to put the Hyena between the handles of the shears. The only thing that matched the jarring of the handles stopping, blades on either side of Alister’s throat, was the pounding, impossibly loud noise of the bell.
Ilovethis
lots of action here, so not too much to say, but I'm really enjoying the clever problem solving
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spinagon 02-Sep-20 08:58 PM
When irresistible force meets indestructible object
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JayManiac 02-Sep-20 09:02 PM
Yeah, I'm honestly a bit surprised the hyena hasn't seemed to sustain any more damage- it's just That Kind Of Sword
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JayManiac 02-Sep-20 09:13 PM
And here I was, standing over it all, helpless, damaged and broken. For most of the group, there was no way up, no way down except falling. Chaos. What followed was an impact that nearly matched Barbatorem’s fall. One I’d experienced myself.
I love the way this description flows into the moment of whatever this is- it's a really nice buildup and I love it.
A smiting, perhaps. Something on that scale. An act of god.
Leave it to wildbow to find a way to make literal-deus-ex-machina satisfying and narratively sound.
The impact hit every Other excepting me and Evan. Many were sent flying from the exterior of the building, joining a practical torrent of books.
Yeah Jeremy!!!
I really hope he survives this
The timeless knight appeared behind it. I could see the strain on Alister’s face, the focus. He controlled the knight. The knight stabbed with the lance, driving the Barber back and over the railing. The demon fell. Disappearing into the shadows below.
Oh this moment felt so good
also, quick breakdown: wasn't actually deus ex machina despite literally being the intervention of a god, because 1. it acted more like a tool than a 'now the problem is solved', and it still was just another thing impacting the fight, not neccessarily an unambiguous assist 2. it was mostly the way that Jeremy's power manifested, through his connection to his deity, just as Alister can use his tools and Rose can use hers. Which is currently a gun, mostly.
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spinagon 02-Sep-20 09:17 PM
And there wasn't any machines involved (edited)
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JayManiac 02-Sep-20 09:20 PM
The others were ascending the stairs. The high priest was barely moving, head bowed, horn in hand. Vines, I observed, were tying things together. Sections of building were being brought together as the vines tightened their hold.
Don't you dare sacrifice yourself for this Jeremy, you're too good for that we gotta make it through, man
I also just love the dionysus powers, they're so thematically satisfying
We had most of our number. I couldn’t see one of the four Behaims that had come down here with us. One was named Alister, one had been lost on the bridge, back when this started, and one, apparently, had been lost in this chaos just now. I couldn’t see Alexis. I had to look over the group twice to see.
Oh shit
The realization that Alexis was gone was paralyzing. It froze my head in place, leaving me unable to look at Tiff and Ty, because I might see their expressions. In my stunned state, I didn’t even see it. Not in time, at any rate.
Wait no, no- nothing got to be resolved between them!? This book already scared me with alexis dying and now it's happening again!? Doesn't she get a rule of three second death fakeout first!? Ugh, dammit
An object flew through darkness, spinning end over end. Shears.
Ah shit, shit, I was really hoping this wouldn't happen...but kind of expected this to happen
The demon didn’t flourish. He merely brought the shears down, toward the high-priest’s back.
FUCK WAIT NO
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Elliot (Boy) 02-Sep-20 09:31 PM
sharkhi
(To the read in general, not the current events)
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JayManiac 02-Sep-20 09:31 PM
I was gonna say, your opinion of jeremy must've really changed in those ~5 DiP eps im behind on
but it's good to see you! Also concerning! Isn't it like 4 in the morning for you?
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Elliot (Boy) 02-Sep-20 09:33 PM
Yeah my sleep schedule is a bit wrecked atm, but it’s cool coz it means I catch this live!
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JayManiac 02-Sep-20 09:36 PM
Oh dear. Well, always happy that I can enable and reward whatever sleeping habits you may or may not have! Highlights of the 'read so far have been: -comparing the library to tim burton movies -a very lengthy spiel on sign language and its potential use and/or relevance to the Practice (inspired by library quiet-ness) -speculating on why the shears and the hyena seem to do jack shit to each other
Alister saw, and Alister threw his left arm back, over the priest’s bent head, and put it out, sticking it into the path of the shears. His right arm pulled the priest forward. The shears crunched through bone and muscle with virtually no difficulty.
Aaaaahahahaaaaaa thank you alister, I'm sorry I doubted you and I still think you're an asshole but maybe in the johannes way where you're not that bad a dude and you just don't really give a shit about things that aren't right in front of you thank you for saving my dude here
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Elliot (Boy) 02-Sep-20 09:37 PM
(Don’t forget best Other - the book worm!)
Ilovethis 3
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JayManiac 02-Sep-20 09:37 PM
How did I completely fail get that monstrosity of a pun
it's probably because I was distracted by how little I wanted to pay attention to it
that's a compliment to the writing, btw
“Stop!” Rose ordered. The Barber hesitated. I couldn’t block the shears, but I could strike at them with the Hyena. The impact and the way it sent me moving to the right was more what saved me than any deflection. Barbatorem was far stronger than I. “My name is Rose Thorburn! I am of the Thorburn Bloodline, I am of the line that named you Barbatorem! You have been bound by my blood!”
This works!?! That's incredible
I wonder if it's got something to do with what Alister was just doing, or if Rose is just relying on those connections being not-entirely-forfeit when things tumbled into the Abyss- seems more like the latter
Barbatorem backed away a step. Rose was clearly tapping into Conquest. The confidence with which she spoke. The fact that she wasn’t cringing at the foulness that the Barber exuded, but instead advancing?
I think that we don't give Rose nearly enough credit here at the jay read- she's such a badass and it's easy to be distracted from that by her karma and general unlikable qualities. Tapping Conquest is a bit concerning, but also warrented. Blake even compared the two and conquest was c4 while babs was nuke
Alister’s diagram, shattered, spread out over several sections of pillar. But the vines the high priest had called out were wrapping around. Drawing the individual pieces closer.
I really hope this is clever enough to work, because holy shit is it an awesome use of the powers
I'm also a big fan of people working together, and this group has done pretty well in face of this
(worm) better than parahumans ever seem to, when it comes to being threatened by something nastier
“…the temple,” I heard the High Priest murmur, the end of a prayer. “From my demesnes to here. Let your actions here be a memory that speaks of your deeds…”
Ilovethis
the priesthood is such a strange kind of practice that I'm certainly here for seeing more of
“I bind you to where you stand!” Rose said, doubt pushed aside. But Barbatorem took a step forward. “Back!’ Barbatorem advanced. “Thought so,” Rose said. “Only have so much clout. Had to use it well.”
Yeah, probably relying on the broken connection, as well as the name- the same trick they meant to use against Urithinkimclever, but actually useable
(edited)
“Damnation,” Johannes said. “Damnation.” “Have you lost it?” I asked. “Probably. I suppose this is where I say farewell.”
Oh man. I don't feel quite as bad about this sacrifice as I would've about Jeremy, but it still stings. A good deal, having only been reaffirmed in how much I like and relate to him recently. Still, I'd kind of hoped he'd survive to wreak havoc on his once-familiar. This probably does something to faysal's form, either a loss of power or a loss of direct connection. Or heck, depending on what he does, possibly a route for babs to continue affecting him through the familiar bond.
“This is all partially my fault, really. I suppose I should bear the brunt of it.”
A noble decision in the end, considering what this thing is capable of. I don't think any of the contingincies he could've set up could make this any better now.
“Do me a favor, if you please,” Johannes said, staring skyward. His eyes weren’t his anymore. He staggered blindly. “Tell that angel to go fuck himself.”
I know he won't rest in peace, because that's how this works. But you did good, johannes. You did a lot of weird, shitty stuff too, but you did good.
I slashed across his eyes with the Hyena. A red line, marring the reflection there. The veins continued to spread, and skin started to boil and flake away. Then I gave him a push. Enough that when he fell from the edge of the building, he didn’t hit the stairwell on the way down.
Blake doesn't even argue; ugh. this moment hits.
The gunshot was loud, but it prompted no ringing. I saw Nick’s expression, as he looked down at his Knight. The one the Barber had torn open. The pain had been too much. We’d had to stop walking, and the victim had begged for peace. Nick had given it.
😢
We were in the Abyss, but we weren’t. We were at the gap, a middling place.
Why do I feel like it's not going to be that easy to get the rest of the way up?
I found the path. One that led from the library to outside. Sections of snow-covered driveway. Burned tree. Thick woodland. A locket dangled from a branch. I took it, and I opened it. Dark hair within.
Oh? Blake's glamour? After all this time, and after Corvidae's use, it somehow ended up here?
Three more paces found the fragments of metal, laid out in the snow. One of the ways out of the Abyss, I thought. Gotta get past the Gatekeeper. I put the Hyena down in the snow, and the broken edges of the sword lined up with the fragments of metal, like two puzzle pieces. I had little doubt they’d fit together readily.
Uh....what exactly does that mean, that he's getting his tools back? Is it gearing him up for a fight?
I touched the wood. A chair. A throne. The Abyss wants me to be one of the gatekeepers, and it’s holding the others hostage.
Ah shiiiiiiiiiiiit
there's gotta be some way around it, some way to...ugh- I knew being down here a third time was a bad idea
not that blake had much of a say
but still
Okay, that's the chapter; I might read another later today, we'll see- until then have a lovely afternoon, morning, or night!
👋 1
ty 2
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JayManiac 03-Sep-20 01:12 AM
That's high praise, and I see why; this part of the story has just as much momentum as, say, arc 8 (which is at least one of my favorite arcs)
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Vayhle 03-Sep-20 01:16 AM
I'm so glad to get to follow along, it gets me down when i see the random negative comments on reddit and these kinds of chats are like armor against it. ty 🙂
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JayManiac 03-Sep-20 01:16 AM
Of course! I think I'm much better at liking things than not liking them, and I'm glad I get to put that to good use
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JayManiac 03-Sep-20 02:19 AM
aaaaaaaaaa thank you so much!! I'm working a lot on youtube content today and reworking old ideas and ramping up to the return, so that's particularly wonderful to hear at the moment
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JayManiac 03-Sep-20 08:42 PM
Let's get crackin! it's 15.4 and while I can't promise I'll finish this chapter today I can't wait to at the very least get started
I was aware of the presence of others, of the murmured conversations, laced with anxiety and emotion. They wanted out, much like someone who was drowning wanted air. They’d faced a share of what the Abyss could dish out, they were in pain, wounded, or suffering from the loss of friends and family. I wasn’t sure how much sympathy they’d have for my dilemma.
I mean, I don't think Evan's gonna let it slide, but no, somehow I doubt Alister would feel particularly sympathetic, especially after three people- including him -just made or tried to make comparable sacrifices. Jeremy's attempted sacrifice and Johannes' successful one are pretty solidly worse than this, for example. But that also creates problems for Rose, seeing as he's got a whole bunch of identity that she kinda needs back.
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Elliot (Boy) 03-Sep-20 08:43 PM
What do you mean by that last bit?
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JayManiac 03-Sep-20 08:43 PM
I mean Blake's agreed to lose the battle for identity, so I assume that Rose will get whatever part of it she can salvage from him when the time comes
am I misremembering how that works?
very possible
Anyhow, it'd be hard to get that if he remained as guardian of the abyss
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Elliot (Boy) 03-Sep-20 08:45 PM
Okay yeah that makes sense.
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JayManiac 03-Sep-20 08:46 PM
Also, side note: I just realized that Faysal might've been trying to spare Blake, when he offered to restore his humanity or give him a more reliable route back from the abyss? Maybe it's too much to hope for that he had sympathy, or tried in recognition of Blake's Good deeds, and maybe it's something Johannes put him up to, but I do wonder. I can't remember whether he was offered that before or after blake told him about his fight with Ur, but I'm gonna keep it in my head as a possibility
Even if he was just trying to do it selfishly- he seems to have no qualms with letting abyssals fight demons for him.
“If you guard the door, you can open the door, right?” Nick asked. “Or would you have to fight us before you could let us through?” the High Priest asked.
This right here strikes me as the difference between Dabblers and Full Practitioners. The more you Practice, the quicker you are to assume everything's gonna go the worst fuckin way it could.
lol 4
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JayManiac 03-Sep-20 09:00 PM
“I think,” I replied, bristling just a little, “that letting you guys go is part of the give. But this, this whole setup, it’s the take.” “It’s…” Rose started, but she left the sentence hanging. I had my back to her, so I couldn’t see her facial expressions. “…Not as bad as other parts of the Abyss.” “Cushy gig, as these things go,” Alister said.
Yeah...yeah, that's about what I expected. And I can't blame them, considering that Alister's arm will probably hurt at least a little bit forever- even if he cut it off I imagine he'd have the phantom pain. And of the three who tried to sacrifice, he was risking the least.
“I don’t think you get it,” Evan said. “All you guys who were telling Blake he should sign up for the Seal of Solomon deal, you never got it.” “Got what?” Tiff asked. “Blake’s meant to fly,” Evan said, as if that explanation made any sense to them. “I was his familiar, even if I don’t remember, and I got the wings, and Blake got to be the magician, and then Blake was the monster, and I remember that. Or this, I mean. But if there was any justice in the world, then I’d be the wizard or the monster and Blake would have the wings. Because I’d be a great monster, and Blake… he’s meant to fly.”
aaaaahhahaha...I knew Evan wouldn't let this slide but I was not prepared for that
That hit real hard- he's right; blake is meant to fly
“For Blake, yeah,” Evan said. “So let’s treat this like we would any other trap and take a hike! Literally! We can go, we find another exit. We fight the guy waiting for us there, and then we leave.” I was already shaking my head.
This is painful in the same way that the blake-giving-up-the-identity-struggle was painful
“The idea was that I’d destroy him,” Rose said. “This would count,” I said. “No!” Evan said. “Damn you! This is- no! You don’t get to jump straight to that! Do you know how hard I’ve had to work to keep Blake alive while he’s throwing himself into danger and fighting dragons and demons for your sakes?”
I mean from Evan's point of view it's just gotta be a mix of frustrating, desperate, hopeless, etc. He's seeing all his hard work and his best friend go, if Blake does this
She approached me, but she didn’t climb onto me like she had in the past. She climbed up the throne, flipped her tail over so it was on what amounted to an armrest, and reclined, sitting sideways. If a fish could ‘sit’. The sinuous nature of her lower body was especially clear with the way she’d draped herself back over the throne. “You can’t,” I said. “I know. It’s not for me, and I’d be really bad at it,” she said. “Won’t work. Getting past this isn’t as easy as having someone else take the seat.”
Green Eyes nearly just gave me a heart attack
She spoke, “He’ll live a long time. It won’t be good living. This is maybe one of the worst places for him to be, or it will be, once he settles in. A perfect, personalized misery, just for him.” “It’s not being destroyed,” Ty said. “It’s being condemned.”
I shudder to imagine being blake, and having to sit through or make this argument about his fate
The Abyss wanted me to be its plaything. I’d been given the power to affect change, to take action and try to defend my friends, and it had all led to this.
Yeah, you really wanted those wings- figures this is how you'd pay for them. I don't think this chapter ends with Blake taking the throne, but I have a sneaking dread that it might end with him promising to take the throne after the events of the book, after faysal and probably barbatorem again are dealt with.
“Why should he do it?” Evan asked. “He made the hard choice once, so he can do it again? No! When’s the last time any one of you made the big sacrifice?” “Missing a hand here,” Alister said.
Not the correct argument to make, Ev. I get it, but not the time, probably. I mean, there's a weight to what he's saying: the likes of Alister and Johannes only sacrifice when the opportunity is right in front of them, and are otherwise content to just sit by and watch shit happen until Blake has to deal with it. I was gonna say, 'or someone like blake' but there's not really anyone else like Blake. But I don't think they're gonna be particularly receptive to that argument right now. Evan is right but he's not making it seem like it, and picked a bad moment to try.
Green Eyes answered Evan’s call. “I don’t know what the nugget is saying-” “And stop calling me a nugget!” “-but the thing I keep hearing, over and over again, is that everything comes with a price. What I’d like to know is, what are you paying Blake? What does he get in the deal?”
Oh? This is a new tactic, and one that might be more familiar to a group of practitioners
“No,” I said. I squared my jaw, and stood up a little straighter. “No, Green Eyes is right. This isn’t something you ask for without giving something in return.”
Well, it's something, at least- I'm a bit surprised by blake making this argument, when he seemed so resigned, but I..might be happy that he is? I'm not sure, I don't see a way that this goes well
He spread his arms, then dropped them to his side. “I don’t want to say it, but apparently I wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for you. I won’t say I regret it, but… I don’t remember it, and that’s making it feel really hard to justify. There’s Tiff, and there’s Alexis.” He put emphasis on her name. It had the desired effect.
I was just wondering where Ty was in all of this; seeing this version of him, so torn-down compared to the one we knew before, the one who wanted to make something of himself with magic, dive into each new Practice...it's sobering, especially after Alexis. A shame Ty and Johannes never got to talking; I figure they really would've gotten along.
“I’m going to side with Blake on this one,” Rose said. I looked at her in surprise. “Green Eyes is right. Everything has a price. If we accept this option, let Blake make this choice, we’re going to pay somehow, further down the line. We should give up something, to make it more equitable.”
Rose, surprisingly, has learned a lot about the way things seem to work. I'm glad. It makes her winning the battle a lot easier to handle
Speaking of paying for things further down the line...I really thought that Blake getting his friends involved was going to be a net win, a good decision more than it was a bad one
so I'm just going to back off of that particular opinion.... (edited)
“You can’t resent someone for something that you don’t recall,” Tiff said. “Knowing Blake, admittedly not that well, I don’t think it was mean spirited.” “It was selfish,” I said. “And it happened,” Ty said. “Alexis is dead.”
yeah. Yeah.
I saw the scene from Alexis’ perspective. Looking over at the others. Looking up at me. She screamed something, the view distorting with each word.
No, no come on this is the worst
which is exactly the Abyss' MO, but still
The image lingered on her, making sure I knew. Her eye was open, a glimmer visible from a distant candle. It didn’t blink, even as seconds passed.
...fuck. I guess, maybe I should be glad that at least she died, instead of succumbing to barbatorem, going mad, becoming a bogeymen or part of the bookworm...
not that she wouldn't've made a pretty cool ink-themed bogeyman, with all those tattoos
Alexis hunched over, and I saw another little flame join the lights that danced in her eyes. A lighter. Cigarette lit, she straightened. She saw me looking, and raised one hand in a wave. Her arm was broken. A ghost? An Other?
Or maybe...I don't know? This seems too good to be true, but also, these words have a good feeling to them. They don't feel like the abyss tormenting blake, they feel more...comforting than that
Alexis, continuing her circuit around the clearing, stopped by the throne. She stayed behind it.
Ah, nope
never mind, just tempting
“Why does it feel like you’re more on his side than ours?” the other Behaim asked. “Because I’m tired of taking sides,” Rose said. “So long as everyone takes sides, the scales will inevitably wind up tipping, and we suffer for it.”
I'm starting to really really like rose again, for the first time in a while. It's something that's been building throughout this arc but now she just seems tired and fed up with all of the stuff we're tired and fed up with and I'm really digging it. I can't believe I'm now rooting for Rose and Alister to ascend to Lordship, but here we are
“Do you know who thinks they’re being rational?” Evan asked. “The Angel. You know, the dog that’s waiting for us out there.” “Dog?” Green Eyes looked at us. She flipped over, so her chin was on the armrest. “I didn’t see it.”
I'm still more with evan than with rose but that's nothing new. Friggin ozymandius dog. Also it's gone, so that's not ominous at all. I can't decide whether it'd be better if faysal chose to leave, or if something got to him first. The second one is probably worse. But it would be satisfying
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Elliot (Boy) 03-Sep-20 09:33 PM
I can’t believe I’m now rooting for [x], but here we are
Wildbow-stories.txt
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JayManiac 03-Sep-20 09:33 PM
Ahahahahahahahahahahahaaha
a very correct assertion
heck, even (parahumans) Victoria Dallon was on that list for me (edited)
“I swear I’ll approach this deal with honest intentions,” Rose declared. “Blake received the passion to strive for a future, I received the ability, but no passion, no drive, and no goal. I have only an arranged marriage while you have my fiancé‘s engagement ring, and a future rife with conflict and chaos, due to me by my bloodline’s karma. Now… I’m staking the open nature of my future on this deal. If I’m dishonest in this bargain, I give the Abyss the right to claim my future, in addition to any and all other costs I pay.”
bulba
man, the fact that this book has managed to sell me on rose, unsell me on rose, and then sell me on rose again is astounding
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Megafire 03-Sep-20 09:37 PM
A real rollercoaster, huh?
Or... Rosercoaster?
smolangry 2
Ilovethis 2
Eh?
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JayManiac 03-Sep-20 09:37 PM
oh my gods that was terrible
reluctant but genuine clapping
“I hereby request Blake,” she said. “I request passage to the outside for me and my allies. In exchange, I’ll give you what you desire, and I’ll give you us. You’ll have my services as a scourge. Bit of a step down from being the town’s diabolist, but I’ve done a bit of it before, and I can do more. A lifetime of service.”
I mean, is it a step down from diabolism? I suppose in the literal sense, perhaps, but I don't know? Rose might be making a solid bargain here, and Blake has shown that maybe the Abyss' goals can be accomplished in productive ways. It's not a perfect deal, and it's got lots of potential to go wrong, but such is the way of the Otherverse
“Not yet,” Rose said. She turned to look at me. The roots hadn’t released my feet.
Ah, you crafty bastard you.
“You could have thrown me off the side of the pillar,” she said. “Or at least let me fall.” “Could have,” I said.
Yeah, Blake hasn't really shown his inhumanity as much, as of late, especially when it comes to Rose. Granted, the comparable subjects are demons and bogeymen who are further gone than he is, but still. Over the past arc, he's been pretty good about working to save people against the Abyss' wishes.
“Do you know the familiar ritual off the top of your head?” “You’re not considering-” “I’m not,” she said. “Honest. I’m not.”
Ahahahahaahahahahahahahahaha I reacted probably the same way as Alister: with a "holdthefuckupthisisverytouchingbutdoyouknowwhat'saterribleidea? This.
“That’s enough,” Rose said. She glanced over her shoulder. “I, Rose Thorburn, invite you within. Let my body be the gate and the dwelling. We were once one, then two, and now we will be an incomplete whole, for just a short time. I offer you mercy, and I bare my throat to you, knowing what you are to me. May my body be your shelter, my strength your strength, my being your sustenance.” “Damnation,” Alister said. “Should have known what I was getting into, marrying a Thorburn.”
Aaaaaa this is so cool- I had no idea what to expect from this chapter but it certainly wasn't anywhere close to what's currently happening.
But hell yes
Let's finish this as the Thorburn Heir
also, I like Alister more now, but it's still delightful to see him squirm when faced with the chaos that is dealing with our protagonists
I replied, “As the willing spirit, I accept your offer. I agree to share in my own power and strength.” Rose continued, “I give you me, my body for your spirit, for enough time that we might put old affairs to rest. I give you time, up until we reach the moment where one might destroy the other. I give you this with the hope that we both will strive for balance, and the knowledge that we will likely not find it.”
Oh gods dammit am I gonna cry? It's a possibility. This moment is so powerful
agree 3
Alister handed her the Hyena. Green Eyes tensed, now out of the chair. Rose cut, severing me from the body, and I lost my eyes, my wings, and everything else. ■
Wow. And with the Hyena no less
The scene was broken, two sets of sound, two different views. I might have been viewing it all through a shattered television screen with two sets of audio out of sync. Out of the left eye, I could see my mother fussing over me. Out of the right, she was standing still, distracted, fixing her hair. In the left, I was Rose. In the right, Blake.
Yes, yes, yes, yes- this is so cool- maybe they finally get to understand each other!? I, too, know that the answer is probably not, but I also really hope it's possible
I also know that it's not a given, that being supernaturally forced to see through your radically-different twin's eyes will immediately guarantee empathy or understanding...can't imagine where I learned something that specific 😉
🐐 🐟
so they're gonna have to work on it
but still
I tried to find my way, to approach the surface. Perhaps I could take one eye, to see the outside world. Slowly, things were taking form around me. Making this a place I could navigate, or operate in.
this is such a unique and cool mindscape environment and I'm so thrilled to be here
I tried to, listening and looking for cues. Instead, I only heard Conquest’s amused chuckle, echoing through the shattered space.
Ah shit
thistbh 1
ohno 1
I forgot he had an absolute bastard of a roommate
welp
that's the chapter- I can't read the next one right now, but boy do I want to
Also, of course- I'm sure there are a multitude of meanings, but we haven't even talked about the arc being titled possession yet
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JayManiac 07-Sep-20 09:15 PM
So! Weekends are generally a stressful time to liveread so I've got to take them off, but I return to the strange scape of roseblake, where I assume we'll be spending the rest of the story?
The landscape around me wasn’t quite dreamlike. There was a logic here, a pattern that had a kind of familiarity to it. There was Rose, and there was me, striving to fill the gaps. In large part, I was able to. But where this kaleidoscopic world was shifting, different elements moving around me like a close up of an eye, dilating and widening, there were solid elements too. Elements that didn’t move.
I love these abstract environments, where we get to see things in terms of concepts and connections. It's a big part of why (ward) the shardscape is such a fascinating place to me, and why I love spending time there. I'm absolutely picturing something out of Dr. Strange here, especially after editing that one Pact video.
I changed my perspective once more. The pillar, the parts I could see, there were elements at play. Figures, with longer hair, a length of thigh, arms folded over the chest. Eyelashes. They were me, or they were Rusty, but only fragments had survived the damage, from the cracks that ran along the pillar’s surface. Femininity, perhaps, or self image that fit with Rose being female.
I'm so curious about the original 'rusty' or whatever their name might've been. Their sense of self, their life, their attitude, all of it. What exactly made them such an ideal candidate for this process, and how much of that Rosalyn orchestrated herself?
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Qaysed 07-Sep-20 09:20 PM
given how much Rose and Blake have managed each with less than half of Rusty, he must have been a pretty amazing guy
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JayManiac 07-Sep-20 09:21 PM
The Barber’s work had cut the arch in two, from one side to the other, and left a black fracture through the landscape that ran through virtually everything here. The damage was such that the two halves didn’t fit together anymore. A puzzle with a thick strip taken out of the middle. The two halves no longer meshed.
I also love that we keep getting various versions of this image, a bunch of different symbols of the damage Barbatorem caused, reflected everywhere in the mindscape. Also: agreed, Qaysed. I think I'd've liked being friends w/ them.
I focused a little harder one one section, a little more prominent than the rest, the colors bolder, the image sharper. More importantly, it was a scene that was mostly intact, and entirely on her side of the black fracture. Something of Rose’s that had been denied to me. Entirely unfamiliar. “Ros-” the sound stuttered. “Go to the principal’s office.”
Ilovethis
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Ishamoridin 07-Sep-20 09:25 PM
I must be the only person who prefers 'Ross' 😛
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JayManiac 07-Sep-20 09:36 PM
I kinda do too, I'd be good to go with either
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Ishamoridin 07-Sep-20 09:38 PM
Ross feels like the most direct reference to Rose, Blake being so focused on Rusty strikes me as being due to him not getting the name in the split. Like it was taken so completely his intuition about what makes sense there is inverted
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JayManiac 07-Sep-20 09:42 PM
It could also be that Blake's sense of name is warped due to his time in the drains, where everything 'rusts'
Ilovethis 1
too on the nose? perhaps
but a fun detail if not
Her face still a fractured mess, a reconfiguration that only resembled a girl. The Barber hadn’t needed to be too careful, there. It was a memory. Flaws were to be expected.
part of why I love this book and this particular conceit of the book is how it plays with a reconstructionist view of the past- history itself with the likes of Faysal, and memory with Blake, Rose, and anyone who was affected by the event known in this liveread as the Blakening
I heard Conquest’s voice, a whisper. This time I was grounded enough to look for the source. It came from above and around. As if the sky was talking to me.
well I don't know about y'all but for me that does not strike as a particularly comfortable spot for conquest to occupy in this place. Although in an abstract environment he would be the type to be a voice from above, dominating and talking down...fuckin jackass
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JayManiac 07-Sep-20 09:56 PM
But I was small, and I was looking at things in a small way. A large part of the reason it didn’t make sense, was that I was studying a complex organism on what amounted to a cellular level. I pulled back.
Ah, this is all so cool and I'm not sure what to say about it beyond that- if anyone's ever played universe sandbox in vr, that's exactly what I'm picturing
Once I figured out the landscape on the macro sense, I was able to find her consciousness. It moved like a roiling storm, too many factors and variables to take in. Rose’s boots crunched through the snow as she approached the waiting group, Alister, Evan and Green Eyes in her company. Peter, Ainsley, Ellie and Christoff all stood at the ridge above the hole the house had collapsed into. Ellie and Christoff sat a fair bit further back than the others did.
and this transition to the action of the chapter is wonderful- I wonder how exactly the story will play out from here? Kind of Rose third person, with Blake chiming in? That worked pretty well in ward, with rain's interludes as well as tristan/byron, which I already made the comparison to
“Peter,” Rose greeted her cousin. Ainsley pulled away from under Peter’s arm to approach and hug Alister.
Peter and Ainsley is a weird pairing that I'm not sure what to make of. Seeing them maybe become friends through this crisis is a weird note that I'm pretty sure I'm here for, if only because they could both use friends, and they could probably both benefit from each others' viewpoints. Idk if they'll stay friends or even survive all of this, but it's possible that the war has been a bit of a bonding moment! I mean you can't huddle together for warmth in a winter wonder-warzone without getting at least a little attatched
I meant to say a lot of that last chapter but was distracted by everything else that happened last chapter
Also Ainsley and Alister is wholesome and I hope they get along better than they used to
because on one hand everyone's a fuckin asshole in middle school, and I've had lots of people I disliked back then become friends gradually just by virtue of getting to know them and working together
but also Alister's been fast-forwarding through all his hardships so maybe he's still Like That
It was family looking after family. Rose watched Alister’s eyes, and she tried not for the first time, to reconcile her feelings on that front. His face was almost punchable, sometimes, especially the periodic smirks. Attractive, but punchable. She wondered if it would become something endearing or if she’d grow to want to strangle him. He was so casually confident, almost smarmy, at his worst.
Ahahahahaahahahahaha, Rose is going through similar dilemas- it's also fun that this way we also get to see her thoughts
I imagine this is where I'm really starting to fall for Rose again, getting to see her thoughts and relate to her as a protagonist
heck, this setup is almost an artificial 'histories' or interlude chapter, without really being those things
Seeing him dealing with his cousin, his almost restrained patience at dealing with Ainsley’s mothering and concern, Rose felt like there was a possibility there. A place in this marriage-to-be where she might be comfortable with him. If not comfortable, at least not wanting to actively murder him. She looked away before she could get caught staring.
I mean now that we're marrying him definitely and there's not much we can do to not do that, I might as well just hope that they get along and take an optimistic view of things
thinking about the negatives and wondering whether it's a good idea are things for before you make the decision
now you think about the negetives and how you can make em better
“You look like shit,” Peter told Rose, in a marked contrast to Ainsley’s gentleness and care.
yep, that's the thorburns
I'm disgraced by how happy I am to see Peter
lol 1
“The stickman didn’t make it out?” Peter asked.
Aww, buddy. Maybe he misses his intrepid leader. Or maybe he cares exactly as much about this as is implied.
can't really be sure with that guy
“You’re going to remember him forever? He holds a place in your heart?” Peter asked. “No,” Rose said, annoyed.
pfft
Peter, you jackass
“The bogeyman’s spirit is possessing her,” Alister said. He reached out, and he clasped Rose’s right “He’s dormant for now, but he may take a more active role soon.” Ainsley’s head snapped around, giving Rose a second look, suddenly very concerned. “Oh,” Peter said. He paused for a beat, then said, “That sounds like a terrible idea, but you know, I’m just the uninitiated guy who got introduced to all this a matter of hours ago. If you guys think it’s okay, I can roll with it.” “No,” Alister said. “It is a terrible idea.” Peter flashed a smile. “Oh. At least I’m hitting the mark, figuring this stuff out.”
Yeah, I think maybe Peter's gotten past the 'can't directly lie' part of things, and onto what we all knew from the start: that he'd be an annoyingly great practitioner if he were awakened. He's getting more confident, which maybe means more annoying, but maybe would be good for him if the people around him handled it in the right way.
“Can’t help but notice he had his arm around you, as we walked up,” Alister said. “Did he? I barely paid attention,” Ainsley said. Then, a little defensively, as my cousin glanced at her, she added, “We were cold, sitting here waiting for all of you, and I’m tired, so I don’t see how it’s a big deal.”
I wasn't fully shipping it before, and I'll admit I don't know ainsley well enough to tell whether my read is correct, but to me this reaction is a little....see, I don't want to say tsundere but there's no better word for what I mean here. I mean, 'suspiciously defensive' would be the other term, but tsundere is just that in a romantic context and I'm just gonna ship it lowkey and move on.
It sounded like she was addressing Peter as much as anything. Rose paid particular attention to that. She analyzed it, and I didn’t follow the analysis. I could figure it out myself, without studying it. Peter took it all in stride, shrugging.
Some people like wickedly intelligent emotionally immature bad boys, I can't blame her.
“Okay,” Alister cut in, his voice firmer. “You did not have to word that like that. You could have asked me instead of her.” Peter looked offended, “I spent way too long sitting in the cold with her, we hiked all the way from the woods on the fucking other end of town. We’ve talked, so I’m sorry if I feel more comfortable asking her than asking you.”
Alister is, apparently, not shipping it. Perhaps forcefully not shipping it
Rose’s heart rate picked up a touch as the creature narrowed her eyes. She reached for Conquest- -And I could see the landscape on my end of things change. If Rose’s self was a realm unto itself, with me holding some territory and Rose holding the rest, then Rose willingly ceded territory to Conquest.
Uhhhh....that's so concerning, how easily she reaches for his power. I mean I get that this could be a tense moment, but it just seems like maybe every time Blake thought she was using conquest, she probably was. Which is ah...not the best relationship to have there, whether you've discussed it or not.
“You’re in my way,” Conquest said. She didn’t speak in a loud voice, but it carried in the church. “I don’t think you want to be in my way.”
Just what I didn't want to deal with. But of course she's a minister of a church. That somehow tracks. The white petals have something to them but I'll have to ask my partner~ they're really into plant symbology so they'd probably know what to make of it, unless it's a rose-specific thing that I'm not putting together
Conquest smiled with her pinched mouth. She stepped down from the altar, fingers touching the petals that had fallen around the base of the bouquets. Another sign of lingering influence. “Rose knows what I’m doing. She knows the price.”
I want to trust rose here, but I'm also reserving a good bit of doubt that she's really had time to think about what this might be doing to her/
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spinagon 07-Sep-20 10:38 PM
Multiflora rose is an exotic invasive perennial shrub native to China, Japan, and Korea
(edited)
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JayManiac 07-Sep-20 10:38 PM
Ah, thank you!
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spinagon 07-Sep-20 10:39 PM
That's my guess, anyway
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JayManiac 07-Sep-20 10:39 PM
I forgot about his connection to invasive species there
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alex v 07-Sep-20 10:39 PM
invasive species
... yeah, that makes a lot of sense
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JayManiac 07-Sep-20 10:39 PM
“She- Ainsley doesn’t know. She’s not versed in this stuff. She’s a good student, a good practitioner. She doesn’t have any defenses against-” Alister said, with genuine worry creeping into his voice. He stopped very deliberately. “Against assholes,” Rose said. “Against the scummy, slimy, far-too-intelligent-for-anyone’s-good guys who every dad and caring cousin worries will come calling.” “Yeah,” Alister said, and there was an odd inflection to his voice.
Okay, so maybe shipping this is a bad idea, but I think it could still be a growing experience for both of them. But on another note, it's kind of adorable to see Alister worried, even if he needs to leave things alone a little more and trust Ainsley to make her own decisions, for better or worse. He seems to care a lot more than he did at 13, which is hopeful.
“He’s trying to get a rise out of you,” she said. “He’s scared, and he wants control, even if that control is earned by getting to the guy who seems to know what he’s doing.”
yeah, Peter's got a long way to go there
“The handsome, talented guy who happens to be engaged to his cousin,” Rose said. She tried to make the compliment sound natural, but to her ears, and to mine, as I listened with those ears, it didn’t sound that way. I was also privy to the fact that it killed her, just a little, that she hadn’t been able to pull it off. “Fair enough,” Alister said, and he did manage to make it sound natural, enough to ease that small knot of anxiety.
This chapter's done a really good job of getting me to relate to Rose hard. We've all had that moment that didn't really land, and the internal cringe thereafter
I felt vaguely uncomfortable. There was a dissonance that came with looking through Rose’s eyes. Seeing Evan and Green Eyes without the same sort of familiarity or attachment. Most definitely not rose-tinted glasses.
lol
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Wildbow 07-Sep-20 10:43 PM
The entire book was a setup for that one.
lol 5
(Not really)
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JayManiac 07-Sep-20 10:45 PM
I wouldn't be surprised if you'd been saving it for a while before the chapter, though. The dad jokes are appreciated.
“Does Rose know?” “She knows that I have been making myself necessary. She’d be stupid not to, and your counterpart isn’t stupid.
calling conquest childish would be a grievous insult to children, but he does seem to have that desperate tendency of some, to make themselves important at all costs in a way that doesn't really work as endearing. But this is concerning, hearing it from the horse's mouth.
Rose was silent. Most of the others, including the others who had escaped the Abyss, the High Priest, the Knights, Tiff, and Ty, had stopped, collected as a loose group. Ms. Lewis stood a distance away. Facing all of them. “I was expecting this,” Rose said, echoing Conquest.
1. Creepy to hear those thoughts projeted into the real world. Like, so creepy. 2. Holy shit gods dammit of course they'd show up now about something whether it's the property going abyss-up, Faysal making more moves, or Babs falling. They can access the Abyss, so they could probably bring him back. The dickwaffles.
I looked down at Conquest, who wore Grandmother’s body, her expression cold.
Yeah, that tracks. Also Rose having to let Conquest go in favor of Blake might end up being more of a good thing, depending on how necessary she's already made herself
Maybe he can wane her off of it
Lewis didn’t look surprised in the slightest. “Conflict it is, then,” she said. “I’m sorry to have to do this, but I have orders.”
Dammit, and for some reason I still believe she's sorry
Rose nodded, but she didn’t speak. She didn’t trust herself to. “Sorry, Blake,” she thought, communicating to me. “But if you could endure, I’d really appreciate it. And if you could help, that’d be even better, because I have a dozen ideas, and zero faith they’re going to work.” That thought expressed, she started to feed into Conquest.
Rose showing weakness to Blake is heartening, but giving more power to conquest is not
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JayManiac 07-Sep-20 11:04 PM
Rose’s rifle swung around. She slapped it against her left hand. At the butt end, her right thumb ran along the inscribed rune. The tip of the gun jerked, the aim correcting. Centered on Ms. Lewis’s heart. Rose’s eye looked down the sights. With Conquest’s confidence surging through her, her hand didn’t waver. Her breathing came easily, as she exhaled slowly, simultaneously pulling the trigger.
Oh dear. We're starting now, then.
(also I decided to roll into the next chapter; not sure whether I'll finish, but I couldn't leave it there)
Ilovethis 2
bulba 2
sharkhi 4
“You still had bullets?” Alister exclaimed. “Always save one bullet,” Rose said, and her voice sounded disconnected, even to her. “Rule of thumbs for diabolists. Goblin queens and scourges too.”
XD
Good rule of thumb
So much of what she had done had been to buy time. Keep Blake at bay, because he was so very dangerous, and the time he cost her was just one of the dangers. She’d used the Barber to stall future attacks. All to put off this moment, or one like it.
It seems like we're much more solidly in Rose's perspective from this point forwards, as if the last chapter was a transitional one. I assume we'll hear a couple peeps from him throughout it, but maybe not? Maybe we'll leave the situation of where he is with conquest until the next chapter, or the end of this one?
“Ellie, go get her,” Rose gave the order. “Leave Christoff. If you run into anyone, anything… if it’s hostile, whatever it is, tell them the diabolists are here. It’s open season.” Best way to get them here. If things get that far, and if things get ugly, I can maybe point them at Lewis.
Even the present-tense itallics'd thoughts are in Rose's voice, which solidifies my point from earlier, and to me suggests that blake's voice this chapter is a little less likely
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Elliot (Boy) 07-Sep-20 11:11 PM
Good rule of thumb
Hm, I’d maybe read that again and really think about what the rule is if I were you (I was you and missed it the first time)
thistbh 2
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alex v 07-Sep-20 11:11 PM
I really like how WB handled the Blake/Rose voice situation in those chapters
Although even after serious consideration, I'd argue it's still a good rule of thumb
agree 1
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Elliot (Boy) 07-Sep-20 11:12 PM
Fair
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JayManiac 07-Sep-20 11:13 PM
Yeah, more concerning, but hard to argue with
“What sort of crest?” the High Priest asked. “Against madness? I’d say the seal of solomon would work, but… that rules out too many other things,” Alister said. “We need to cover more bases, if there’s a possibility of other Choirs.”
Warding against all of the choirs sounds like quite a complex act of creation, especially considering what babs was able to do to one of those wards (granted, not one of alister's)
“My continued employment supercedes death. It’s a… consequence of dealing with beings that operate in the very deepest workings of reality.” Ms. Lewis said. “Now, if I may call in a favor, Mur-” Nick raised his arm. The Knight to his right aimed and fired, cutting off Ms. Lewis before she could finish. “Guns are underrated,” Evan said, brightly. “Bang!”
There's something oddly comical about this sequence of events- though I'm catching on that it's happened twice now
“Faysal,” she said, and she allowed Conquest to take a greater hold, putting all of her authority as a practitioner of some heritage and the power derived from Conquest into her voice. “For the third time, I ask for an audience!”
Every time Conquest gets more of a hold I just feel this awful pressure on my throat and it does not feel like a positive narrative beat
“How’s Blake doing in there?” Evan asked. Green Eyes turned to look, glaring. “Not good,” Rose admitted. Not good. Understatement, that.
I love the transition to Blake's pov
Conquest held me, forcing me to be the bludgeon that she used to knock down barriers, and they were darker barriers than Rose’s. She tore down my superstructures, and my confidence with them. She hurled me, and did it with enough force that she could collect me again before I’d recovered. Forced me to fail at getting to my metaphorical feet, as scenes unfolded around me.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaa this is Concerning
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alex v 07-Sep-20 11:20 PM
fine
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JayManiac 07-Sep-20 11:21 PM
A thick black line, running through a whole tract of my life. Scenes removed, or broken into pieces too small to make out. Half of my memories and experiences with my friends had been cut away. Not given to Rose. Just… removed.
fine fine fine
“Thanks for coming, Nick,” Rose said. “If you wanted to run, now, I wouldn’t blame you.” “A demon took people from me,” Nick said. “In every sense of the word, they’re gone. You were right, when you said an entire town might suffer the same fate. You want us to run when there’s a chance we might be able to do something against some other demons? Or some immortal bitch that thinks it’s a good idea to traffic with them? I’m almost insulted.” “I wouldn’t be insulted at all,” Peter said. “Can I run?”
This is such a good moment- Nick's speech is suprisingly heartening and rousing, and then Peter tacked on at the end is its own strange kind of uplifting, too
The air seemed to vibrate. Things seemed to cross over, double images, and Murr crawled forth from the gap between images. It was a mote. The head was reminiscent of a skull, and the lower body looked as though entrails were spilling out, with an excess of bone splinters, and the hands were riddled with bone splinters until they’d become talons, but the general proportions were those of a baby.
Well...at least it's a mote? This is going to quickly become less comforting, isn't it?
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alex v 07-Sep-20 11:24 PM
Be Zen Jay... fine
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JayManiac 07-Sep-20 11:24 PM
Ah they just keep coming- I don't know that I'll pull all of them, but they're all concerning. I don't know exactly what choirs these are from but each one is surely its own flavor of awful
“Evan,” Rose said. “I need you to make a break for it.” “Oh,” Evan said. “A break for it. Past fangs and skull-bits, and two-heads, and mister tumor and stretchy-skins?”
Man, I love Evan
It's also a good way of sorting out the demons for us, too
“No!” Evan’s cry reached out. “No! I’m not just going to do it because you say so! That’s now how this works!” Conquest frowned.
Ehehehehehehehehehehe - I don't think this is the third time that rose has pushed conquest into her voice to get someone to do something. It might be, actually. First Alister or Peter- then Ellie, then Evan, to no avail. That would work.
I love this reaction, though
it absolutely got me the way a three beat is supposed to: I was really expecting him to go, and I think Rose was too
The incarnation was stronger than me, occupied more space than me. We warred for our share of a space inside Rose’s being. I’d drawn strength from Evan just being there.
bulba
Now I touched on other things. Memories of my bike. Of warm moments with friends. All the things that made me Blake. I consciously willed those things to become part of my identity again. And, swelling just a bit, I began to push Conquest back and out.
This is the most genuine and rousing and wonderful and effective care bears moment of awesome that I've experienced for a long time- the power of self actually working here is such a triumph
I had to pay a price, in the end. I stared down at the sprawl of memories, individual facets that made up me, facets that made up Rose. Reaching out, I seized cherished experiences. Cherished parts of me.
Ah shit, what's he doing now!?
I couldn’t hold on to any, if I wanted this to work. Not of human camaraderie, anyway. I held on to Evan, and to Green Eyes. I gave her the rest. Pushed them onto her side. Dumped them. Hit Rose with it all at once. All while squeezing Conquest out of her head.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
FUCK
NoooooOOOOOOO
He put an arm around her shoulders, hugging her close. There were tears in her eyes. “Fuck, Blake! He’s…giving me a taste of what I never had. I can’t do it alone.”
Aaaaaaaa this is so heart-wrenching and scream-inducing and wonderful and terrible and what the fuck!?
thistbh 3
same 1
Faysal, wearing his dog form, sat at one side of the circle. Opposite Ms. Lewis, who stood on a shattered section of driveway. “You can stop,” Faysal said. “I’m here. Hello, Lewis.” “Faysal Anwar,” Ms. Lewis said. “You don’t mean to interfere, I hope?” The dog shook his head. “If anything, I’m willing to help, if you’ll agree to dispose of these pests.” Ms. Lewis smiled.
Faysal, you piece of shit- I can't believe I almost thought you were going to help for another second.
What a chapter
I'm not sure how much of Blake is Blake anymore, but I'm so excited to keep reading tomorrow; we have one more chapter of possession before the interlude and I have no idea what to expect
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JayManiac 08-Sep-20 12:13 AM
Of course; it's such a blast to read! Thank you all for chiming in now and again!
bulba 1
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JayManiac 08-Sep-20 06:41 PM
“When you say pests, or ‘help’, you wouldn’t mean, say, those imp things being pests and you helping us?” Peter asked. “No,” Faysal said. “Then you’re a complete and utter bastard,” Peter said. “What the hell right do you have, calling yourself an angel?”
See we've been over and over this again, but the reason it's so satisfying to have Peter in this story taking shots is that he's nowhere near the biggest asshole in it. He tell Faysal exactly what I'm sure everyone reading would like to and I'm just glad someone said it.
“That would be a label others applied to me,” Faysal said. “Human invention.” “I was under the impression that all Others of any given classification were of human invention, to some degree, conscious or unconscious,” Rose said. “Influenced, at the very least.”
Ilovethis
he tries to pull the 'ah that's one of your human constructs' but he's a human construct. That's what the likes of Mara never got: that the constructs and inventions are as real as whatever she holds up as truth, and they mattter just like everything else. If they didn't, we wouldn't be in this mess
Not thinking straight, Rose admitted to herself. To me.
Oh! We're still in Blake's perspective! I don't know what that perspective is exactly but we're here!
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spinagon 08-Sep-20 06:45 PM
Rose's conscience
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JayManiac 08-Sep-20 06:46 PM
I’d given her a portion of myself, an attachment to Tiff, Ty, Alexis, and to Toronto, with the idea that maybe, just maybe, she might be able to engage in actual teamwork. Not simply giving orders, but working with others. If I had to, if I could figure out what she was striving to do, here, I could give her something else.
This is such a cool conceit for this part of the story- at this point I think I've utterly given up on trying to predict what the rest of the book will be like. But yeah, it kind of is like he's rose's conscience. He has to give her the tools she needs to work through things, so they both get to be protagonists. Like Rose is Riley and Blake is Joy and Sadness and Friendship and Bing Bong
I love her trying to piece this together, even if we already know part of the plan. How this works against the Lawyers, and how to learn from what went wrong.
There must be a reason the lawyers haven’t seized control of everything. They aren’t all powerful. What is their vulnerability? Same vulnerability as any diabolist. Everyone loathes them.
Okay, so what do you do with that? I really hope this is gonna be a get-everyone-together-against-a-common-enemy arc, because that's where it would seem to lead, but I'm not totally sure
(edited)
it would fit with the idea that Rose is learning to make the connections, like Blake has been for the whole book- and thus she reaches out to the likes of the rest of the people in toronto, the duchamps, the rest of the junior council, mags, anyone else who wants to fuck up diabolists, etc.
Rose reached for Conquest. There was something sure about the action, a kind of confidence to it that wasn’t artificial. The same sort of confidence needed to leap off a one hundred foot cliff.
I love the buildup that this creates, that we see her preparing her mind for something but don't get the thought of what it is. Such an awesome way of constructing a moment.
When she spoke, it was with power, without hesitation. “In joint partnership with Alister Behaim, I would hereby like to declare, to your ears, and all who would hear it, that we hereby claim ourselves as sovereign Lord and Lady in Jacob’s Bell, with all associated rights and powers.” The words vibrated, carrying.
FUCK YEAH
Ilovethis Ilovethis Ilovethis
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spinagon 08-Sep-20 06:58 PM
And using power of a former Lord to shore up their claim
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JayManiac 08-Sep-20 06:59 PM
“Though,” Alister said, just under his breath, “I wouldn’t have minded knowing about this beforehand.” “I’m sorry,” Rose said. “You’re aware this is suicide? The basic, fundamental idea behind this whole scene was that one side wins, consolidates its power, gets everyone else under their thumb, and then makes the declaration. Not, you know, declaring lordship when we’re down, out, and just a few steps from dying in five different, horrible ways.”
Yeah but that's just the time to start wrecking some shit. And maybe people who became Lords the non-traditional route will be a little more capable of change, of making things..different.
I can hope
I love that we can also tell that this is such a blake move
agree 2
it's kind of just heartwarming, in a sense
“Not merely buying time,” Lewis said. “I can look at you and I can tell, your demeanor would be different if you were still racing to piece together a plan.” Rose smiled. “So tell me,” Lewis said. “Why shouldn’t I order the imps to attack you now?” “Ask Faysal,” Rose said. “If he thinks about it, he should realize why it isn’t in his interests to let it happen.”
I love the utter confidence, the utter shit-eating-ness of "yeah, I just did that". It's something that only a blake/rose combo could muster. Man, Ross would've been fuckin stellar at that. No wonder he was so likeable. I can't help but think this is one of those moves where even your enemies feel a little bad for you. This is some real pidgeonchess tactics and I wholeheartedly approve.
“You manipulated connections. Ones tying you to Toronto.” “Yes,” Rose said. “You let them know,” Faysal concluded. “The residents of Toronto.” Rose smiled.
Eeeeehhheheheheheheheheheheheheeee
“Oh,” Alister said, under his breath. He turned and let his forehead rest on Rose’s shoulder, the only available surface he was comfortable using, without a wall available. “Peter? Given that we don’t have a proper blackguard with us, could you do me a favor and-” “I don’t know what that is,” Peter said, interrupting. Rose reached up to put a hand on the back of Alister’s head, patting it. “Just- just do me a favor,” Alister said. “I can’t be sarcastic. In my place, give me a good one? Let me live vicariously through you?”
Aahahahahahahhahahahahhahhahah this is incredible- the true purpose of a blackguard, everybody: sarcasm when it's really really needed. I also love seeing Alister so stressed out. This entire sequence is the best and I'm here for it.
agree 1
Gods this chapter is so much fun
“Faysal wants things neat and tidy,” Rose said, staring down the angel. “He wants us swept under the rug, so the demons can go back in their box and he can go back to angel business as per usual. In the interest of making that very hard to do, I’ve-” “Declared yourself to be someone very important, to Toronto, for some reason,” Peter concluded. “Making things very messy, for Faysal.” “And us,” Ainsley added.
I'm so excited I have the biggest grin on my face this is so much fun to witness
I bet Padraic's just having a field day with all this shit
“Brilliant,” Peter said, with every drip of sarcasm he could muster. “Thank you,” Alister said, without raising his head. “I really appreciate it.” “What are in-laws for?” Peter asked. Alister raised his head to shoot Peter a look, just in time for Peter to clarify, “Cousin-in-law, anyway.” Alister sighed.
Peter is fantastic. This entire dynamic is fantastic. This entire chapter is fantastic. Hell, let's just say the book is fantastic and forget that this entire escalation began with me saying that peter was fantastic, shall we?
Rose had read everything she could, helped by the fact that she hadn’t needed to sleep. If I looked at it that way, I had access to the Thorburn library, as it had once existed. I, in turn, was free to search out what she needed, while her mind focused on other things.
This is such a cool, extremely textual reversal of the entire dynamic throughout the first half of the book, with a lot of growth to overcome the problems that plagued it
“Do you suppose we can wrap this up before the ones she called arrive?” Faysal asked. “We can try,” Ms. Lewis said. “Wait-” Rose started. “Attack,” Ms. Lewis ordered, ignoring her.
Well, shit
that uh. was supposed to work a bit better, I assume.
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jsoh 08-Sep-20 07:14 PM
bad dog 🗞
agree 3
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JayManiac 08-Sep-20 07:14 PM
If the lawyers had access to these imps, they were bound in some fashion. Were they in books? I darted through Rose’s memories, searching, hunting.
This plays in a surprisingly cinematic fashion for how...abstract it is. Almost inception-like, where we pause the action and have a chance to act. Like, what if the pause screen in skyrim didn't stop things, just slowed them down so you had some supernatural power to pause time and search through things
I only needed a little, enough to let this one set of memories rise to the surface. But I also needed Rose to know to grasp it, to use it. Instinct. Gut. That which had allowed me to survive while homeless. To get away from Carl. To fight. Just a little.
Aaaaaaa, this is heartbreaking, but I love it. It's such a perfect, and perfectly tragic character resolution, for Blake to give it all back.
Scratched out in pen on the back of Tiff’s hand was a diagram.
Is it bad that the immediate thought was "ah yes, an alchemy circle!"
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JayManiac 08-Sep-20 07:29 PM
Surbas snarled, and seized Naph, swallowing the imp. We collectively watched in quiet horror as Surbas swelled. Though Naph had only weighed eight or ten pounds, Surbas grew by forty or fifty. His oily black skin failed to grow at the same rate, and started to split at the scenes. Blood leaked out from these fresh wounds.
The steven universe fusion that nobody was looking for or wanted
Rose drew a small knife from her pocket, and pricked her hand. She handed it to Alister as she let the blood drip. Alister added his blood to the mix. Replacing the sigil of solomon with the power of a Lord. Even a small, temporary Lord. The choir of the feral reverse the natural order. Here, we reclaim it. The diagram flared, and the imp was cast out.
Excellent payoff there too- this is more of a fight scene so I'm just trying to follow and there's not as much to pull out, but it's a lot of un
“Order is the antithesis of mankind,” Rose said, interrupting. “Johannes and you tried to establish it, to weaken man’s dominion. A different rule of law.” “Not because I am of Order,” Faysal said. “But because the alternative is to let man careen down his course, right into the growing dominion of demons.”
Good to know he's finally made a choice thereabouts, losing everyone's respect forever. If he hadn't already done that. But also, it seems as if the only reason mankind would be careening down that course at the moment is because some fuzzy fucker opened the godsdamned door for them
“It is,” Rose said. “But I have only one question for you.” Faysal quirked his ears up. “Why the hell are you still a dog?” she asked.
Hm?
I mean I'm curious too, but I don't know- OH SHIT- is Johannes...still alive somehow?
“Because I am still a familiar.”
Hmmmm
I mean it doesn't seem like Johannes survived- I wonder if babs could puppeteer Faysal with that, tug on the connections and mislead him. Probably. Doesn't seem too hard.
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jsoh 08-Sep-20 07:37 PM
tugging on a line to a dog to change his mind? seems likely
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JayManiac 08-Sep-20 07:37 PM
a fair point
“Both abyss and demon have the pipes, which allow the piper to command children, rats, and dogs, among other things,” Rose said. “I imagine you want this situation resolved.”
Ah, a good call
Faysal nodded. One by one, they appeared in flashes. The Shepherd. The Astrologer. The Eye. A man I didn’t recognize. A little girl in white. Isadora the Sphinx, with Paige in tow. Paige was dressed nice, though her dress looked a little bit too much like a toga, what with the flowing white drapery, beneath her heavy coat. Her shoes didn’t look like outdoor wear.
Hey!!! it's The Gang!! Man, I missed these guys. Except for the Eye, because man that guy was a dick. I almost can't believe that bargain with faysal actually worked, but here we are
“Paige? Bullshit!” Peter said. Paige raised a hand in a short wave. “Bullshit,” Peter said, quieter.
Ahahahahahahahaha- look, I like the guy, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy seeing his worldview get utterly served by this.
“If she’s alive, she’s okay,” Rose said. “What the fuck do I care, about her being okay?” Peter asked.
Suuuuure
The Elder Sister smiled in acknowledgement at Rose, as if reading Rose’s mind. The new Lord of Toronto.
Ah. Brilliant. I'll be the blackguard here, everyone, don't worry.
Gods, I do not like the Sisters
I have multiple rants on why I don't like the Sisters
Isadora's chill though
“It leads straight into my next big statement,” Rose said. “We would like to abdicate my Lordship. Given the state of things, I no longer feel that Jacob’s Bell should stand as is. It’s not salvageable, and I would like to turn it over for Toronto to condemn. Remove the roads leading into here. Ward it from the eyes of the unawakened. Let it be lost and forgotten.”
Oh shiiiiiiit
That's...probably for the best
but still
My gods- Briar Girl will be quite displeased, I imagine. Or maybe pleased, depending on how much of the marsh is left after civilization disappears. I worry about what this might do for Mags, having tied her identity to this town, but I think she'll survive. This'll probably count towards her disasters, too.
“Yet, by turning it over to us, you make your problems our problems,” Isadora commented. “I can’t help but notice that you have… immediate, infernal problems at hand.”
Ahahahahahaahahahah- look, I do like isadora, but it really serves everyone here right to have to finally deal with their fucking problems
“You’re bringing all of these others into it.” Rose shrugged, unflinching. “They were always a part of it. They just turned a blind eye.”
Fuckin preach, sister! Okay not you, Sister, you're a bit of a jerk, I meant Rose.
Gods this is so brilliant
“It’s not as simple as that,” the Astrologer said. “It wasn’t. Now I’ve made it that simple,” Rose said. I’m such a bitch, she thought. I privately agreed, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever liked her more.
What an amazing, triumphant end to the arc
I loved this entire experience- I see why it's @A bird 🐦's favorite arc now
Just, such a round of applause to Rose after this one
she didn't do it perfectly but she found a way out, and a way that made everyone finally look at what they were too busy to look at before
She's like Blake, without being any less like Rose, and I'm so very here for it. It's honestly incredible how Pact was able to- basically in the course of a single arc -make Rose the protagonist, and invest us so heavily in her victories. This is my favorite book, and I'll shout that from whatever rooftops I'm given.
agree 3
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JayManiac 08-Sep-20 09:57 PM
I can't get to the interlude today unfortunately (though I'm so curious- with everyone who just arrived it could be anyone's turn for an interlude- though I suppose my guess might be Barbatorem, since it'll be the last interlude of the book and it'd make sense to close it off there) but while you wait, here's some messages my friend just sent me. Her 'read is still around arc 6-ish (whenever we meet Duncan) and she's got some fascinating thoughts that I haven't exactly seen anyone else pull before.
She hasn't gotten to "behaims mess more with perception than legit Time" yet, but it's so fun to see her already putting the pieces together.
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JayManiac 11-Sep-20 12:06 AM
His hands closed into fists. They were covered in so many unhealed cuts and scratches that the simple action was a shuddering one, his fingers and thumb twitching with the pain.
Well this is a downright cheery start to the interlude- this strikes me as a bit too human to be barbatorem, so I'm not sure whose point of view we're in, but this seems like a pretty textbook practitioner, I'd say- just seeing as he's already in the midst of suffering that might not heal like it's supposed to.
“You told me to tell you if I saw it,” Fisher murmured. The practitioner nodded. “I belabor the obvious, but it’s sitting in your kitchen,” Fisher said, only his eyes peering out and above the top of the practitioner’s coat pocket.
Or...not a practitioner? My first thought would be a mouse familiar? You could almost say those had hands- still, very unlcear. We haven't actually really seen any Others small enough to fit in a pocket that aren't familiars. The closest is Pauz and you'd have to have a pretty big coat to fit him. It's also just kind of unclear who 'he' refers to. I'm guessing it's the practitioner, actually, since it's the lights in 'his' apartment, and fisher refers to this as 'your kitchen'. So, my mistake. It seemed like we were in Fisher's perspective for a sec. Still wondering what exactly they are
/whose interlude this is
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Elliot (Boy) 11-Sep-20 12:10 AM
sharkhi
thistbh 1
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JayManiac 11-Sep-20 12:12 AM
(Hiya Elliot! Livereads don't always work during these hours, but I'm glad to give more people the opportunity to jump in without being up at three in the morning)
These opening paragraphs are also just doing a good job of characterizing what sounds like a very tired practitioner who mightn't've slept for a number of days, depending on how much magic was involved
A figure occupied one of the stools. Manlike, but far from being a man.
Don't you just love when Others are inexplicably in your house? I doubt this is a demesne, but still. My current bet is demon, but my secondary guess would be angel
Quite stylish, which honestly could suggest either- or fey for that matter
maybe I should give up the guessing and just read
The figure could have passed for one of the practitioner’s friends. Probably had, already. He looked like the sort that traveled in the same circle, where being in a failed band and recreational drug use were not uncommon.
Ah, a bard, I see! Music Practitioners might be semi-common
But two things served to push matters well past fear and into the realms of despair. For one thing, there was context. Weeks of the hunt, the chase. For another, there was the shadow. Though it wore the shape of a man, the shadow it cast was a shadow of something far, far bigger. Something that shouldn’t have fit into the apartment.
Being hunted by someone or something- the angel we've seen in the story has a reputation for that, but this guy is looking less angelic by the minute. Gonna wane off of my demon theory for now, though, since in my experience demons don't really do the 'human form' thing this well, as far as I can tell
But I love the trope of otherworldly beings' shadows acting weird- it's so much fun
But there was rot in there, too. There were maggots, freed to spill out like grains of rice from a bag, crawling for the nearest spot of darkness.
Were these summoned or just already in the bags? I hope for the latter, grosser option, because it means potentially less grossness for any future interactions we have with this being
The practitioner didn’t care. Even if he somehow survived, he rationalized, he’d never be able to return here. The idea was borne of the same sort of sentiment that made people uncomfortable with living where murders had happened. He couldn’t imagine willingly coming back to a place where he knew this thing had been.
And the guess-compass that doesn't exist because I'm not looking at it shifts a little ways back to demon. Man what if this is just a punk rocker who thought that demons were cool until he met one? That would be real sad.
As though the kitchen were alive, the flesh of a living thing, an extension of the figure.
euheuheu that was somehow perfectly the thing that could've been said to unsettle me further
maybe because I still haven't gotten the flesh-demesne out of my head
same 1
“I prefer to die standing,” the practitioner said. The man at the table took a long drag on his rolled cigarette. “Did I suggest I care what you prefer?” “No, but I’m going to fight for it if I have to.”
This is...admirable, perhaps. Stupid, but admirable. And understandable, from a certain point of view- I'm getting more and more of a punk rock vibe from this guy as we spend time with him but I'm not sure if that's there, or me jumping to assumptions
I also wonder- if there are music practitioners -whether they'd be more celebrities, having used the Practice to accumulate status, or more deadbeats who've had the Practice just suck the life from them
I expect that there's both, but I wonder how many practitioners have actually gotten celebrity status
“To die on your feet? All of the things you could fight for, things you could beg for or actions you could take, and you choose this.” “Have to take a stand somewhere.”
This is dumb. Endearing, but dumb.
Where one ankle rested on his knee, the figure let his foot fall to the floor, toe pointed at the practitioner. It was pain in the same way that a tsunami was water. Pain had flavors, and in one moment, the practitioner tasted all kinds. Sharp sorts of pain. Broken, crushing, burning, and loud sorts of pain. An agony that defied description. He hit the ground, hard, and the feeling of his chin hitting the tile from a five foot, five inch height, without arms moving to break the fall? Only a drop in the bucket.
What a great paragraph- we take just enough of a break from the metaphor that it's surprising and satisfying when it comes back. It's hard to describe these kinds of unimaginable experiences, but this is a really fun way to go about it.
agree 1
A tiny part of him wanted to believe that this was retribution. That it was karma in the vernacular form, eye for an eye justice. A whipping for the criminal. But that part of him wasn’t satisfied. He couldn’t feel it. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t bring himself to feel sorry.
Oh lords, what the fuck did he do?
I'm also wondering why this guy's called "the practitioner" -and whether it might have something to do with the loss of his name
which is more of a fae thing- and this doesn't seem to be a fae -but still
The practitioner moved his hand, and the numerous scratches and cuts made themselves known, though the sensation of pain was so far removed from what he experienced now that it felt almost alien.
This whole 'greater invisible form around me' is kinda reminding me of victoria's forcefield from Ward. Probably not a related idea, but it does act kind of similar. Pretty sure that the 'man' here is really just the appearance of one. Still thought it worth mentioning
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Elliot (Boy) 11-Sep-20 12:41 AM
I'd compare this more to her aura I think
except instead of emotions it's a soul tearing aura
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JayManiac 11-Sep-20 12:44 AM
that's fair
it's not exactly a material thing here
Man, what if vicky's aura had a shape?
we're getting off track, but that would be another cool power
The figure glanced down at the man on the floor. The smile widened. “Mann, Levin, Lewis,” the man on the floor said. The smile faded.
Ah
Fuck
So this is how one becomes a lawyer
this is how they get you- when you have nowhere else to turn
but also aren't in the abyss and entirely useless to them yet
The front door opened. The man who let himself in, unlike the figure in the chair, did not look like he belonged, nor did he look like he had any association with the dying man that lay on a floor covered in blood and crawling maggots. He was thin, handsome but for a scar at the corner of his lip, his hair carefully cut, and he wore a suit.
Man, they are awful but the lawyers are also a lot of fun. There's something comical about them showing up and being so blase about whatever's going on simply because they've seen it all before, because it's just business, etc.
agree 2
“Good evening, Mr. Mahoun,” the lawyer said. “Good evening, Mr. Mann,” the demon on the stool said. “What is a noble of your stature doing here?” “I was called,” the demon noble replied.
Ah, so it is a demon. Well, shit. And a noble, which is I'm assuming of comparable power to Barbatorem, considering that Pauz was (if I'm remembering correctly) the mote of a noble. Do marquis count as noble? Probably. That guy's in a sword, though. In any case this is a very different kind of demon than we've seen before. I'm guessing it's an unfamiliar choir to us: not ruin or feral or darkness or something we have a lot of experience with. It could be ruin, but it's very different from Babs. Certainly more human-seeming than babs was, more subtle. Six or Seventh choirs would be my guesses. But then again, just guesses. Doesn't seem to be fourth, could be second.
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jsoh 11-Sep-20 12:57 AM
barbie was noted as being mid tier
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JayManiac 11-Sep-20 12:57 AM
Yeah, so this thing is probably a little higher than that
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jsoh 11-Sep-20 12:57 AM
i think like uhhh
its probably not like one is stronger than the other its more like can do more
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JayManiac 11-Sep-20 01:00 AM
I mean, I agree- it's more that I'm wondering how dangerous this thing is, and trying to measure it against how dangerous we think of babs as
Which is a dangerous line of thought, comparing them, but it's also what humans tend to do
“He overstepped.” “If the greatest free diabolist in the field were to summon the least of my kind, it would be overstepping,” Mahoun said.
I wonder what he means at 'my kind'. His choir? His 'family'? the nobles? Demons in general? This guy also seems...just, more human, better at playing the part than any demon we've ever seen. Doesn't seem to revel in destruction like the others, just seems to be following a personal grudge.
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Elliot (Boy) 11-Sep-20 01:02 AM
I was originally confused by that line too but I've settled on him meaning all demonkind
So even a mote like Pauz
Jay picking up the humanity of this demon real early. Hot damn.
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JayManiac 11-Sep-20 01:09 AM
Alright, good to know- which just kind of compounds the...I guess, relatability? Barbatorem just wants to destroy shit, but this guy is vain? Superior? Proud? Maybe it's also just that I'm picturing him as such an anime character. The whole "being a demon is awesome" thing, paired with the leather jacket and white hair- it just screams Accelerator or Killua Zoldyck or something and it's maybe coloring the whole scene for me. Mr. Mann looks and acts like Sebastian from Black Butler. It's all either coming together or falling apart.
“He summoned lesser demons to amass a small fortune. A friend of his tried to take the money.” “Angry, and arrogant. A story I’ve heard often enough. Though to go to such an extreme, that’s unusual.”
How exactly do you get this much power and be this much of an idiot with it that summoning a demon lord is a mistake that can be made?
same 1
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jsoh 11-Sep-20 01:12 AM
mahoun always made me picture lucifer from sandman/lucifer
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JayManiac 11-Sep-20 01:12 AM
The only answer I can think of is that someone set him up, or that he's just gotten so lucky so far that he somehow survived
Yeah!!
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jsoh 11-Sep-20 01:12 AM
showing up to some rando asshole who managed to get his attention
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JayManiac 11-Sep-20 01:12 AM
That's a good comparison
The demon smiled. It lit the second rolled cigarette.
I mean so far this guy has checked off indulgence, pride, and answered a question with 'the greatest of sins'.
Seems like the seventh choir to me
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Elliot (Boy) 11-Sep-20 01:16 AM
I too pick 7th choir when it's getting tricky and idk what to choose
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JayManiac 11-Sep-20 01:17 AM
Haha, fair
Oh shit wait I meant sixth
agree 1
I keep thinking seventh is the human sin one
but no that's just the choir of "don't even try to identify us"
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Elliot (Boy) 11-Sep-20 01:18 AM
oh, yeah seventh is the "sneaky weird shit" one, like Faysal
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JayManiac 11-Sep-20 01:19 AM
'faysal is a demon' would be a helluva theory
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Elliot (Boy) 11-Sep-20 01:19 AM
I mean, I assume the choirs of Angels map to those of Demons
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JayManiac 11-Sep-20 01:22 AM
Yeah, that would make sense, for Faysal- though he would be the opposite of that...I guess 'rest' would also be a subtle concept, so they'd both end up doing sneaky weird shit. Funny how that works, huh
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Elliot (Boy) 11-Sep-20 01:22 AM
It's almost like their whole good vs evil thing is bullshit!
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JayManiac 11-Sep-20 01:23 AM
well wouldn'tyaknowit
“This is fine,” Mahoun said, through teeth that bit hard on the cigarette. He leaned over, looking at the fallen practitioner. “You’re aware that he’s dying?” “Yet not permitted to die. We can leave him as he is for now. I’m not in a particular rush.” Mahoun shrugged, an easy, casual gesture.
See this is why the lawyers are funny- they're just so casual about this guy dying, and ready to just get to business already. they're horrifyingly numb. Also: like this is what I'm talking about! Would you offer Barbatorem some weed? No!?
That to say that this is a really weird demon
Mann spoke, “I have to wonder… how?” “That answer is more complicated,” the demon said. “Greater agendas.” “When I hear responses like that, I can’t help but think of the choir of unrest.” Mahoun smiled.
Greater Agendas really does scream 'sneaky weird shit' doesn't it? Also, I can't really tell what exactly this 'how' is about unless it's the same as mine. Being 'how the fuck was someone this dumb allowed to summon you?'.
“But you turn men, women and children into monsters, savage spree killers. You work over days, weeks, months, and years to prey on diabolists and turn them into crazed killers with a bloodthirst. Ones that are liberal in using their knowledge to do their deeds. Or, failing that, you find practitioners, and make them into the sort of depraved individual that wouldn’t hesitate to practice diabolism.” Mahoun’s expression didn’t change.
Oh is that what the choir of unrest does, too?
Also: maybe it's that your choirs are bullshit and trying to sort this demon like we've been doing- like Mann has been doing here -could be a fatal mistake. This demon could take inspiration from unrest, or possibly lie between choirs, or possibly be pretending to be of the choir of unrest in a sense? It'd be useful to know what his power might revolve around, but I'm not sure it's as simple as 'choir x' anymore.
Mann continued, “It’s a similar pattern to members of the Choir of Unrest, writing tomes themselves, under the guise of being diabolists. A hard thing to ignore, when new diabolists crop up every other month. Or when we’re being asked to distribute books.”
That really is some sneaky-ass bullshit
spreading misinformation, causing unrest- it's such a cool concept and such a terrifying MO
“You’d almost think you had me in the wrong choir,” Mahoun said. “Almost,” Mr. Mann replied.
Yeah, I think it's possible he was able to say "i'm not of the choir of unrest" because that's such a human term of categorization that it just doesn't matter to what he's doing
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Elliot (Boy) 11-Sep-20 01:34 AM
FWIW I view the seventh choirs as the "big brain" ones. Pushing the agenda of Angels/Demons indirectly. While a sixth choir demon might be capable of big brain plays, at the end of the day their methods and thinking will probably centre around human sins, and their abilities that are based around those. On the other hand, a Seventh Choir Angel won't have any such directly applicable abilities, but they might be able to think ahead and put themselves in a situation where they're set to be able to lock a demon in The Abyss by having a claim to a town. (edited)
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JayManiac 11-Sep-20 01:36 AM
Yeah, that definitely makes sense
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Elliot (Boy) 11-Sep-20 01:36 AM
Or spreading books to put more people in a position to dumb shit
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jsoh 11-Sep-20 01:36 AM
so hey what do you think of the lawyers being asked to distribute books
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JayManiac 11-Sep-20 01:37 AM
That Black Lambs Blood is looking more and more suspicious
I don't think it was written by a demon, but it might be the human-written one currently used as the gateway drug to the demon-written ones
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Elliot (Boy) 11-Sep-20 01:38 AM
What I hate is, even if it is being peddled by demons as a gateway drug.... that doesn't make me think it's points are any less valid
but it should, cos that's what they want
but it's right
aahh
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JayManiac 11-Sep-20 01:39 AM
No, I agree! It shouldn't be the case that engaging in that kind of thought makes things worse, and it's difficult to reconcile
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jsoh 11-Sep-20 01:40 AM
the best liars can do it by saying things that are totally true right
thats what being a wizard is all about
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Elliot (Boy) 11-Sep-20 01:41 AM
hngh
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JayManiac 11-Sep-20 01:42 AM
It's also as much about who doesn't see the books, as who does
the books are given to rookie diabolists
but not those around them- so it's unlikely that they actually lead to a fulfillment of the book's dream
Mann turned, saw a long rug in the hallway, and stepped aside, gesturing. It moved, sliding into the kitchen. A bridge over blood and maggots. A simple trick, but not an easy one. To simply order spirits about required a longstanding relationship with those spirits, or something similar. One could do it readily in a demesne they owned, building a familiarity with the spirits there, but to do it anywhere meant that one had to be recognizable anywhere. The equivalent of being a household name or brand among humans.
Ah, good, great- that's just to drive home how potentially hopeless this finale is going to be, if the firm is this powerful and interested in Jacob's Bell.
“Get me away from him. I’ve seen what he does. My brother, my mother, my kid cousin… he used them.” “That’s the least of what he does,” Mann said. He glanced up at the demon. “He was going easy on you. Likely aiming to gradually step up what he did, keep it up long enough that you’d eventually realize, it was always going to get worse. Break you with terror of everything your future held in store for you.” “No,” the practitioner said. He shook his head. “He went after them, he made them wrong, let them find my books. They let other demons inside. Accepted them. Other people stopped being able to even see them.”
Such a strange demon, this one- I wonder if we'll ever get answers to all the questions I have about him
“You have a familiar.” The practitioner’s eyes went wide. “It would become ours, to use or give away as we saw fit.”
Oh no....
lil buddy?
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A bird 🐦 11-Sep-20 01:46 AM
CharmanderHi
ohno
Poor Fisher
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JayManiac 11-Sep-20 01:46 AM
Fisher creeped out of the practitioner’s pocket, no longer caring about blood or maggots. In the body of a toad, he hopped forward. He spoke, however, with a more cultured accent. “No. We have a partnership, I have a say. No.”
I really want this guy to make it out, but I don't like where this is headed. From what we see here there's no way this guy says no...
Fisher froze. “No, please-” “I agree,” the practitioner said, again.
Aaaaaaaa
psyduck
same 3
Mahoun was still sitting at the table when the front door closed behind the lawyer and his new employee. ■
well fuck. I feel so bad for fisher. No idea what he used to be, but probably didn't deserve all that
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A bird 🐦 11-Sep-20 01:49 AM
Tbh, Fisher probably should have drawn the line before a noble demon was standing in the kitchen
Still. Poor Fisher
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Elliot (Boy) 11-Sep-20 01:50 AM
still though, no one deserves.... whatever the fuck Fisher has coming
agree 4
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JayManiac 11-Sep-20 01:52 AM
“There is a difference,” Mann said, “Between the various tiers of demon. Imps, least, lesser, moderate, all the way up the hierarchy. The simplest way to mark the distinction is capability.”
On the...less horrible side, at least we're getting another magic lecture; I really do love these. I'm with you, Elliot- I could read Rosalyn's library for days. Well, maybe not in its current state. I'd end up reading it for lifetimes, I imagine fine
“Speech is one such thing. It’s an inverse of men. We’re speechless at birth, we gain the ability, with increasing faculties, then if we live long enough, the ability to speak gradually leaves us. Imps can speak because they borrow from men, they sup from the collective unconscious, and they sup from victims. Demons of the noble tier can speak because they are… broad. If they’re neither and they can still communicate, they may well have something of man. A token.”
Ah, that explains a lot, actually. That is why I was getting confused- the most powerful demons in the story seemed the least talkative, and the only one to communicate was Pauz. That just makes demon nobles so much more horrifying, the idea that they can become human and walk around in human skin, with only mild differences. Still, being...broad- does that also mean they don't fit neatly into choirs? Or have enough power- like conquest -that they aren't as much slaves to their nature as barbatorem might be?
Mann frowned. “Don’t think I didn’t see that in your eyes. You think I’m an asshole?” “No, sir.”
Uh...yeh
“Mahoun. Mr. Mann said it went easy on me, but it really didn’t.” She nodded. “It didn’t.”
Huh, that's surprisingly validating- though I wonder how placating she's being here.
“Five hundred and seventy-some years.” She raised her eyebrows. “I know.” “Not much time at all. You could have paid off that karmic debt in a lifetime.” “Not if I died.”
Yeah, I don't think the lawyers was the best decision for this guy. On the other hand, a demon noble would probably do something horrible to your spirit for eternity
“A diabolist? Yes. She’s a respected diabolist, in many circles,” the blonde woman said. “We would very much like to recruit her. If you were to cost us the chance, you could give up hope of ever having a good day with us again. I’m sorry, I have to warn you, so you aren’t surprised.” The woman on the porch suddenly seemed a hundred times more ominous.
Heya Rosalyn. I wish I could say it was nice to see you, and maybe once it would've been, but...now it's just more concerning
“Come in. You brought the book?” The blonde woman produced a tome with a black leather cover, but no markings on the front or side.
Ah, wonderful- distributing more books.
You know, that should be a good thing, in theory
“It would,” the old woman said. “But you’re going to let me do it all the same. If I’m ever going to join-” “Which you won’t.” “Which I most likely won’t, I would do it with my eyes wide open, and all available information at my fingertips. You’re going to do it because it means there is a chance.”
it is somewhat satisfying in that thorburn sense (the peter sense) to see her play these guys like a trombone, though, so the story has me rooting for her in this moment, at least
“You’re going to tell me everything about the people you’re working for. If you don’t, or if you don’t produce anything satisfactory, then I’m going to say you displeased me. They’ll hear you out as to why, little will happen to me as a consequence, and you’ll be punished all the same. These people you work for? Their punishments are dire. Understand?” “I… think so.” “In exchange, I’ll give you some advice. It will go a long, long way toward making the next few centuries or thousands of years more tolerable.”
She stays about the same amount of pleasent every time we meet her
“You should try to forget the number. You won’t be able to, it’s one of the few things you have, now, but you should try. Listen to me, I want you to pay attention, you stupid little man. Whatever you were escaping? You’ve condemned yourself to five hundred and seventy-ish more years of it.”
Yeah, that sounds about right- though I think eternity of torture was in the cards with the demon noble too, possibly, so even I'm not entirely convinced of this probably-true assertion that people keep throwing around
“You don’t know nearly enough. That you even think that woman is anything resembling nice or good? She’s about to become your absolute superior, second only to the powers they serve. She didn’t get there by being kind or nice. She didn’t do good things when she was a diabolist, before.”
But she's so likeable both here, and in her introductory chapters. I do imagine that we'll get to see just how despicable she is in the coming arc, but it's such a contrast.
“It’s an entirely different scale,” the old woman said. “I’ve never heard of you. Contrast that to her… for history to reconcile the kinds of things she did, it might well have had to invent something akin to the Black Death, to sweep it all beneath the rug.”
Dear lords
I suppose this is the firm of all demon firms, if Mann's little power display from earlier suggests anything
but still, there aren't too many events in history with more clout than the black death when it comes to disasters
“Something like the Black Death. I suspect she’s older. She’s not insane, which means one thing. She very likely enjoyed it. Her politeness, the veneer on the surface, it’s a mask she’s trained herself to wear, for this role. Don’t give her cause to remove it.”
I'm currently wondering what exactly the difference is between lawyers and demons
“I’ll tell them to send you my way again. They’ll know why I’m doing it, in large part, that I want to dig for information, but they won’t care. They’re too big, and I’m only one cog in the machine. When we see one another again, you’re going to give me better information.”
I really hope that something that Rose did gave our protagonists a fighting chance against the firm, but I also think we might've seen everything she has to offer with regards to prep. Gods, this is exactly the chapter we needed to undercut the 'everyone from toronto is here' beat of optimism and get us nice and hopeless for the finale
Ilovethis 2
■ Levin straightened his tie. Several other junior partners and employees of the firm joined them.
wait wHAT!?
Uh.....
okay holdup
we just get this spiel about how much fucking shit you have to wreak in order to become one of the partners
and how lewis is likely older than the black death and just assumed the position within Rosalyn's lifetime
and then this random asshole gets to be Levin for some reason!?
fuck, I should've seen it coming- if I'd realized more about the name, followed that thread to the natural 'he gets a different name' sort of end, I would've been able to guess at this
Am I reading this right!? Is he some sort of exception?
“You seem poised for a war,” a woman spoke. Her ring burned when viewed with the Sight. “You seem to be under the impression that this will be anything but one sided,” Levin said. “Lewis? Please. There are things to look after.”
Welp. There goes any hope that he'd be on our side. This is probably just business to him. I have no idea how he got to be one of the partners so quickly, but I'm scared of it.
The skull-headed imp acted. Figures stepped out of the shadows, one after another. Each one provoked a reaction. A man in white, carrying pistols. “Malcolm,” the little girl of the group said. A tall man, thirty-something. It got a reaction from the Thorburns. A man with a policeman’s jacket, square-jawed. Others joined the ranks, one-by-one. Four figures were utterly black, head to toe, without features.
Oh shit it's Fell and Laird!? Fighting on the side of this imp, for some reason!? I thought the Shepherd had Fell's soul, how is this possible?
also are these Ur's Imps? I feel like these might be Ur's imps but I don't know if I can back that up with any sort of reasoning
“Tricks,” Rose Thorburn the younger said. “No,” the one the child had called Malcolm said. “I’m sorry.”
Fell what the actual fuck!?
argh, this is such a cliffhanger
And I know I probably won't get much reading done over friday/the weekend because I'm busy with an assortment of things
it's entirely possible I finish pact next week. Okay maybe not next week, an arc in a week is a lot but...maybe possible, depending.
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JayManiac 11-Sep-20 02:23 AM
okay, alright, that makes way more sense
it was just confusing
since interludes don't usually switch pov's like that, having one overlap a section break
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Elliot (Boy) 11-Sep-20 02:24 AM
Pretty sure the POV is some nameless diabolist. He was just looking at Levin straightening his tie.
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JayManiac 11-Sep-20 02:24 AM
Ah, that makes more sense
Okay, yeah, I'm on board
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JayManiac 14-Sep-20 11:11 PM
Alright, we're on the final stretch here so let's get to it:
The lawyers arrived from beyond the gate that bordered the property. Rose was pretty sure they hadn’t truly approached. They were there, but they hadn’t come from further away. They hadn’t crossed the space from some distant point to there, before they’d started to make their way up the shattered driveway.
So we're pretty solidly in Rose's perspective to start, which makes sense given what blake has been doing. And we;re starting pretty much right where the last chapter left off: the arrival of The Lawyers, who I'm pretty sure at this point will be even more final antagonists than Faysal himself. Luckily we've got a whole-ass team up with the Toronto Squad, so...that's gotta count for something, especially given Isa's karmic...umph. I wonder if we'll get to see more demon nobles. Probably not something I should hope for, but they're so cool.
sharkhi 1
Memories flooded her mind. Out of place, out of sync with her own. As if viewed from the wrong perspective, the words and responses jarring with her own.
So this is Blake's 'seat' for this section of the book: we see him mostly through his influence on Rose, I expect? I've been wrong about that before, and I do kind of hope we get a bit more from blake from Rose's mindscape, but if the whole arc was more front-seat in Rose's head, that'd make sense too.
It didn’t feel good, and her head pounded uncomfortably, the edges of her thoughts burning or dissolving into static at the edges, recovering slowly. “Tone it down,” she murmured.
but they're still coordinating, still communicating, which certainly counts for something
The Astrologer was a member of the group, but stood alone, apart from the others. The sphinx was reacting to the demons with more fear and alarm than anyone else. Isadora had backed away more than anyone else, when the group had retreated some. The fear of demons was apparently stronger when one was immortal. Or was it that the sphinx noticed things that others didn’t? Paige, the sphinx’s follower, hadn’t realized just how much Isadora had backed away, and stood off to one side, just a little more vulnerable.
So, we're checking in with everyone and they seem...to be doing terrible. Glad that Isadora's scared, really just delighted that my one "oh at least she'll be able to help" player is the least eager to engage. Very hopeful, very nice.
“You seem poised for a war,” the Elder Sister observed. “You seem to be under the impression that this will be anything but one sided,” Levin spoke. “Lewis? Please. There are things to look after.”
That Lawyer Histories was exactly what this book needed to drive in that perhaps he's not actually bluffing. If he's the most experienced of the lawyers, as Rose seems to think he is, then he's probably got more clout with the world of the Practice than Mann...which is so concerning.
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Elliot (Boy) 14-Sep-20 11:21 PM
sharkhi
CharmanderHi 1
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JayManiac 14-Sep-20 11:23 PM
Blake was inside her, feeding her parcels of information. Collecting memories, pushing them to the surface. Grandmother’s notes on the lawyers. Observations, collected across the diaries. All drawn together like this, one after another, Rose found her head making a few connections that she hadn’t made when reading the diaries back-to-front, several times over.
I love the idea that a bit of Blake's intuition is combining with Rose's diligence, planning, and preparedness to lead to new knowledge and ideas. It's the kind of revisionist memory I'm absolutely here for
It was, Rose realized, akin to the way a legal office might send a file, along with dozens or hundreds of other boxes of files. The information in demand was there, it was only buried.
Luckily, you've just hired a personal assistant who can...well, I'd hesitate to say that Blake is going to organize anything, but he'll find the information you need (probably leaving a huge mess of disorganized paper piles on the floor so there's no gd room to walk)
hells, maybe that's just my way of finding important things
Blake brought up the various little details and notes, one after another.
Yeah!! It seems that's actually a pretty apt description of what's happening here
Fell was first. He staggered a little as he stepped forward, caught himself, then straightened. He’d emerged armed, guns in hand. “Malcolm,” Fell’s niece said. Callan appeared second. Worn out, worn down.
Fuck, fuck fuck fuck- they're literally gonna either: 1. do what the abyss just did, and offer to bring these people back to life, selling their loved ones the souls back in exchange for...probably the souls of everyone present, jacob's bell, toronto, everyone's eternal service as lawyers (which would be horrible- I mean, can you even picture Jeremy wearing a suit and driving people around!? He doesn't know how to drive, I'm pretty sure) 2. threaten these people's souls with horrible afterlives, threatening to torment them for eternity if this battle doesn't go as planned and on schedule 3. use psychological warfare, attacking them with their own deceased family members.
I can't decide which would be worse
or why they're doing this- or how they're doing this, really
Three children, for the Shepherd.
It's also an extremely good way to reaffirm the emotional stakes for each of the characters, and remind the readers who they are and why we should care about them. The Shepherd's children were a quick beat just after the Blakening, so I wouldn't've necessarily been thinking of how that chapter kind of warmed me up to him, but here they are to remind me why I want everyone here to make it out alive. Except for the Eye, probably. Screw that geye.
Seeing Alexis was like a punch in the gut. Rose tried to swallow and found it difficult, and that in itself was alarming. To the best of her recall, searching back through all of her memories, she couldn’t remember ever missing someone. Regret and heartache weren’t part of her emotional makeup. In part, that was because she’d never had anyone to lose.
Awww, blake gave her friendship, and Rose is...uh...not ready for everything that comes with that quite yet
Focus. Bringing back the dead? It didn’t make sense. That wasn’t how demons operated.
Yeah, Rose is echoing my thought a couple paragraphs ago: what the fuck? How are they doing this, and what implications does it have exactly?
She eyed four new arrivals. Black and featureless from head to toe. Broken, somehow. There but not there. They didn’t move, didn’t react. Three for her group, all three short, diminutive, one even looking at Evan. One for the Knights.
Ah, okay, nope- these are the goblins and the knight that was Urased
I thought they were Ur's imps for a second and got real concerned
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Elliot (Boy) 14-Sep-20 11:43 PM
I read that as “Ur simps” and I just wanna say I hate twitter
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Bashful 14-Sep-20 11:45 PM
UwU they could retroactively erase me from existence any day 🥺 (edited)
🗞️ 3
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JayManiac 14-Sep-20 11:45 PM
I don't know what this means and I think I don't like it
I will be refraining from twitter for the time being, it seems
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Elliot (Boy) 14-Sep-20 11:46 PM
Yeah keep your innocence.
Awakening to the world of Twitter is just as bad as the Pact one
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JayManiac 14-Sep-20 11:48 PM
flashes back to that intro sequence I did contextualizing the internet as a horrible Other world
yeah sounds about right
“They don’t matter,” Laird said. “This is between me and my family. Just as Fell’s business is between him and his niece.” “Rose too,” Fell said. “At least, as long as she acts as a host for Conquest. And Diana? I’m sorry, but you did kill me.” “Oh,” Laird said. “Are we doing revenge, too?” “We’re doing revenge,” Fell said, with conviction.
Ah shiiiiit- they're evil versions. I mean, not that I'd necessarily put this past Fell
It was reminiscent of the broken connections that had been visible here and there, after Blake had been eaten. The damage that had left Alexis sobbing without explanation, or Ty’s head going in circles. Evan had been the most affected on that front. “They’re tainted,” Rose said. “Don’t get close to them. And I’m not just talking physical closeness. They’re consuming everything around them.” “That’s what that is,” Alister said.
Did the imps somehow turn people's memories into Others to psychologically torture the people present?
that's awesome absolutely fuckin terrible
Rose spoke louder, “You aren’t revived. You’re mockeries. Very accurate mockeries. You’re actively consuming everything around you. Ignis Fatuus. Fool’s fire. Candles to draw the moths.”
that's gotta be a big blow- to have someone you love seem to come back...I see why it might be really effective
“I’m real,” the Astrologer’s mentor said. “I can feel my heartbeat, I have all of my memories.” Gods. Rose could tell how the Astrologer was holding onto every word. A bomb could have gone off and it probably wouldn’t have torn the woman’s eyes from him, her ears from his words.
This is such a heartwrenching way to write this
Rose felt more than a little heated at that, much as if she’d been talking to Blake, enduring his casual disregard for her, or how monumentally difficult he was making her life. She wished she had some means of retaliating, telling the sphinx to shove it, somehow, without hurting the group’s cohesion. Blake probably would have. But the stirring of anger was different than she was used to. Harder to pinpoint, when Rose was often very good at figuring out what was going on with her head and her heart. A bit of indignation she hadn’t had before? Stubbornness? “I don’t want to die,” Rose said, aloud. “I don’t plan to.”
sharkhi
This is wonderful- if anything it's one of those repeated hints of confirmation, that Blake does live on in Rose
in a less-literal sense, too
that is
“Bullshit!” Peter said. “You lying fuck!” The ‘bullshit’ was becoming a refrain, almost a catchphrase.
I really hope it does, because honestly as horrible as Peter can be it's possible that the world of Pact could use a practitioner whose catchphrase is "bullshit". Considering that it's basically all bullshit, and some of it should probably be advertised as such
If there was an answer to be found, did it lie within her? She took all the emotions and feelings and memories that Blake had given her, and she pushed them down and away. She looked at this from an objective sense. “Fuck you,” she said.
even though I love that Blake lives on, this is another triumphant moment of Rose still being Rose, and I never thought I'd be so damn happy to see it.
But, even as Blake’s crude interference it made her head hurt, left her mind feeling like it was scraped raw, it helped clarify her thoughts. Make sense of it all.
and Blake's presence in these chapters gets to be triumphant and concerning and so tragically...it almost feels wasted, as certain things between them are destroyed instead of reintegrated, but it's the best we could hope for and it's helping
“They’re mocked together from missing connections, from psychic impressions, or from memories, or something in that vein,” Rose said. “And they’re wrapped around demonstuff. It’s a headgame, and it’s a distraction.”
that makes a lot more sense- the fact that they were so sure that they were real was tripping me up, and I expect tripping anyone up who was experienced in the practice. They were saying absolute statements, the type a practitioner can't say unless true.
lake had refreshed her memories of the lawyers. She was equipped to analyze them. To figure out how they worked.
I'm so excited for what the conclusion of this story might change. Maybe they won't make a dent against the lawyers, maybe they're too big...but juuuust maybe a powerful diabolist who spent her life studying them created the weapons that would eventually lead to their demise. Bit of a long-shot- "simurgh-vision" as E&R might call it...but at the same time, especially after last chapter it seems like she might've had more up her sleeve than we might've figured out.
“What if-” the Astrologer asked, “What if having only that much, what if that’s enough?”
Oh, Diana
fuck
that's gonna make me cry
I mean Rose is making good points here, but that's such a human question to ask
The taint flared, spreading, encapsulating her. Reaching into her pocket, she touched something. A remote, or a crudely hacked-together-phone. Light flared from beneath her clothes, worn LEDs. One below her right shoulder blade, two on the left arm, three on the right. Wings spread, and for a moment, she was an angel.
This is heart-breaking, even as I know it's the right call
A long-necked bird, quite possibly a crane, rose up and away from the Astrologer. It flowed forward and struck the Astrologer’s mentor. As blows went, it was minor, but it opened the fight.
aaaaaaand fuck, we're in it
They made physical contact. Rose turned her head away, as every connection that made up the Shepherd abruptly unraveled. The Shepherd screamed.
Aaaaaaaaaaa holy SHIT
That's not how I expected any of this to go, but alright, just hitting us straight out of the gate with it
Then, as best as she was able, she reached out to him. Never an easy thing to do, but it had paid off before. He met her halfway, and she took hold of a part of his diminished, pressured being, and she drew on it for a little bit more power. “Attack!” she gave the order. “If you can’t attack yours, attack someone else’s!”
Ilovethis
I mean, it's using blake up, likely, but it's giving him more of a foothold in her mind, when she draws on him for power, I expect
and it's probably a good thing, to replace conquest a little
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JayManiac 15-Sep-20 12:35 AM
I’m not a fighter. Blake was, but she didn’t know how to tap into that. Not in a matter of one or two seconds. The imp lunged, and Rose’s world became noise and pain and brightness. Her ear set to ringing.
Lots of battle here, because we're in the battle now, so there's not as much to pull, but I'm still really loving the back and forth of this
She looked over her shoulder, and she saw the Elder Sister, standing by the Eye of the Storm. The woman pointed, and the Eye moved.
Ah, great, these two are buddies
If you asked me which toronto people I liked Least, and conquest was out of the equation, the answer would absolutely be The Eye first, and Sisters second
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jsoh 15-Sep-20 12:37 AM
you like the shepherd more than the sisters?
like the sisters suck but the shepherd sucks
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JayManiac 15-Sep-20 12:38 AM
Not by that much, but I had a bit of the wrong idea about the shepherd. he's still pretty awful, but he's got things on his mind that aren't accumulating more power, and when we got interludes about each, he came out a lot more sympathetic
the Sisters' part of that interlude was basically like "ah, yes, look at all this power I have. Huh. I wonder why I haven't attacked the Astrologer yet, better go do that" whereas the sheperd's was a lot more...thoughtful, sympathetic towards blake, unsure of his path
“Faysal!” she roared the words, and she gave them power. “Damn you! Help! It doesn’t get messier than this!” The sensation was akin to a mountain deciding to move. Faysal flared with light. He stood, he approached, and the imps were driven back.
I've been duped too many times by this angelic fucker that I believe that this is a good thing for a second. Maybe he can be manuvered back on-side, maybe but he's also the angel's manipulator, he'd absolutely just play with the idea of helping our people only to make certain they were in the ground.
Faysal spoke, and his voice carried well. “Let’s put an end to this. Maintaining a good working relationship has to be better than this.”
You little shitbag- ugh, what a tool. I mean, I hope he's manipulating the lawyers on a level that they can't comprehend, but honestly I'd guess the opposite
“Good. Let’s settle this with words,” Faysal said. On four legs, he advanced, putting himself between Rose’s side and the lawyers.
Like he's just suddenly going to roll over (pun intended) and play peacekeeper
“No,” Faysal said. Light flashed around him, then died. Diagrams around the lawyers and tools they held each glowed with an intensity that suggested they’d taken the light. Prepared in advance. It was the last word he spoke.
Ah, yep
Pretty much the fate he was doomed for when he started trying to team up with the Lawyers. Kind of satisfying, for the pipes to come back like this, bad as it is for our protagonists
Like, at the very least we know that Faysal got what was coming to him
Dogs, rats, and children. Johannes moved with an eerie, lurching sort of ungracefulness. The large pair of shears he dragged with him were part of it. The damage and corruption to his body were another.
Ah, and look who's back- yeah, warm fuzzy feeling of revenge is over, back to being terrified
The explosion struck in the middle of the collected group of lawyers. “Ellie!” Evan said, cheerful. “And rocket launcher witch hunter man!” “Run!” Rose shouted, though the words were useless, redundant. Everyone was already moving. For the love of everything, run!
AAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
WHAT A FUCKIN PAYOFF
sharkhi 1
💥 2
I don't know how much damage this actually did, but if ever there were gods damned witches to be hunted, it's these motherfuckers
I'd entirely forgotten that Ellie ran for help, but it makes total sense who she'd find and what they'd do
I kinda don't have time to read another, much as I want to- alas, I'll see you guys tomorrow
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alex v 15-Sep-20 12:55 AM
Thanks for the read Jay!
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JayManiac 15-Sep-20 12:56 AM
Always- I almost can't believe I'm on the final stretch
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Elliot (Boy) 15-Sep-20 12:56 AM
Thanks Jay! Cya soon!
👋 1
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JayManiac 15-Sep-20 03:33 AM
then it's right up evan's alley!
I probably won't be able to get through the whole thing today, but I'm at least going to start in on 16.2 because we have such momentum
“Where can we go?” the Elder Sister asked. “Uncle Laird’s house,” Alister said. “He has protections against demons.” “Given the local color, I’d think everyone would,” the Astrologer said. “Everyone does,” the High Priest said. “To some degree, anyway.”
That's a good point actually, it's about time the Duchamps got in on this demon-party, they're the only ones left out so far. Besides Mags, and a few more neutral parties that is.
“He has protections against demons that were taught to him by the local diabolist,” Alister clarified, between pants for breath. “Including a protection against the thing that took over Johannes.”
But Laird's place is probably also a valid destination, considering whose monsters we're up against, exactly
“Oh!” Evan piped up. He was flying closer “Oh! Elder Sister! You’re the person to ask! I’ve got this idea-” “No!” Tiff, Ty, and Rose all said, together. Blake stirred within her, and she could feel his restlessness. There was so little he could do in this situation, and as her recent encounter with Surbas had indicated, she wasn’t well suited for an outright fight.
This is such an analysis, but what if Blake is just simultaneously saying "No Phoenix-ing!" to Evan with y'all?
If there were battle lines, time to plan, she might have found her niche. But running and fighting on the fly like this wasn’t that niche. Could Blake provide that? Maybe, but it seemed too monumental. If he did give her something of that scale, what would the damage be? Would she be recognizable? Would he?
Ilovethis
Rose, I think, will still be Rose at the end of all of this
I don't think there'll be quite enough of Blake in her to define herself as otherwise, but I think she'll be a remarkably more well-rounded kind of Rose
that's the hope anyways
“Illusion?” Alister asked. “Here?” “My bird eye superpowers don’t see anything,” Evan said. He’d landed on the girl’s shoulder. “I- I’m not sure,” Emily said. “I mean, you can keep animals from seeing too, even with the keener senses, and I guess he could. But it is illusion.”
Well, that's concerning- it couldn't be Malcolm's illusions, because the flames don't take their Practices, right? It'd have to be someone else? Glamour, perhaps? Though that works differently, so I'm not sure it'd be so easily recognizable by Emily
Above the door, perched, was a small figure, feathered wings spread. Below, moving across the front lawn, were two large, adult-sized shadows. “Show yourself!” the sphinx ordered.
On second thought, I don't know why I thought that the imp couldn't do that kind of thing again- that's probably its primary method of fucking everything up for people, thinking about it
The imp had flown here, brought or resummoned the constructs. That they had their ability to practice was scary enough.
yeah....that's...a substantial degree of concerning- I honestly wasn't expecting that kind of danger, I assumed it was mostly psychological. Maybe the way that they practice is drawn from, in this case, Alister and Emily's versions of Practice?
“Someone please tell me we didn’t kill them, toward the end there,” Nick said. “That we didn’t?” the Elder Sister asked. “Because if we did, then that imp can bring them back again and again.”
I'm having a little fistpump moment at nick being a smarter practitioner than the Elder Sister here, just for a second. Maybe it's petty of me, but maybe I feel a bit petty. Also I like Nick, and was thinking along some of the same lines
Laird took a backward step. He put his hand on the doorknob, “And this house is supposed to be protected against entry from unfamiliar persons, unless you decided to revoke that security measure?”
I do not like the consequence with which this is said. That's a really powerful tool, if this imp is capable of this much, bypassing defenses and such
“I’m real,” Laird said. He spread his arms, “Enough to matter.”
That's the thing- so much of this world is based on perceptions, on forgeries, on illusions, that you have the audacity to be surprised when an illusion can suddenly command the power associated with the real thing? It's something I was thinking about last chapter: that this kind of illusion probably counts as the real thing where certain forms of the practice are concerned. A person, after all, is just the combination of how everything percieves them. So you could get a pretty good facsimile by targetting someone close to them
(edited)
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JayManiac 15-Sep-20 04:09 AM
Very true- I'd put together the echos that conquest pulled (which are doubly strange, considering they're from a past that doesn't strictly exist)
but I hadn't drawn the connection to what Faysal did
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jsoh 15-Sep-20 04:10 AM
pretty sure blakes past is whats left of the real thing
the bits that dont exist anymore are the parts that got cut away
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Elliot (Boy) 15-Sep-20 04:10 AM
It definitely took me a bit to reconcile how these shades weren't the demons "creating" anything. It's a fun testament to this world that something like this (or even Blake and Rose) are technically made by removing things
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JayManiac 15-Sep-20 04:11 AM
It really is! Like carving-a-statue type creation
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Elliot (Boy) 15-Sep-20 04:11 AM
oh I like that analogy a lot
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jsoh 15-Sep-20 04:11 AM
and barbie didnt cut rostys memories of reality he cut the actual reality, making it real enough that it fits for everyone who ever interacted with him
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JayManiac 15-Sep-20 04:12 AM
Yeah, that's kind of similar to what this thing is doing, but on a more substantial, further-reaching level
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Elliot (Boy) 15-Sep-20 04:12 AM
My understanding of the memory thing is that Barbie just cut Ross, and the spirits did the rearranging to make things make sense
agree 2
cleaning up the mess basically
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JayManiac 15-Sep-20 04:13 AM
“Should I scout?” Evan asked. “I can keep an eye out.” “No,” Rose said. “If imps are flying around, I don’t know that we want you getting caught.” “I won’t get caught!” “Stay, it’s safer.” “Blake trusts me!”
"Blake puts me in horrible danger all the time, what's the big idea!?"
Yeah...as much as I love blake and evan...blake and rose has its benefits too
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jsoh 15-Sep-20 04:15 AM
mom says no, ask dad
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JayManiac 15-Sep-20 04:16 AM
“We lose a number of allies, I take it,” the Elder Sister said. “If you want to be pragmatic about it,” Alister said. “I prefer to phrase it as ‘a bunch of existences end rather horribly, and the demons win a meaningful victory.'” “I don’t,” the Elder Sister said. “Believe me, I don’t want to be pragmatic when I could be more human, but all of this is hard enough to take in. You know, I could blame to you two for inviting us into this mess.”
Excuses excuses- not to mention tossing around blame at inopportune moments. Am I being too harsh on the Sisters? likely. Am I going to stop? less likely.
Ilovethis 1
“Aren’t invisible assholes supposed to leave footprints or disturb the snow?” Peter asked. “That’s how it works in the movies.” “I learned how to stop doing that on my second day of studying illusions,” Emily said. “Well aren’t you precocious,” Peter said, affecting a tone. Ainsley jabbed him. Paige simultaneously shot him a disgusted look.
I love peter's presence in the story even more now that paige is here to play off of it
ainsley too, obviously
The group had the knights, they had the sphinx, they had the Eye. Rose had to hope they could deal with Fell.
Oh hells, that means we're dealing with the...feels weird to call an imp a mastermind, but the facilitator at least
It brought back the dead. Defied natural order. But they weren’t truly dead. They were memories, tainted ones. Grief? Choir of sin.
Interesting interpretation...I could see it being a number of them, but sin is a good bet. Not sure exactly how it interprets that, because its abilities seem fairly dispirate with the actual choir, but categorization creates inconsitancies, and it's possible that it's still technically enough of a Sin Choir Imp to fall to their weaknessess, even if its power is a little to the left of that
Words became a chant, and, the chant became song. A hymn. The hymn made for a pattern, structure, the religion it evoked made for years of tradition and symbolism, reinforced by the collective of man.
We can hope, of course. It's also possible that even though that's the choir that makes the most sense, this imp is actually part of a different choir and will fall to its weaknesses more readily. See this is what makes everything messy.
The Astrologer glowed, a different collection of points of light, and a great ram appeared in the air. The imp moved away. “Brute force works!” the Astrologer shouted.
Oh, excellent! now where'd we put that rocket launcher?
Another gunshot. Ty fell backwards, and the movement seemed oddly fake, it was so slow, out of sync with the noise. The blood was real, however.
Shit, shit, shit I cannot lose another of Blake's friends I don't think me or rose could handle it
Rose only managed to glimpse Fell for an instant before he was gone.
Freaking rogues, man. Cunning Action is a bitch when they can hide.
Fell stepped out of shadows, gun pointed at Rose’s head.
And when they get sneak attack, gods dammit
Instead, she met his eyes with her own. She pushed Conquest into her gaze. The glare of a tyrant, a condescending, arrogant, unflinching stare.
Oh shit, that's a heck of a move
She’d maybe made him hesitate in pulling the trigger for a second, maybe two. But she’d opened herself up to ruin. Look away, and he’d shoot. Stare, and he’d use the connection between eyes, windows to the soul, to consume her. She kept up the hymn, because to do otherwise would doom all the others, and she stared Fell down, as he brought about her end. The connection was broken. Rose blinked. A mermaid’s tail slapped left, then right, as she tore into Fell.
But! Holding him for that long, even at the cost of herself gave everyone else an opportunity to act- i'm not sure if Rose even did this on purpose or if she just decided to do something and then it worked out better than expected. Which is, to me, a sign that she's drawing a little more from Blake. After all, crazy self-sacrificing plans that allies need to bail you out of is his bread and butter, essentially
Isadora’s focus was on the house’s interior. The bottom floor was already blazing, and the upper floor was joining it. If Laird was capable of putting the fire out, he would have already.
Well that's one way to solve things
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A bird 🐦 15-Sep-20 04:32 AM
With any luck Fell was burning through some Conquest instead
So... Definitely not
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JayManiac 15-Sep-20 04:32 AM
that is one thought I had, but I also deemed it too useful to be likely
thistbh 1
which is..certainly the mindset I've accumulated throughout pact, isn't it
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A bird 🐦 15-Sep-20 04:33 AM
The one time we see an exploit like that actually work, Johannes' demesne, we wound up with... This
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JayManiac 15-Sep-20 04:34 AM
A very good point
There was a scream. The same sort of scream that had come from the Shepherd. One that went beyond simple sound, reverberated to the soul, and not in a good way.
Fuck, I mean on one hand he's gone, and that's good...but it had to be by someone getting got, which is less good
With the boys, but not Laird’s wife.
Ah. Well, shit.
“Enchantment,” Alister said. “Another vestige?” “Helping,” the girl said, between pants.
Sandra! sharkhi
They reached the church in half the time it should have taken, and there were no enemies waiting for the there. Sandra stood at one side of the door, alone, no Duchamps with her. Mags stood on the other side.
sharkhi sharkhi sharkhi
And mags!!
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A bird 🐦 15-Sep-20 04:37 AM
CharmanderHi CharmanderHi CharmanderHi
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JayManiac 15-Sep-20 04:38 AM
“Hey Blake,” Mags greeted her. Blake stirred within Rose.
Don't talk past Byron
but also it's sweet
because the two of them are friends and it's a wholesome thing
whereas rose and mags...not quite friends
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A bird 🐦 15-Sep-20 04:39 AM
Rose didn't really do friends
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JayManiac 15-Sep-20 04:39 AM
She swung the weapon around, stopping just shy of swinging it into the side of Mags’ throat. Mags blinked. “Um.” “As I recall, there’s only one faerie in Jacob’s Bell that’s that bad with names,” Rose said.
Uh...and maybe this is why they're not friends!?
“I-” Mags started. She shook her head, blinking hard. “I’m not a faerie. I’m Mags. Born human, still human, as far as I can tell. Ambassador. I was using my Sight to scan you guys. You look a lot different when the perspective changes more toward the mystical.”
Yeah, good to know...sweet jegus. I get it rose, but also wow
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A bird 🐦 15-Sep-20 04:40 AM
Rose's level of Done With This broke off in the direction of Maximum
🤣 2
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JayManiac 15-Sep-20 04:41 AM
On a level, she felt almost delirious, making her way to the front of the Church. Others were gathered within. The faceless woman, the revenant. Summoned things. Goblins. Practitioners from Sandra’s camp. Scattered Behaims. The junior council. The Briar Girl. Ellie was here, as were Andy and Eva. Ellie sat alone, looking very bewildered.
Again we get weirdmageddon vibes, except that (gravity falls) instead of all the weird and wonderful creatures and allies we know hanging out at the shack, we're all in the church. It's just 'everyone who could get away from the horrible demon invasion is here now and we're gonna figure out what to do
She noted the entry of the mermaid into the church. The mermaid gravitated toward the faceless woman and revenant. At the back, while Rose was right at the front. The mermaid was seated before Rose even reached the front row.
I like that Green Eyes has found her people- not bad sorts, as bogeymen go. Still pretty bad, but like, friends.
Rose found a spot by Alister. A part of her wondered if she should sit there, or if it would be weird. She’d never dated, never had friends, even. The memories in her head were of dating girls, but Blake hadn’t been so kind, or so unkind, as to give her the attraction or anything like that. They were incidental elements, hastily carved out and included in the collection of memories meant to imply familiarity, teamwork, friendship, bonds.
Oh...yeah, I don't suppose rose would've had a very populous dating history when compared to blake. She's such a dork about this and it's very endearing.
(edited)
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A bird 🐦 15-Sep-20 04:45 AM
It's very weird how all of what makes Rose likeable is the antithesis of what she's meant to be
Really the most interesting character in the book
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JayManiac 15-Sep-20 04:46 AM
I think I'd agree with you there, yeah
Makes sense that blake was the protagonist- he's basically distilled likable
“So. Sister. What’s with… that?” Peter asked. “That?” “I mean, I’m not sure if I should congratulate you. You’re into tits? Those are the biggest damn tits I’ve seen. I mean, she’s a giant, practically-” “Stop,” Paige said, putting a hand to her face. Ellie was cackling. “And if you’re into pussy, well-“ “Meow,” Roxanne added. “Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Peter said.
Gods, what a fucking asshole. There are moments within which I re-evaluate my newfound fondness for peter. He's such a dick. The Thorburns are super duper fucked up. And, like, clearly Peter's just reeling from the blow to his worldview that is Paige having more of a position of power in this world than he does, and finding out about it first. But that doesn't actually make it better.
“I can’t lie anymore,” Paige said. “So believe me when I say I loathe you, Peter.” “Eh,” Peter said. He shrugged. “I love you too.”
And yet, he wins us back, because I actually believe him. Okay maybe he doesn't win us back, because I believe him and that almost makes it worse, but...eh, he gets some points for that.
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A bird 🐦 15-Sep-20 04:48 AM
It sure was catty
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JayManiac 15-Sep-20 04:49 AM
oof
“As ambassador, I’ll be leading us through this meeting,” Mags said. Now we just have to survive what comes next, Rose thought.
What a chapter
I really can't wait for the rest of this arc
same 1
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JayManiac 15-Sep-20 07:30 PM
“I’ll be honest,” Mags said, “I’m not the sort of ambassador or whatever that’s going to be super formal or do everything right. Let me get out in front of everything and make it clear that I mean no offense, and, really honestly, what’s going on outside looks like the sort of thing that makes us want to get past the talking and get to doing.”
it does, but when has that ever stopped people from arguing about beauraucratic nonsense? Also, it currently strikes me that this is an interesting alternative to having a Lord: Mags can resolve disputes and lead the town's interests in times of demon-invasion, pretty much fulfill at lot of the duties a Lord would. The only reason Jacob's Bell even needed a Lord was because a lot of individuals wanted more power and wanted to set up a war to fight for it- because being the ambassador kind of sucks. You don't get the ultimate power as Lord, you get to actually just go out and settle disputes and it's a job, not a status symbol. I don't posit this to say that it's necessarily a 'better' system than the one that's currently in place across the practitioner world, but it's a different system. One that demands service, upholds peace and conflict avoidance, instead of one that comes with status and power, that you have to fight a war to attain.
Rose couldn’t help but notice that there were a few nodding heads from among the Junior Council. Mags might not have been the type to manage a diplomatic arrangement with a Faerie noble, but she could speak to the younger, more human demographic.
Ilovethis as a representation of all those things I just said. It'd be wrong of me to say that things are stagnating, or that they don't change- they're not always changing for better or worse, but it seems like mags and the junior council will hail a kind of change for the better. If any of them survive this, that is.
“Do we need to do any introductions?” Mags asked. “Gut feeling, personal preference, there’s a few new faces. Do we need to know who is present and what they’re capable of?”
Name, Pronouns, Entities To Which You've Sworn Your Soul, Favorite Ice Cream Flavor...
(edited)
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JayManiac 15-Sep-20 07:49 PM
“Enchantresses. In their number, they have a scattered assortment of practitioners of a bunch of different types…” “Not nearly as many as we had, before incidents earlier in the night,” Sandra said.
Interesting, that she was able to keep a few of the husbands on-side, even after Blake's...shenanigans as well as corvidae's
Rose maintained her composure. Chin up, eyes turned forward.
Similar, funny enough, to the duchamps
“Worse than dead,” Alister said. “He’s possessed. The most powerful practitioner in Jacob’s Bell, along with his gatekeeper familiar, is now under the control of a demon.” “Okay,” Mags said. “That’s bad.” She seemed momentarily at a loss for words.
On one hand, yes it's pretty godsdamned bad for everyone involved if the most powerful person in town is now the puppet of the demon bent on ruining everyting- but I also wonder if Mags isn't a little bit just...grieving. I mean, I know she roasted the fuck out of him by calling him the devil that one time, but she asks if Johannes is dead, as if she didn't want to believe it from Sandra, and then it catches her off-guard here to hear that he's suffered a worse fate...I mean, they were the two loners of Jacob's Bell for a while, and Johannes did help her out and confide in her. Seems like they might've considered each other friends, even as they had their disagreements.
“Uh,” she said, floundering a bit. “We’ll get back to that in a second. Other players. Briar Girl, off to the side there. Local hermit and nature mage. We have the local assortment of monsters, both native and visiting, toward the back right corner there…”
Briar Girl is the absolute peak of an archetype I'd like to call the "Fuck-You Druid". I wonder if she'll get more screentime towards the finale- considering that arc 3 was kind of the last we heard from her, and we haven't really gotten to see much of how she interacts with the council, or what her thoughts are on everything. She doesn't even introduce herself here.
Skipping me? Rose wondered. Was it because she wasn’t considered an ally, but an extension of the problem?
It's probably for dramatic effect you paranoid noodle
“I believe we’ve met,” the Elder Sister said. Mags shook her head.
Oh yeah! everyone from toronto has kind of met a weird version of Mags
Having been skipped in the order of things, Rose was reluctant to jump into the conversation. It might have been easier to do if she could draw more on Conquest, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to lean on that connection so soon after Fell had eroded part of that connection. Where drawing on Conquest before might have been as easy as drawing in a breath, it didn’t feel quite so natural now.
It's very sad that Rose has to rely on this false confidence to make her voice heard- cutting it off will probably be a good thing, if a painful one. Gotta go cold turkey
“My name is Isadora, and Paige, sitting over there, is with me. She is a tool for me to express some of my power with.” Rose could see that Paige had been put on the spot. Her cousin hurried to stand and present herself. Even as Peter whispered, “Even she knows you’re a tool.”
I mean, that is kind of a demening thing to refer to someone as, I'm not sure if Peter's entirely wrong in calling her out on it...even if he did it in a relatively dickheaded fashion
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JayManiac 15-Sep-20 08:48 PM
Alright we;re back, just stopped to get some breakfast real quick:
“I am the Elder Sister, Lord of Toronto. You should know who I am. These three women are elementalists in my employ. This is the Eye of the Storm, a moderate elemental.”
Aaaand we're back to the laundry-list of reasons that I don't like the Sisters. I mean yes, maybe people should know who you are, considering you're lord of Toronto, but- unless being Lord means you have to act like an entitled, uptight, prick (which we don't actually have any evidence to contrast) -you don't have to say it like that.
New drinking game: take a shot every time Jay takes one at the sisters
Oh, she skipped me so she could leave me until last. She put more thought into this than I gave her credit for.
yeah, maybe calm down before jumping to "they skipped me because they think I'm the enemy". I think that Conquest-juice may have some..entirely expected side-effects
At the very beginning of this, she’d been so alone. Even if the memories were spotty, heavily and badly edited, she could connect the dots, and she knew the feelings of loneliness back in the beginning were real. Even when she’d had Blake there, when she’d worked alongside him, she’d been entirely isolated. Only a surprise kiss from Padraic had broken that seclusion. If there was anything else, it had disappeared along with her memories of Blake. Now, she could see, that Paige was standing with her. Tiff had her back, while Ty wasn’t here. She’d seen him come in, which meant he had to be lying down somewhere, hopefully bandaged or healed by some practice. She felt bad that she hadn’t focused on him more. Too distracted, too tired. But Peter was standing with her, and Roxanne was too. Christoff, Evan…
bulba
“Mags just introduced us. Let me introduce them. They are members of one of several groups that exist around the world, dedicated to diabolism. They call themselves lawyers, and they sort of are in the activities they focus on, but that’s only theme. There are others. In each case, they’ve traded away their selves and souls to escape the consequences of their actions. They wanted me to do the same. In an abstract way, it speeds things along. Gives more power to their side.” The room was impossible to read, in expression and body language. She had to dig for some context to figure out how to address them, and she dug for the academic. Just as she’d needed to fine-tune every assignment to the tastes and moods of her teachers, she did it here. They wanted answers, to know what they were up against.
This is part of what we've been missing the whole book: Rose humanized, struggling, drawing on her strengths and just her strengths, without conquest to supplement them. Rose "Charisma 7" Thorburn has to roll well on her performance check, and she needs every advantage she can get. But not conquest. Screw that guy. The point is: I feel like this is something I've been waiting for and it's so wonderful to see it pay off.
“As individuals,” Rose continued, “They’re people who sold out humanity, in ways many accused me of doing. They want to finish with their deal and their loss of self and there’s a fucked up pyramid scheme where they can shave years off their sentences by sentencing others.
That's a good way of describing the Lawyers, and a good way to tie it back to real-life allegory
“Johannes,” Rose agreed. “And through him, they have Faysal. The Barber that possesses Johannes has a physical form while he’s inside the body. We don’t need to worry about his abstract nature. We do need to worry that he can penetrate most barriers and protections. Even here. Alister Behaim knew some measures, but they won’t work while the Barber has a body. It can rewrite reality with its shears, an object possessed in an entirely different sense, and it can carve a person or Other in two, giving each half the traits it wants. It has all of this, it has Faysal, who can carry it anywhere, it has Johannes’ Demesne, and it has, I’m very concerned, the ability to crown itself Lord and seize Jacob’s Bell.” Oh, so many of them had known individual elements, but so very few had heard the whole story. Only Alister and Tiff were really equipped to know, and Tiff might well have been ignorant of the implications of possession. Even Blake had been in the dark about parts.
Well shit, I didn't even know all of that shit
it sounds...mostly a lot worse than we were previously giving it credit for
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jsoh 15-Sep-20 08:59 PM
its not great
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JayManiac 15-Sep-20 09:01 PM
Rose glanced at Mags, hoping for a call to order. “I can’t,” Mags said, then said, “My dads.”
Oh, Mags...hhhhhhh
well, at least everyone has something to fight for?
All in all, a disaster.
Yeah, no, that's more accurate
Yet in trying to raise them up, she’d ground them down instead. In trying to give them vital information they could use, she’d outlined too much too fast. She’d destroyed their morale. She’d forgotten how much one person could fear for their loved ones. She’d felt so little of that fear herself. I’m too cold.
Yeah...when you put it that way, I was kind of swept up in the moment, and forgot how...well, forgot that Rose is missing very key parts of understanding how to deal with a situation, how to deal with people.
She wished she could call on Conquest here. Even knowing it would sit badly with the Toronto practitioners and Others, it would give her the ability to seize control here.
You can't rely on it forever
or you'll end up relying on it forever, if you know what I mean
“My grandmother studied this enemy. She noted a great deal of what I described to you. She studied demons and the way this world is put together. Trying to find an out, a loophole.”
I'm not sure if it's ever something she could've found, with her ideas as...well, with her ideas as they were: demons are evil and also the root of all Others
But I know they probably exist- the loopholes
to be clear she did find one
but not of the sort that I suppose I'm talking about
“Our enemy here put safeguards in place, trying to set things up so the title of Thorburn diabolist passed from one of us to the next, but I was intended to outlast the others. I was made from the cut of the demon’s shears. My counterpart was made to die, and I was made to last. Until all the other Thorburns were dead, the lawyer’s safeguards having no living cousins to default to, with childbirth being largely impossible on my part.” She stared out at the others. “If I hadn’t, the family was positioned to self destruct. Each heir worse than the last, armed with a demon while residents of this town were equipped with a means of turning that demon back on them.”
All of this does track- it seems like Rose has a more comprehensive understanding of Rosalyn's plan than we ever got from blake's perspective, which isn't entirely unexpected
“What I’m saying is this: they can be outplayed. They can be beat. If we play our cards right. The kink in the workings, one that the plan couldn’t account for, was Johannes, and it was Faysal. Faysal was too Other to grasp the plan or the implications, just like the group was too big and focused on the whole of their work to see what one old woman was scheming.”
Ehehehehehehehehe
Maybe Rose learns how to give hope
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spinagon 15-Sep-20 09:11 PM
Funny how the ultimate enemy is both a practitioner, an angel and a demon
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JayManiac 15-Sep-20 09:11 PM
Yes, yes it is!
“They’re unstable, and we know exactly where we need to hit them. We know their weakness – their scope is too broad. They’re too big to see the small picture. The bulk of their weapons are so devastating they’ll only use them as a last resort. They want us scared and stupid. They show off the power and knowledge they have readily and easily, theatrically, to mask their weaknesses and make themselves out to be more than they are. But if my grandmother had won, they might well have suffered a telling blow, or collapsed entirely. If we win, we can destroy them, utterly and completely. We just have to win smart.” She let the silence hang. “Together,” she said.
I have no idea what to expect, if I should be entertaining the idea of bringing down the lawyers as a possible one or not...but I suppose that's a point in favor of Rose's speech, because I wouldn't've thought so just after that interlude, that's for sure
Nobody was speaking up to voice their support. Even from her own camp, though she suspected there was a strategic reason for it. If one of them backed her up, it would change the tone of things. The others would have room to argue. But, Rose realized, nobody wanted to argue to say that this was a bad idea, because they could get shouted down. The atmosphere suggested that the next to speak would lose the argument.
fascinating
“Penis!” a small goblin cried out. “Peeeenissssssss! Penispenispenis-” One of the other Others at the back gave him a solid smack.
Gods, I wish I had this goblin around during every awkward silence. Maybe that's what I'd do as a Goblin Queen: just conscript goblins to be disgusting at opportune moments so I can socially maneuver my way out of them
“Well,” the Elder Sister said. “I knew your grandmother. I’m of the impression the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” Rose was silent. There was nothing she could say here that would position her better.
I'm trying to find something more creative to say than "fuck you, dude" but that's what I feel in my heart
“Isn’t it?” the Elder Sister asked. “Your grandmother deceived you, and you admit she provided only a portion of the information. She used some of you as sacrificial pawns. If she made you to fulfill a role, and if it isn’t a coincidence that you’re as similar to her as you are, why shouldn’t we assume you’re not just as deceptive? The type to provide only a share of the information needed, on a need-to-know basis?”
just because it's what you would do, and just because it's typically something that rose would do, doesn't mean she's doing it now- okay maybe that's a very fallable argument, but still
Can't Rose reassure that she's giving them the information that they would want?
“You’ve given us good information. I understand you’ve worked hard to move away from the path that was laid out for you, and I believe you think you’re working to good ends. But, all that said, you very recently called us out for not recognizing those demon-made vestiges for what they were. You. A demon-made thing.”
I really hope Rose finds it in her to power of friendship punch this Sister in the face. I'm gonna stop hedging my bets when it comes to the Sisters, they're the worst. Okay no, the lawyers are the worst. But the Sisters are accomplices.
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spinagon 15-Sep-20 09:24 PM
Sisters are just businesswomen in addition to being practitioners
But hey, at least they are not lawyers amirite
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JayManiac 15-Sep-20 09:27 PM
Yeah, they're just the lawyer-enablers
“What would you have done?” “What we have done,” the Elder Sister said. “Left it be. Minimize the damage.”
Oh look, she's going to spell out why exactly I don't like her or her people at all
it's the "don't actually do anything to help" style of leadership, the "close your eyes and hope it goes away" style of leadership, the "Lead? I thought this was where you signed up for personal power" style of 'leadership'
“We did the same with the Hyena. We sealed it away to languish in obscurity until an opportunity to deal with the problem presented itself.” Evan took flight.
Fuck YEEEAAAH
“No!” Evan said, loud. “That is a bad, bad answer!” “Evan!” Mags said. “Let’s not-” “You jerks,” Evan said. “I thought it was Conquest who ordered it, but you’re okay with that idea!? What’s wrong with you!? You let me die!” “-Agitate things,” Mags said, trailing off. “Enough!” The order didn’t help.
You tell em!!!
Evan is the Actual Best
those procrastinating assholes should not be in charge
don't get me wrong, I'm also a procrastinating asshole, but at least I think it's a problem I need to deal with
like...tomorrow or something
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jsoh 15-Sep-20 09:31 PM
has anyone ever suffered a fate worse than death because you are a procrastinating asshole who has declared yourself lord of a city
different scale in personal and public procrastinating i think
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JayManiac 15-Sep-20 09:37 PM
I think I'd agree- the Sisters are very success oriented and probably don't actually procrastinate
it's just that their method of problem solving revolves around being lazy assholes
“Order,” Mags said, calmly. “Evan, little man, come here.” “But-” “Here.” Evan winged his way over to Mags, who put him on one shoulder.
Ilovethis
I mean, no, you should let him keep roasting the shit out of the sisters
but if you won't, this is a good alternative
“We minimize the damage,” the Elder Sister said. “The sorcerer has a powerful demesne. It’s a grievous loss for humanity as a whole, but I would approach the opposing forces and try to negotiate a resolution. They don’t want this conflict, nobody but the Thorburn Diabolist has committed to it, and we can try to secure a total or partial release of everyone else here, along with a promise that the demon stay within the demesne. We seal it within, we evacuate and condemn Jacob’s Bell so there is no town for the demon to claim Lordship over, and settle it at that.”
Okay, that was Faysal's plan, which was a fucking disaster, next
Fear was going to win, in the end. Fear drove individuals like the Astrologer to nod her head at the Elder Sister’s words. Fear made the sphinx want to avoid this conflict altogether. A rare creature who put great value on her own ageless life. “Okay,” Mags said. “Okay. That’s one side. Rose, what do you want?
HHHHHHHhhhhhh This is so tense
“You want us to fight in a war no sane individual would take part in,” the Elder Sister said. “One with permanent consequences, reaching well beyond simple life and afterlife. A dozen or two dozen lives lost, a few more pieces of reality carved away, permanent damage to creation. All to gamble that you can keep them from taking the sorcerer and demesne.” Rose nodded. “Damn straight.”
Ahahahahahahhahahahahhahahah I love Rose
“Then why don’t we see?” the Elder Sister asked. “Both of our plans start at the same place. We talk to the enemy.” “You want to talk to her, let her make her proposal, and see what people decide?”
do it
aahaha I'm so excited (edited)
sharkhi 1
CharmanderHi 1
greeneyes 1
Rose shrugged. She didn’t trust her hands enough to make any other gesture. “We let everyone present decide on their own, if and when the question gets asked. You don’t get that ball rolling, you can’t be the first one to accept.”
This is gonna be such a wonderful game
see now you've got me talking like Padraic
“Not directly. I’ve already made my argument, you’ve made yours. I just… like I said, my grandmother studied how things work.” The Elder Sister spread her arms. “I reserve the right to stop you.”
I really hope Elliot ended up changing his mind on the Sisters at least by this point- I don't remember whether DiP had gotten to this point at the time that he asked me why I didn't like them, but I'd like to think that this is a pretty unanimous point among the fans
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JayManiac 15-Sep-20 09:47 PM
Although if you have arguments in favor of the Sisters I'm not opposed to hearing them XD
They do have more power than I give them credit for here. But not more reasons to award them my respect, far as I can see
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Elliot (Boy) 15-Sep-20 09:50 PM
My memory is atrocious but I’m pretty sure I was anti Elder sister in this scene at least.
Her argument here is peak Toronto
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JayManiac 15-Sep-20 09:51 PM
Seems like you would be- I'll let you know when I listen back. Still pretty behind, when compared to my chapter count, but I'll get there. That's a good way of putting it, too.
“We’re another force. And we’re only still emerging. We’re change. We’re an equal to them. We just don’t realize it yet. All the Others took our faces and our personalities, or fragments of them, and Faysal’s kind and the demons did the same. We’ve evolved so quickly in so short a time. Faysal saw it in Johannes, as he tried to change the system with his new way of dealing with Others. He tried to harness that. Now the lawyers are doing the same.” She let the words hang. She could have explained, could have elaborated, but that would have violated the deal. Would have verged too close to an outright attempt to sway the others to her side. We’re capable of change. Will you embrace that, or hand that power over to them?
I love this, I absolutely love this as an expression of what Pact is all about. We're in the endgame now, and it's the perfect time to be pulling all these threads together. I'm not sure I could've projected this particular expression of theme even...two months ago
Ilovethis 1
She could process the words that Mags asked, see lips moving, just as she’d anticipated. She knew what they were saying, but she couldn’t wrap her head around it. “…would like to offer an out, to those uninvolved parties,” Ms. Lewis said. The silence that followed was louder than any tolling bell.
AAAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAA
What a CHAPTER
wow- this courtroom is a more gripping battlefield than most I've read
it's not a courtroom
I just said that because we're arguing with lawyers and it slipped out
it's a church- which is equally...Like That
I dunno, there's a helluvalotta judgement that happens in each so you could understand the confusion
ba dum tss
I literally typed that as a joke before I realized it's the arc name gods damn
lol 4
This book really is something
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JayManiac 16-Sep-20 01:27 AM
I'm gonna take a bit of a break between Pact and Pale but I do plan to catch up in liveread form
sharkhi 3
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JayManiac 16-Sep-20 03:03 AM
that's so tempting
I don't know what arc I'll ever get to take it, but I'm honored nonetheless
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JayManiac 16-Sep-20 08:24 PM
Rose hadn’t expected to feel the burden of this decision. Her hands gripped the sides of the altar, and she leaned forward, head bowing just a little, feeling as if an immense weight had settled on her from above.
well that's a heckuvaway to kick off the chapter- and considering the 'win' that Rose got last chapter was the chance to make an argument against whatever the fuck Ms. Lewis is gonna say there...yeah, she's arguing against a lawyer and she has no charisma nor conquest to back that up. off to a fantastic start, Rose. You got this.
“If this is a question of my word,” Ms. Lewis said, “I can swear an oath.” Not a soul responded.
If that goblin starts yelling penis again then we've set up a three beat and I kind of really hope that's the case
“You called me for a reason,” Ms. Lewis spoke. “If you aren’t asking for mercy or leniency, what did you want me for?” “For this,” Rose said. “Go fuck yourself, Ms. Lewis. You have no friends in this church.”
I love Rose
is this the most tactical of plans to employ in this situation? Questionable. Highly questionable. But it does win her more points in my book
“Are you going to remain in your church, then?” Ms. Lewis asked. “If it’s a question of you not wanting to step foot outside, I understand. Almost every practitioner has some sense of what we represent and what we can bring to bear. Remaining where you are is easier than venturing beyond. We wouldn’t penetrate the barrier around this church, though we have the ability.” She’s changing the dialogue, Rose thought. Making it so that staying, taking no action, is taking her side, or the Elder Sister’s side. Surrendering.
See that's the thing, Rose can tell what strategies are being employed, she can break down the argument better than Blake can, but she doesn't have quite the instinct for countering it or using the same methods herself
What would Blake do here? He was better with people, but worse with words, form, delicacy. When he’d stood here, back at the beginning, he’d chosen a hard, direct action. Offering to spare others if they agreed to nonviolence. Trying to divide enemy ranks.
That's a very good analysis there- doing my work for me, are you? Who am I kidding, this book does that all the time
“We aren’t going to cave, and we aren’t going to stand by while you do what you’re doing. We talked about it, and we’ve already decided,” Rose said. “You can consider this our declaration of war. This is our town, one we’ve fought for, one many of us fought each other for, and one we’ve bled over. If you think we’re simply going to give it up so you can turn it into some victory for your side or a waypoint for demonkind and diablerie, you’re an imbecile.” Ms. Lewis blinked very slowly, taking in the words.
Okay first of all: love this. Stick it to em, sis. Second: those are some powerful and dangerous assertions by Rose here. If people do cave, there's grounds to forswear her for it, since they really haven't agreed to declare war.
some of these statements I can see as being technically true, but others are...iffier
Going on the offensive. Putting Rose in a position where she had to justify herself. She didn’t. She let the accusation hang, though she could have explained herself. Blake probably wouldn’t have. He was too much of a scrapper, too intent on surviving, ironically. He might have lost the war, even as he defended every point.
Oh good, so she does have a plan to win the 'war' as it were? Not the actual war, mind you, but the war to start the war?
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jsoh 16-Sep-20 08:38 PM
whos interest would it be in to foreswear rose on that point
shes a bastard but everyone present who isnt a lawyer wants the lawyers to lose so like, shes "our" bastard
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JayManiac 16-Sep-20 08:56 PM
I mean, the Elder Sister would have motivation, considering the shit she just pulled
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JayManiac 16-Sep-20 09:03 PM
Ms. Lewis smiled a little. “Well. Humanity is on its way out, all the same. If you insist on hurrying it along, I’m sure my group’s, ah, associates don’t mind expediting things. The moment any of you act against us, you can all consider my offer to respect your sanctuary to be null and void. This doesn’t end until we have Rose Thorburn. I would prefer her alive over dead, but dead works.” She turned to leave.
Welp. That's...uh...I mean, it's not like nobody would have motivation to go through with this, so she'd better do some fast-talking pretty quick
She was glad when nobody pulled a trigger or threw a bolt of lightning at her.
Phew
“It’s not like that,” Mags said, after the doors had swung shut. “Johannes said humanity was on the up. That we were winning. I think that’s where a lot of his power came from. That he recognized that we were capable or responsible for something greater, and he rode that to success. Enough to be on par with a full family of trained practitioners.” “I like that,” Rose said. “That’s an idea to hold on to.” “…Even if I don’t quite like what he was doing to the vestiges in his territory,” Mags said, as an afterthought.
Ilovethis
It's so antithetical to the ideas angels and demons have, but that's what makes it so wonderful. I think Mags is right here- the forces of the system did eventually conspire to undo things, but a lot of johannes' strength came from his belief in humanity, a viewpoint to challenge that of the angels. It's not clear whether it would've been a better system than that of the angels and demons, what with the whole "letting Others torment vestiges" that we've had some problems with across this book, but it wouldn't've been reinforcing the same snowballing one
Self preservation, fear, general concern. The lawyer had strategically dropped hints, enough to scare. She could bypass the barrier, and Rose had very strategically invited her to. If the lawyer hadn’t rescinded her offer to allow them their sanctuary, then Rose might have had to destroy the sanctuary herself. Complacency was her biggest enemy here. People being still, refusing to act.
You sleazy bastard
Ilovethis
It's such a blake type risk but with a Rose-type execution and follow through
And it's true- Complacency is the first thing to overcome. The first step is half the journey and all that. It's not actually half anymore than the lawyers will go down easy here, but it's a big reason why the bad things stay bad.
“This won’t be pretty, but the faster we do it, the less organized they’ll be! We push out, we push forward, and my hope is to lead a select group straight for Johannes. Hit them hard, pull out all the stops, create a gap we can use, and then default to staying alive. Preserve yourselves, preserve the town, and keep pressure on them. Recognize theatrics for what they are, respect the power of believing you can accomplish something. That matters so much, I can’t articulate it.” There were some nods.
Being that Rose has always been the one who always kind of forgot about or neglected the theatrics and 'storytelling' bits of the Practice for the scientific ones, this is a really awesome moment for her. It's awesome.
Even veteran practitioners here looked pretty damn scared.
Well, there is the idea that a 'veteran practitioner' doesn't really mean all that much. That most practitioners aren't as used to actual conflict as Rose and the cabal are, because they never actually get off of their asses and do shit. That said, yeah this warrants being scared.
Rose hopped down from the stage to the floor below. “Evan.” “You know it!” the bird said, as if utterly oblivious to the tension and the danger.
Of course; I love Evan. I love that we're assembling the task force here, and Rose's first pick being Evan is such a fistpump moment of storytelling.
“Me, then,” Ainsley said.
I hope we get to learn a little more about Ainsley if she's coming, but I won't blame the story if there's not exactly time for that
Rose nodded. “Enchantment would go a long way, for detecting trouble, and avoiding it.” “I can offer my assistance until you’re out of reach,” Sandra said. But you won’t come with, Rose read between the lines.
Come on- now is your chance to earn all the likability among fans that you don't deserve!! The problem is right here and you have the opportunity to do something about it
There was a look in Sandra’s eyes. Not hate, not anything hostile, but very negative. Almost but not quite pity. She doesn’t think we’ll make it.
Yeah, yeah, okay, work from the back lines. Whatever. Not like we needed you /proceeds to head off into unimaginable danger
Also, if the team still needs enchantresses....
I don't suppose Penny's gotten over all the things enough to join up?
Until only one was left. The girl hesitated, unable to bring herself to join the others. She looked at Rose. “I’ll come with you,” Lola Duchamp said.
FUCK yes, even better, screw you Penny, Lola is my favorite (not that she hasn't kind of always been, since arc 8) and she's the perfect fit for the final push, considering what her role has been in the story so far.
Even this late in the night, Lola Duchamp was heavily made up with bright colors around her eyes, enough that it could almost be called war paint. She had pink tips to her hair, and a nose ring. Not the typical subtle enchantress. Bold as she appeared, Lola Duchamp looked very frightened.
Wonderful.
Also Mags is going- forgot about that a little, but that also means that I can finally keep friend-shipping these two. You can't resist, Lola. You know you want to be besties. They really both need friends- mags needs friends in general while lola needs friends who aren't family. And neither will have blake anymore.
Rose turned toward her cousins. “Paige?”
sharkhi sharkhi sharkhi
She can finally be friends with Paige maybe- not the friendship that blake had, but...something to bring that thread to an end
“Go,” Isadora said, her low voice carrying from the opposite corner of the church. “Better you than me.”
XD
Isadora's such an asshole
I know she was trying to do blake a favor, and was actually rooting for him the whole time snape style
but she didn't have to be such a dick about it
I also don't know how valuable paige is to her, but she certainly doesn't make her seem all that valuable
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JayManiac 16-Sep-20 09:30 PM
There’s something symbolic about who I pick. One from each major group, maybe, and Paige counts as the Toronto end of things. She has talents we can use, that aren’t quite standard practice. We have a Duchamp, and a Behaim, we have me, for the Thorburns… “You know,” Peter said, “If I were Alister, I’d really have to wonder about how eager Rose was to gather a bunch of girls around her.”
Please please please please please tell me that Peter's coming. That would be the icing on this entire cakeshop. Don't ask why we're icing a cakeshop. I don't even know if he could get into johannes' domain but I hope the answer is 'it doesn't matter he's coming anyways'
“Peter,” Rose cut in. “Right, right, I’ll stop. My bad,” Peter said, while looking as far from sorry as possible. He grinned at her. “You’re with me,” Rose said.
Ehehehehehehehehehehe this is wonderful
“Bullshit,” Peter said, smile dropping from his face in a flash. “Bullshit and fuck you and fuck the unicorn you rode in on. Or have Paige fuck the unicorn because she obviously likes the animal-” “Shut up. There’s no time, and I know you’ll stir up shit until you see a way out of a bad situation. I want a non-practitioner. There are benefits to having you with us, as a relatively innocent human.”
XD
Ilovethis
Peter slapped his hand to his face. “Fucking serves you right,” Paige said, under her breath.
plus that means we get so much more of these two! The good news just keeps coming
“Come on,” Ainsley said. We really can’t be arguing.” Peter frowned. It had looked like he was going to say something, but he actually listened.
and we get more of these two
Wonderful
I'm so here for this
“How about you decide before we leave,” Lola said. She turned to Rose, “Who or what else do you need?” “I think that’s-” Rose started. Then Blake hit her.
Are we bringing Green Eyes? That's the only reason I can think that Blake would intervene
The Abyss isn’t about destruction and ruin. It wasn’t a confident thought, it was an idea or a hypothesis, a question without a question mark.
We're bringing Green Eyes
sharkhi 2
The mermaid looked up at her from her seat on the pew. “Blake wants you to come with, I think,” Rose said.
bulba
Fuck. She actually cared what happened to these people. Not just to Tiff and Ty and her family, but to the people as a whole. It made it so much harder.
welcome to full personhood- I hope you've enjoyed your trial run but it's time to pay "anxiety and generally even more suffering" to unlock as full a version as we can get ya
“In terms of my group,” Rose said, “If Emily could cover our escape, block the lawyers’ view of us… it would make a big difference, especially if they have their demons on leashes. We break through enemy ranks. Then, if Johannes is here we catch him from behind. If he isn’t, we make a break for his demesne.” “I can try,” Emily said. Rose would have asked Emily to come, but the girl was so young.
Young, but not innocent, by the standards of this world or otherwise- she's another I would've liked to see more of, if only because I miss Fell
“Hey,” Evan said. “Hey. Hey. I have the best plan.” “No,” Rose and Tiff both said, automatically.
Please- if ever there were a moment
“You haven’t even heard me out!” Evan said. “He’s right. You haven’t even heard him out,” Lola said. “He’s fighting alongside us, and he has as much of a voice as anyone. If nobody has any suggestions, I don’t see why we can’t hear his.” “I might love you a little,” Evan whispered.
I don't even know what to say here this is just wonderful and adorable and fist-pump-y
“I’m a container for spirits. I’m supposed to be a vessel for an Evan-spirit, but stuff got broke. Spiritstuff is leaking out like a slow drip, so we’ve been giving me more spirits to keep me going. So what I’m saying is, we stuff something inside me. Something like a megahuge fire spirit, and we let me blaze a trail. Literally. And maybe we make them poop their fancy lawyer suits a bit.” “Someone to lead the way,” the High Priest said. “There’s worse choices than him, if he’s properly equipped.”
I love that this comes up in a context where everyone around him is just like "yeah holdup that do make a lot of sense tho"
I think the readers are all on team 'let evan be a phoenix' at this point
thistbh 4
“Let’s make it happen!” Evan said. “I might have something to contribute,” the Astrologer said. “If I use my dipper sign to refresh the swan sign, given that you’re a bird…” “Why are we even still talking!?” ■
I am in awe of the sheer excitement and joy that I have at this turn of events
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spinagon 16-Sep-20 09:44 PM
Nothing like a bunch of demons to lift up people's spirits
lol 5
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JayManiac 16-Sep-20 09:47 PM
One demon in a female guise, her body twisted, enclosed in what looked like three cubes that had bitten into flesh. Her head-cube rattled, shuddering, jittering, the orientation moving. Another, broad in the shoulder, mouth yawning perpetually wide, as if its jaw were broken. It wore human flesh like a shroud, a twisted mass of skin and muscle piled over and around the shoulder, over the head, a twisted mask where the eye and mouth holes of another individual’s face aligned with the dark, burned face beneath. The eyes glowed, and Rose instinctually averted her own eyes away from them. The ‘clothes’ of human flesh it wore moved and twitched, an eyeball that looked to be a heartbeat from falling from the socket moved, looking in another direction. The third was narrow, a thin androgynous figure, wearing clothes that looked like they had been sewn together around it. Corset thin, with voluminous sleeves, it had a thin mouth, no hair, and an oddly small nose. The eyes, conversely, were overlarge. Rose had almost expected a horde, but three demons was more than scary enough. If they were anything like Ur or the Barber…
hhhhhhhh of course pact would be the book to scare us way more with three demons than with a slaughterhouse 9000 situation. And of course there are three of them, to fully capitalize on that rule. Wait lemme check something 1. Rose 2. Mags 3. Evan 4. Ainsley 5. Lola 6. Peter 7. Paige 8. Green Eyes Interesting- we're not even going seven samurai here. Doubly interesting in that that would've been a holy number, and thus potentially effective against demons. But potentially ineffective against faysal. So...I guess a number that doesn't have much connotation either way is actually probably the best policy
Fire ignited, lighting up a trail of accelerant, drawing lines around Evan. He swelled in size. From something that weighed less than a full glass of water to something the size of a small dog, then a large dog. His feathers glowed at the edges, like the edges of burning paper on a cigarette. Evan laughed, and as he grew, the laugh swiftly took on a tone, deeper, almost guttural. He spread his wings, continuing to grow. “Yes!” he said, and it was more a man’s voice than a child, gravely, a hair from being a roar. A bit of the influence from the Eye, which was being tapped as a power source. The feathers ignited in full. The flames poured off him, and they fell on the mat and the diagram. “Go!” the Elder Sister shouted. “Before you incinerate all of us, for the love of-“ He took off, and in the doing, he stirred sparks and flame. Fire poured off him in a steady stream, splashing out onto snow and street. A hundred feet away, they could still hear the deep, powerful laughter.
sharkhi sharkhi 🔥 🐦 🔥 sharkhi sharkhi
Ilovethis 4
CharmanderHi 4
🐦 4
The Sphinx and Briar Girl were the next ones out. Briar Girl gestured, and hands reached out of the snow, figures raising themselves up and out. Her familiar perched on her shoulder, then leaped down, swelling in size, taking on feral qualities.
Aaaaaahhahahaha everyone's doing their thing and it's awesome- this really does feel like a final-battle type scene. The avengers are assembled and they're pulling out all the stops.
The one with the cloak of flesh opened its mouth wider, and it screamed. All rational thought and sanity fled Rose’s mind at the sound, and she wasn’t alone in that. Nowhere close to alone. Even Evan the firebird plummeted from the sky. The last coherent thought she had was a realization. She’d anticipated that the lawyers would make them turn back, breaking the charge before crushing the residents of Toronto and Jacob’s Bell underfoot. Her mistake had been assuming that the lawyers would make it a choice in any way, shape or form.
Aaaaahhhhh Fuck
it was so awesome there for like twenty seconds
lol 3
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JayManiac 16-Sep-20 10:05 PM
Also, while that's today's chapter from me- I don't have time to read another, unfortunately -my friend is currently in arc 7 and we're touching on some themes. She mentioned the Sisters and we're having a Conversation about their whole...deal.
turns out that everything we've been saying about them recently has not only always been true, but also extends to the very thesis of why people might join up!
I mean, magically supporting Conquest in exchange for not having to deal with the effects of patriarchy on you sounds a little similar to the deal that the lawyers have going.
You sign up to escape suffering at the hands of patriarchy- and sign yourself up for even more of it when conquest comes a callin
not to mention that supporting an incarnation of conquest likely means a lot more people will suffer the fate you tried to escape
which is also in-line with the lawyer's scheme
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jsoh 16-Sep-20 10:09 PM
conquest being kind of a figurehead because nobody wants to deal with what comes after is p interesting with that read in mind
he sucks, we know he sucks, but nobody can kill him and it insulates us from danger for now
agree 1
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JayManiac 16-Sep-20 10:11 PM
my friend might have a bit too much hope for these guys' self awareness
and ability to give a shit
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JayManiac 17-Sep-20 10:08 PM
Cannot truly think, can only observe. Detached, while my body staggers, hands on a person’s back, as they kneel with bare fingers of their one hand clutching snow. A table for me to lean on.
Huh. This is....a weird way to begin
then again, we did just hear a demon scream and we have no idea what that's supposed to imply so it makes about as much sense as anything would
are we in a dream? in the scene but detatched? in a memory or vision?
the answer might be yes
The streets run with blood. Horizon to horizon, land to sky. I watch, we watch, a broken portion of my Self and I, and we see it flow and spurt from cracks in between things. From the places where tree meets snow and sidewalk meets snowbank. Between clouds and sky. Not clean blood, not fresh. Something rank and clotted, oozing from the cracks. Where it flows, the gaps are getting wider.
This could also be Blake- doesn't sound much like him, but also he hasn't really been...present for a while
One demon burns, still. Another two advance, while their enemy is insensate. One to split the head in two, its sound like axe blades striking each ear, cutting deep enough to touch grey matter. Another to break the world around us.
Well definitely still in the scene, and I think this might still be rose, even though it's in first person and...weird. It really doesn't bode well, though
Everyone who stepped outside the church has fallen. Even the powerful ones. They kneel and lie face down in viscera and old blood.
Yeah, certainly not
The person in the door is female, athletic, not wearing a coat. She aims, and she fires again, and I want her to keep firing, to keep making my ears hurt and my vision swim, because it is better than what the demon is doing.
Everything's so...like that scene where the grenade goes off and everything rings, but way worse- which is a really fun power for a demon to have. I think this is Eva, or possibly a Knight, or a Thorburn, but honestly I'm not super sure
could this mean the effect is wearing off? Or that Rose is overcoming it somehow? Also I didn't pull the line about finally being able to care, but it's confirmation that this is still rose
Oh, Oh- this is Rusty, Ross, Rosen, etc. we're in their perspective, referring to both Rose and Blake in the third person. Which is so gods damn cool and I'm not sure why it's happening but here we are
Where he once withdrew from what I saw and felt and heard, he now takes those stations again. He takes her eyes and ears and senses and equilibrium. Rose blinked her eyes, once, twice, thrice. By the third time, they were no longer hers.
This is awesome and incredibly weird
The scenery had been a trick of the senses, hallucination. An extension of the scream. It meant she still didn’t know what the she-demon with the great cubes of metal intersecting her body was capable of, but things at least made a degree of sense.
That does make a good deal more sense than whatever else was happening
She could feel Blake’s pain and disorientation. Where she’d once clung for dear life to her reason and awareness, he was now weathering the storm. He was a filter, a barrier against the outside assault, in her eyes, her ears, and across her skin. Her face crawled, her skin felt like something moved beneath the surface, so many fingers sliding between epidermis and muscle. Like bruises or ink bleeding from a pen, patterns emerged on her wrists, between the sleeve of her coat and the bottom of her glove. Branches and birds.
Aahahahahahhahaaaaaaaa yes- the fusion is complete and they're working together and this is such a disgusting description of how it feels but I suppose that's what it's like to push the wrong ends of these magnets together this viscerally
Eva, Briar Girl, Roxanne, and the High Priest seemed to be the only ones who were weathering this onslaught. The demonic howling had brought everyone else to their knees. Even the sphinx lay on her side by the door.
interesting, that Briar Girl and the High Priest join the Unawakened in this gang. I wonder how much Jeremy's drawing on dionysus, and whether Briar Girl's familiar has any particular anti-demon ability to draw on
“The choir of chaos is the worst choir to deal with, because they’re opposed by symbols, symbols are subjective, and they steal all subjectivity from the subject. “The choir of ruin is the worst choir to deal with, because they’re opposed by structure, and how was one supposed to construct when the foundation was ruined?” And so on, all of the way through the various choirs. The Barber had proved that last point when it had destroyed Alister’s circle-in-progress.
Ahahahahahahahahahaha, I love that this was in all likelihood written by a practitioner who couldn't lie, but knew all of these things to be the truth
Rose could see the Briar Girl’s familiar, a distance away, hunched over, rippling between forms, unable to settle, becoming more nightmarish by the second. It had been doing that since the howling started. Now it calmed, and Briar Girl, lying prostrate, drew herself into a fetal position, nails biting into her arms as the howling assaulted her.
Ah, so they have such a powerful bond there that they can offset the effects of the howl onto one of them, instead of both being incapacitated- that's useful. I don't suppose- I mean, other people have familiars but I have no idea if any of them are here. I don't think so
so maybe it's just a familiar thing
“We need symbols!” Rose shouted. “Symbols for the howling one!” “Can’t hear you!” Eva shouted, barely audible over the howling, even with Blake trying to dampen the noise, absorbing it himself.
an apt conceptual demonstration from the book
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spinagon 17-Sep-20 10:29 PM
Even if not technically a familiar
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JayManiac 17-Sep-20 10:30 PM
is briar girl's thing not a familiar?
or are you talking about blake and rose?
Because you're right, it's the same concept
The High Priest worshiped a deity that included madness in his realm of control. But Eva? Roxanne? What made them special?
Very fun- I didn't put the high priest thing together, he might not be drawing on dionysus all that much for this. Interesting that it's Eva and Roxanne. I thought for a sec that it was the unawakened, but these two have a whole lot more in common than that, and also Peter's not up so I guess that's a no there
The Eye struck again. The demon staggered away, and the nature spirit familiar of Briar Girl’s limped back, shaking itself. It took on different forms with every step, but even with the limbs of a coyote, then a lizard, a bear, then a bird of prey, those limbs were shattered. It moved with the same grim tenacity that let a fox chew off a limb that was caught in a trap.
I really want to figure out what a shapeshifting nature spirit might be, but the only idea i have so far is Actual Legitimate Coyote, the shapeshifting trickster from native american belief. I didn't think he was present in the culture this far north, but also he's a thing basically everywhere in north america so it's possible. It's also possible that it's another shapeshifting native american trickster god; there's more than one.
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jsoh 17-Sep-20 10:38 PM
I think all that was told to us earlier was that briar girls familiar is way more powerful than her and totally wears the pants
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JayManiac 17-Sep-20 10:38 PM
yeah, that's why I started my guesses at 'minor god'
it's a very Isadora/Paige type situation
Why were various Thorburns doing better? Roxanne more than Ellie, Ellie more than Peter, the two of them more than Christoff. Most of the Thorburns were able to crawl, while many Behaims were utterly motionless, almost catatonic. Alister wasn’t among those Behaims. He was on his hand and knees, head periodically moving, lips moving.
I mean, there's the obvious one and I don't know if I'm right here- but also it's general enough that it could be true: the people who seem to be doing better are the absolute lunatics of their respective groups. Behaims are too orderly, too in-line with society's standards- all except Alister. Eva and Roxanne have been referred to as psychopaths- they're just seen as less sane than everyone else, and maybe that's all it takes to overcome the choir of madness
No, simpler than that. Roxanne was fucked up
Yeah, holy shit, maybe it really is that simple
Roxanne, the Eye, Eva, the Thorburns as a whole, all more unhinged.
Ahahahahahahahaah, beat em with the power of being a wack-job
It fit with the way demons tended to operate. Damned if one did, damned if one didn’t. The only way to avoid being driven out of one’s mind was, well, to already be out of it.
Ilovethis
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spinagon 17-Sep-20 10:45 PM
Can't fuck me up even more if I'm already maximum fuckup
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JayManiac 17-Sep-20 10:49 PM
Only a good ten paces from Rose, now. Beyond reason and rationale, she knew she couldn’t retreat without leaving Alister behind, and she wasn’t about to let the howling demon have him. I’ve been infected by Blake’s muleheadedness, she told herself.
Yaaay!!! Muleheadedness!
You know it really makes sense that they were always speaking two different languages, these two
Think. Can’t inject everyone with spirits, to put a barrier between their senses and their minds. Can’t retroactively make everyone more fucked up than they are. No, wait. She could.
Uh....excuse me?
“Jeremy!” she called out, and she tried to put power into the words, give them strength, pushing them along the few stable connections that remained, to ears that were still capable of hearing. “Get our people drunk!”
Oh my gods. Oh my greek gods of madness this is amazing
Such a payoff moment, such a first-law-of-magic setup, hit us with the fuckin Yeagerbomb already!!
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jsoh 17-Sep-20 10:53 PM
wine drunk wizards
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JayManiac 17-Sep-20 10:53 PM
you know, I feel like drunk off your ass is a great state in which to face a demon controlling half a town
Reaching into her back pocket, Eva drew something she’d scavenged from the church. A simple wooden cross. A symbol, Rose thought. She heard.
I do like it when she's on our side- and hey, sometimes the classics are classics for a reason
The witch hunter drew a third gun from within her open coat, and began firing it into the demon’s open mouth, trying to shut it up.
Maybe this isn't the time to be laughing, but of fucking course she has at least three guns in her coat, this absolute psycho
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spinagon 17-Sep-20 10:57 PM
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JayManiac 17-Sep-20 11:01 PM
“…and as I delivered harm to my Sandra’s house, I accept harm to my own,” Jeremy was saying. “In exchange for the power to act now, I forfeit power over my demesne. Let it be something wild and uncontrolled, a garden untamed, and I will tend it. For this, give me favor.”
ah hell, he's giving up so much. I suppose he was always willing to give up even more, to sacrifice himself to let the others out of the abyss, and to betray Sandra for the sake of the duchamps and the town- but it really does hurt to see.
He’d been on his hand and knees in snow, gloveless, so his hand was free to practice. Now his hand was numb. Rose seized it in both of hers and held it fast as she pulled him to his feet. Held it after.
There's also just this weird little maybe-love-story playing out between Rose and Alister and it's surprisingly wholesome, considering the potential it has to go wrong, what with rose's relationship inexperience and Alister's inexperience at anything that isn't the practice. Still maybe rooting for it?
I mean, obviously rooting for it since it's not like they can go back on marriage at this point (edited)
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spinagon 17-Sep-20 11:03 PM
Poor Jezza
agree 2
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JayManiac 17-Sep-20 11:05 PM
Ainsley was taking the longest to rouse. The girl looked hollowed out, almost haunted.
Aw, yeah she's certainly the most sane of the squad we've got going here. The most sheltered, orderly- not real used to madness like Mags, Lola and the Thorburns
The Sphinx still hadn’t risen.
Oh man, that's...maybe expected? she's a creature of Order so potentially more vulnerable to such things
“I feel powerful!” Evan boomed each word. “So good!” “You’re drunk,” Jeremy said. “Being drunk is awesome!”
This is...concerning. Evan seems to have revised his stance on intoxication
Too late. The demon of ruin charged its fellow, and she slammed the cube-fist into the cross. The howling demon was sent sprawling, and the one who had summoned it, off to one side, folded nearly in half.
Ahahahahahaahaha- maybe if these guys had worked with goblins more than demons they'd know a bit more about how to handle this, y'know?
Rose could see Mags’ face. Troubled, as she looked around her.
Well, you couldn't exactly mitigate it, but on the bright side if this doesn't count for another round of mini-apocalypse then those goblins stiffed you.
They were immersed in fire, consumed by it, but they were left untouched, unburnt. Surrounded by darkness, hidden by the illusion of bright flame, they forged onward. Past the lawyers, rounding a corner, leaving the flames behind. North. To the Barber’s demesne.
Aaahhahahaaaaaa what a wonderful escape
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JayManiac 18-Sep-20 10:14 PM
Evan landed off to one side with a muffled thud, snow rising and steaming around his talons. “You didn’t set the town on fire, did you?” Peter asked. “Nope,” Evan said, in his deeper voice.
Alright, we're back for probably a bit more actual planning this chapter, as we've broken out of the battle at hand. Also Evan's amazing, there's no better pick for Firebird
“Good,” Rose said. Her eyes were on the North end, several blocks away. The morning light was more visible there, but it was more ominous than reassuring.
Considering the angelic implications of morning light, yeah that can't be a good thing.
“Sorry about your pussy,” Peter said, to his twin. “Don’t,” Paige said, her voice sharp. “God,” Ainsley said, moving to Paige’s side, shooting Peter a look. “Learn when to stop. I know we’re feeling woozy, and we were already tired, before that, but… what she said. Don’t.”
Damn it Peter we're trying to have forboding moment here this is probably not the time. I just had the image of Peter as a goblin king and it kind of fits honestly. He's intelligent, and incredibly charismatic, but uses that to just throw ugliness at things where he knows it will hurt
“No, that’s-” Peter started, bristling. He stopped and composed himself. “No. I do mean it. I’m sorry. I just don’t know what to call her. Really.” “Isadora,” Paige said. “Isadora,” Peter said. “Okay. I’m sorry about what happened to her.”
Aw, that was a kind of...sweet turn? He can't say nice things or demonstrate empathy without turning it into a grating comment, but that's...to be worked on.
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jsoh 18-Sep-20 10:25 PM
when the new gf makes your brother less of an asshole
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JayManiac 18-Sep-20 10:29 PM
“She might be okay,” Lola said. “I… don’t know if I feel any lasting effects. If we can bounce back, maybe she could recover?”
...Maybe? I mean, Evan was able to recover from his neck being snapped while he was blake's familiar, so maybe Isadora can use Paige's connection to get herself back in Order a little bit, given time?
“Or a part of it,” Rose said. “They chose the demons they did for a reason. One that could hurt practitioners by hurting their workings, another that debilitated and stalled us, while…” Lacking the words, she gestured at the surroundings. At the ripped seams and world left ajar. “…Making it easier to do what they want to do,” she finished. “So… I’m not ruling out that she could recover. If doing permanent damage to our psyche was the point, then we’d know, I think. But I do think it was trying to hurt the fabric of things, affecting us like it did.”
Ah, that's an interesting strategy- influencing the spirits indirectly through the practitioners, rather than targeting the practitioners themselves
“What happened to Molly?” Mags asked, all at once. “Absorbed into the Abyss, I think,” Rose said.
That's also an interesting thought- we haven't heard the bell since shit went abyssal, so I think this is a likely scenario
which is...probably for the best, considering that the minor god she could've become might not have been the best influence on things
not that they couldn't use more vengeful gods right about now, possibly
“Go there, and flame on, you know? Not destroying the highway, just to light it up. Kiss the walls and top with fire. Yeah?” “You say that like there’s a chance I’d say no!” Evan said. He hopped forward, wings flapping.
Hey, but now that molly's gone
I'm not saying Mags should swear evan as her familiar
but they'd get along, dammit!
they do get along
“-y darn time,” Mags said. “Every time, you try to mess with me! You little twits don’t learn! I’ve shot you, I’ve frozen you, I’ve blown some of you up. Do you learn? Do you announce yourselves and stop trying to ambush me? No. But doing it on a day like this? With demons running around? That’s a special brand of twit.” “Aaaaaah!” a goblin that was still on fire screamed.
I mean I can get why this might be a bad time for this, but I think the goblins antics provide some much-needed levity in this situation
“Aaah!” it screamed. “Nod,” Mags said. It nodded, still writhing. “That’s the most half-assed binding I’ve ever seen,” Lola commented.
Oh shush, you wanna be friends
“I’ve bound these little twits at least three times already. Same rules every time. If they can break the binding, I’ll be surprised. Snotwit, I bind you. You know how this works.” “Uh huh,” Snotwit mewled.
This is a surprising mix of hilarious and absolutely badass
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JayManiac 18-Sep-20 10:53 PM
Mags saw Rose studying the things, “What do you think?” “Having a few more numbers wouldn’t hurt,” Rose said. “We only needed the smaller group to slip away.”
which is very fun- these guys can come along for the ride, and probably die quickly and horribly to something incredibly powerful
hey, maybe they can all dogpile an imp and get somewhere
“Can’t help but feel like goblins are more liability than advantage,” Lola commented. “Never liked them.” “Wait ’til I show you what I can do with my tongue,” Stump leered. “If you even suggest anything similar to that, I’ll cut it off,” Lola said.
Ehehehehehehehehehe yeah this will be fun
Maybe peter will learn to like em
or find them useful
“Now who’s going to eat who?” Evan asked. “I could do with some roasted sushi. Hm? Hm? What do you say to that?” “Sushi is raw fish,” Green Eyes said, already far enough ahead that she was barely audible. “And?” Evan asked. Rose ignored the conversation that followed.
and all the readers deemed it a tragedy that she did
agree 4
Great spheres broke it up, but they were small comfort. They had a gravity of their own. Not planets, not moons, but something else. So close it felt like they might scrape past, and wipe everything here away. One took up a third of the space above, touching on two sides of the horizon, shifting perceptibly with every moment. It shifted with what looked to be static, like that from a television screen, but the edges were too crisp, the details too sharp, until she thought it might touch her, or reach into her eyes.
Ahahahahaaaaa I had no idea what we'd find here but this is...maybe the last thing I could ever expect? It's just so strange and alien, but it makes a lot of sense that we'd find it here
It was a setting, she instinctively knew, that was familiar to demons and gatekeepers, and very few others. A setting that predated things. Or a setting that would be.
You know, with what the abyss was like, I did wonder what actual hell would be
“Makes sense they’d have someone to track others down,” Rose commented. “The lawyers have their debtors and fugitives. I’m not the first to try to escape the consequences.” “Man,” Peter said. “If this is escaping consequences, I don’t even want to know what facing them is like.”
that's a mindset that'll serve you well in the world of the Practice, pete
assuming you live that long
“We need oxygen too,” Paige added. “What happens if it takes that away?” “We have oxygen, let’s not set any self-fulfilling prophecies in motion,” Rose said.
Paige is very clearly new at this
You do not give the tormentors more ideas to torment you with
ultimately, pessimistic thinking just reinforces those ideas and helps them come to pass
“Can’t tell, not really. Smells aren’t traveling like they should either. But there’s death, and blood.” “Blood and darkness,” Mags said.
As perscribed!
“Is that a genie?” Paige asked. “Yeah,” Peter answered for her, his voice hushed. Paige shot him an annoyed look.
the thorburn twins really are just two little shits. Don't get me wrong, Peter's worse, but Paige isn't without her sniping back.
Not a one minute walk away was a giant. Sitting cross-legged, hands folded in its lap, its shoulders slumped forward, head tilted so it faced the ground. Even sitting, its head reached as high as the roofs of the two stores on either side of it, each one three floors tall. The face had burned away, the skull shattered, revealing just how thick the bone was. Far thicker than a human skull. The interior of his head was only dark. The fragments of the skull and wisps of scorched flesh littered the hands, lap, and surrounding pavement. “Man,” Evan’s voice cut through the silence. “Why does that bother me so much?” “Giants are nearly extinct,” Lola said. “Man,” Evan said, again. “He’s his own tombstone,” Ainsley said. “In a place like this, he won’t ever change from that. Wind won’t erode him, microbes won’t eat him. He’ll just sit there, until this place is gone.” “Fucking assholes,” Mags said. “Fuck them. Even clueless idiots like me know you don’t mess with the giants.”
😢
I also wonder if Evan's getting a bit of know-how from the spirits around him, or possibly the fire spirit, that he's instinctively aware of such taboos
Ogre, Rose thought to herself. One of the old creatures Johannes was so fond of surrounding himself with.
It's interesting, that this resulted in demons being able to get to and destroy a lot of the oldest Others
The Barber’s creations were closing in. Too many for it to have touched each with the shears. The cut was some effect the demon had worked across his domain, to alter vestiges.
Well that's terrifying, espeically if said effect is still in effect or can be replenished
“Now!” Lola said. Mags cut Lola with the athame. In a flash, they were moved. Shifted to a building interior.
Oh shit- I didn't think this kind of enchantment was possible in someone else's demesne
“I’m No good to you now,” Lola said, looking down at her palms. “Did all I could. Pulling us along a connection. That lawyer found us, he’ll find us again.” “You did good,” Rose said
She really has- it's very stress-inducing to have lost the enchantress, when we know how versatile they can be
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JayManiac 21-Sep-20 09:40 PM
The barber seems like a pretty unbeatable adversary at this point in the story, to be sure- barbatorem himself is opposed by structure, while Faysal is opposed by a direct attack, and Johannes really didn't seem to be opposed by anything- potentially barring Angels themselves, which we don't actually have access too. A direct, structured attack would be best, but with Johannes' demesne in the picture he seems to have control of all of the structures around here too so I'm not exactly sure what the plan is here, unless they want to go with Faysal's original, which didn't exactly count for a whole lot of aberrant factors. like the lawyers. And Johannes- being that sometimes if you try to kill two birds with the same stone, the first bird will inhabit the body of the other bird bringing them both back in a necromantic existence to crawl out of the depths of said stone, seize control of your form with their bird hypnotism powers (which you are weak to), and then open portals to the aviary realms so that birdkind may wreak havoc on humanity (edited)
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JayManiac 21-Sep-20 10:02 PM
Rose tore her eyes away from the scene outside. Calling it a revel would be wrong. There was no celebration at work. There was only chaos. Countless broken wretches were spending as much time harming one another as they were milling aimlessly. Reacting to touch with violence. The aggressor and the victim, fight and flight. In some cases, where there was enough mean going around, as was the case with the ogres, each side got two very different kinds of viciousness. Raw barbarism in one, sadism in the other.
it's interesting to see where the divide falls- there are a lot of ways you can cut something: you could cut it so that all the viciousness is on one side, or you could cut viciousness down the middle, so to speak, dividing it into its parts. With Blake and Rose, I imagine the cut was a very measured thing, precise to generate Rosalyn would've wanted. With these kinds of cuts, I can't exactly be sure how much care was put into them. Also of course the book would conclude with a battle against a practitioner in his own demesne- I probably should've seen that coming ever since we learned how much power one has on their turf.
Now that Rose forced herself to look at the vestiges, she saw two boys and two girls. One was older than the remainder of the group, thirteen or fourteen, the rest prepubescent. They were, viewed with the sight and without, like cracked porcelain dolls come to life. Hollow on the inside, they teemed with rat spirits, to the point that the press of furry bodies formed discolored, matted walls that covered the gaps. They stayed to shadow more than they ventured into light, and only the flames that licked Evan’s body made their faces visible.
I have no idea why this is such disturbing imagery for me, since I don't think it gets to everyone, but sweet cheezits- I can barely look at this description without being substantially unsettled, and we're about to get even more in-depth with what they look like. I think I can far too easily imagine the movements of a rat, and how those things would feel from the inside, or...something. I dunno. I've read all of wildbow's books (except pale) and this is the conciet that gets to me the most. Every time we even allude to the description it's so viscerally upsetting. to something inside me. Even the idea of teeming with rat spirits suggests a kind of motion I'm very affected by.
I'm just straightup not going to pull these descriptions. I promise I'm reading them, I just can't pay any more attention to them than that.
“I’ve made a point of protecting connections,” Mags said. “I asked Johannes to go easy on them, and I sort of… guarded them. Maybe that counted for something?” “Oh my gosh,” Paige said. “He was going easy on them?”
yeaaaaah. This is just a very visceral reminder that Johannes was not a good person by certain...humane, empathetic standards. interestingly, his demesne was built on the basis of siphoning vestiges off of human residents: something that the barber can do to a far greater degree. I wonder if that's playing a part. But this is bound to remind me of Elliot and Reuben's old disagreement over whether these are actual people, and whether it's okay to be tormenting them. I think that it's fairly evident by their conversational aptitude- which we know things like ghosts don't really have -that they're conscious enough to be worth protecting. And maybe it's just the appearance of sentience, but...they come directly from the source.
“You’re the magic types from the town?” Mia asked. She hadn’t moved when Ainsley had approached her, and now her tone of voice suggested another kind of stubbornness, an insistence. “Wizards and wizardesses?”
'wizardesses' is such a good detail to include. It's the kind of childlike thought that really solidifies these people as people.
“You knew?” the smaller girl pressed, a little more intense. “Mags says she didn’t have a choice, her very Self was at stake, but why didn’t you do anything?” “It’s complicated,” Ainsley said.
Is it? I sense themes here- and I love that the people who most often highlight them are children, innocents, people who know enough about how the world works and don't know quite enough to be fooled by it yet.
“There were a lot of reasons,” Ainsley said. “I’m young, there were other things going on, there are rules about who you can attack, when, and why. But if you strip it all away, or if you distill it into some basic concept… yeah. The reason we couldn’t just deal with him was that he’s strong.”
There's something to be said about why it's always kids who point this kind of thing out. It reminds me of a lot of the themes that are talked about with regard to Alice In Wonderland: that children are uniquely suited to point out the hypocricy and absurdity of our systems and how they relate to each other. That logical thought with regard to the english language, or train schedules, or how people respond to symbols rather than that which the symbols represent, often reaches an alternate conclusion than the one that society has reached. Pact has a notion of a modern-day Alice In Wonderland in it.
“-Sucked us in, made our lives a living hell, just trying to survive. You’re a part of it. You condoned it. And if you think you could stop him now, that means it was possible before.”
Well, I wouldn't be so certain that it's possible now, but yeah...yeah, these are all very good points
“I didn’t condone it,” Peter said. “No wands in these pockets. I’m an asshole, but I’m not an asshole in this respect. It’s really very humbling.” Paige elbowed him, shooting him a look. “Paige either,” Peter added. “That’s not what I meant,” Paige hissed. “Don’t interrupt.”
Peter you little shit. I take it back, it's all been kids, and also peter who've called bullshit on it all
“But you want us to join the fight, as part of the price of that,” Noah said. “You’re all the same. You, your families, the sorcerer. Well, I have the right to say no. You had your chance to get on our good side, and that was before you needed to get on our good side.”
You know what? they're kind of right- I mean, it's not good for the long run, and it's a petty thing to not help when it comes down to the line, but if anyone's earned the right to not help here, it's definitely these guys. On the one hand, it's this kind of stubbornness in the face of legitimate actual world-threatening danger that gets in the way of things and causes critical moments to go awry. On the other, it's really the fault of everyone here except them that things have gone so shitty. As much as I understand that it's not what's best for the world, there's a definite part of me that just wants to go "yeah, deal with your own mess, you kind of deserve what you get out of it"
it's a very good moral quandary
“But I’m a kid too! I got shafted too, metaphorically!” Evan said. “You’re one of them.”
And Evan's here to kind of be in the middle of this quandary, because it's true! He's been working to fix stuff like this as hard as he can, and he's still lumped in with the ones who don't do anything, which is a Dick Move -but these kids can't know that.
“Scare tactics. Right. Yeah, I’m not convinced. You collectively dug yourselves into this, you deal with it.”
He made a strangled noise, then twisted. Faster reflexes than any human. More flexible, even being broken. A flawed vestige. He managed quite well, considering that she still had a grip on his shirt, facing her, hands outstretched, fingertips curled in. The boy’s face contorted in rage, far more than a human’s normal range of movement should have allowed. Cracks formed. She felt eerily calm as she brought the machete to his throat.
Aaaahahaaaaaaaargh this is such a painful situation, because I'm rooting for the kids maybe a little more than I should be.
“I feel the need to protect mine just like you need to protect yours, keeping yours out of trouble. That’s why I have a blade to your throat.”
And Rose isn't exactly looking the most sympathetic here either, even though I know that on some level she's right for getting these kids to suffer even more for the barest chance of bringing the barber down
“I was made to serve a purpose, just like you,” Rose said. “I was thrown to the wolves, just like you. You can see the markings on my skin? I have a spirit inside me, tearing me to shreds. Just like you. The big difference between us is that you were made to run, and I was made to be scary. Enough that people wouldn’t want to fuck with me. Enough that people who are even more messed up than I am would think I was playing the game and being a good little monster.”
This is brutal and it really puts you in a rough position when it comes to rooting for your protagonist- with how likable Rose has become over the past few arcs it can be easy to forget...well, all of what she's explicitly expressing right here.
“Figure it out,” she said. She released him, pushing him away with her free hand so he couldn’t or wouldn’t throw himself at her, clawing and biting. “I’m not sure I like how you handled that,” Ainsley commented, quiet. “Did we have another choice?” Paige cut in.
well put, characters in the story
though, I'd remark to Ainsley that the brutality Rose just showed- while awful -is nothing compared to the indifference that you and your family did.
“I think it sounded like both,” Peter said. “I agree with the kid. This whole situation here wasn’t fair or just, either, and I think we’ve already established that your whole dynamic was a bit hypocritical, as far as Rose and general nonsense went. You’re oh for three.”
Here's hoping this kid is stumbling into something to stand for
Johannes’ demesne wasn’t so dissimilar from the Abyss. The parallels kept getting drawn. Blake had wanted her to bring Green Eyes. A bogeyman. Was there more to it? Was he with her in thinking about how things all fit together? Gatekeeper, human, demon? Humans and the abyss? The stable ‘real’ world and the churning void of the Abyss?
This is a theme that we've been following since the abyss was introduced- including the introduction of the Hat Scourge who thinks that the real world is basically the same as the abyss -and I'm acclimating myself to the idea that that might pay off in a big way when it comes, not to the surface but to the demesne just beneath it. And Rose is making a lot of the same connections through her little intimidation tactic there
(edited)
“Dunno what you’d call it, but I’m vouching for her. I know what you’re in for if you say no and we win. She’s telling the truth there. It’s a good deal. One I’d take.” “Character reference,” Peter chipped in.
1. aww- green eyes is helping and it's wonderfully sad 2. peter, you helpful prick. You can tell that he just automatically says this kind of thing because it annoys most people, but that Green Eyes finds it more helpful than annoying, and Peter doesn't mind that.
Paige was saying something. A quick prayer. Not directing her focus at the hellhound, but at the lawyer. The light flared again. What looked to be invisible figures wreathed in glowing drapery emerged from the reflections and refractions. They reached out and gripped the lawyer. Not firm holds, but gentle ones, enough to mire him. Karmic burdens? Rose wondered. It would fit the Sphinx’s specialty, as would the protective end of things.
Ilovethis
we haven't really seen the sphinx's power channeled before, mostly just the physical form and how she uses it to work karmic balance
so this is a fun detail
Rose climbed through, and she was thankful of all the days where she’d simply forgotten to eat. Had she been one half-inch thicker around the chest or hips, she might not have fit.
Rose, you concern me
this world concerns me too, for rewarding that kind of decay
“You do have a plan?” Lola asked. “Something beyond attack?” Yes, Rose thought, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it.
This is also concerning, especially because we're so close to the end of the chapter
As she ceded control, following the same path Blake had taken when he’d retreated from the madness demon, she felt the tattoos take over, some thicker than others, overlapping, reaching out over skin. She just prayed that if they somehow made it through this, that he’d give it all back. Your turn, she thought.
AAAAAAAHHAHAHAAAAAA THAT'S SUCH A RISKY MOVE BUT I LOVE THIS
agree 1
I'm so excited to get blake back next chapter
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JayManiac 22-Sep-20 03:47 AM
Oh lords, you're such jerks XD
it's killing me, because I think I probably won't get time to read for the next two or three days at least, due to unexpected medical procedures
ohno 6
On the bright side, after that I'll still be in recovery, which might just mean finishing the serial in one big wave
CharmanderHi 2
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A bird 🐦 22-Sep-20 03:53 AM
Good luck, Jay!
ty 1
thistbh 2
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Wildbow 22-Sep-20 03:54 AM
Take care, Jay
ty 1
Hopefully it's not the kind of surgery where you're groggy on meds.
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Elliot (Boy) 22-Sep-20 03:55 AM
oh shit Jay, best of luck!
agree 6
ty 1
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JayManiac 22-Sep-20 03:59 AM
Thanks for the well wishes everyone; it's just a liver biopsy, so I'll probably feel like crap, but won't be on medication beyond the first day. I have a fiend who got one last year, and he's been a real help. Tomorrow's riddled with appointments to prepare, and wednesday's The Day, so the earliest I'll be back is Thursday (edited)
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JayManiac 25-Sep-20 07:57 PM
Alright, biopsy says I'm in the clear- though it took an extra day of recovery -and I'm back, just a little later than I might've liked. Not sure how much we're getting through today, but we're back into the fray with our absolute favorite vestige.
My turn. The steering controls were handed over. Considering that the vehicle in question was still moving, it made for something of a stumble.
Aahaahahaaaaaa, It's wonderful how this somehow just reads 'blake' to me immediately. It feels like the story coming home again, possibly for the last time.
sharkhi 4
She was scared, and in occupying her body, I experienced that fear. There were Others who did the possession schtick that liked the fact that they could experience raw human emotion and use it to educate themselves on what worked and what didn’t. I didn’t like it at all.
I'd forgotten the book's emphasis on the physicality of fear, that that more than anything was why blake was immune to fear as a bogeyman. I love when wildbow plays with that idea, picking apart the mental and physical experiences of emotion to show how intertwined they are. This idea of possession, of some Others enjoying that aspect of it, definitely reminds me of (worm) How Regent's power capitalized on and exastrabated his inability to feel emotion, and let him experience it only from the puppetteering of other people. The physicality of emotion has a lot of implications for worm powers, actually, especially Heartbroken ones. Regardless, that's a horrifying aspect of possession.
Rose’s fears were something else altogether. A fear of the outside world, of people. A fear that permeated everything to some degree. Suspicion and paranoia. I could see how our progenitor might have functioned before. With this, and with everything I’d experienced, he would have been left with no place that felt comfortable, nobody to turn to.
Sweet cheezits- that's a heck of an assumption: that Ross was more of a disaster human before the barber came along. I think it's more likely that this was a single fear, of some intensity, which then got exaggerated in both of its aspects when they were cut apart. It makes a surprising amount of sense, though; somehow it never occured to me that Blake just had a baseline trust of people and the world that didn't really make sense with the trauma he was shown to have endured at the hands of family and a backwoods cult.
The anger was mine. With the anger came more changes, and more pain. Tattoos crawled over skin, and where they surfaced, they pierced the skin, reaching out and over. A covering, like a second skin.
Ohohohohoo, so this is how it's going to manifest; that is so cool. I also never really thought about just how Blake and Rose's anger were different- Blake has a particular kind of hot, fire-like anger, while Rose's is more of an icy frustration.
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spinagon 25-Sep-20 08:07 PM
These chapters are among the best chapters of Pact IMO
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JayManiac 25-Sep-20 08:09 PM
I think I absolutely agree- the book really finds such a brilliant stride in the last four arcs and i'm loving the ride we're on
“Oh, look at that,” Peter said, smiling. He seemed to be taking far too much joy in being able to keep his cool while his sister was shocked.
I'm also delighted by this, and the friendly welcome that Blake is getting- initially at least. I think he also probably missed Blake, but maybe that's wishful thinking. I mean he was peter's introduction to the whole Otherverse, so that's something.
“You being… Rose?” Ainsley asked. “Or Blake?” “Blake,” I said it at the same time Mags did.
Eheheheheheheheheheehehehe- Because my friend is currently reading Signatrure and sharing all her thoughts with me, I'm reminded of how much I love Blake and Mags' relationship. When she describes him as this sort of ratty dog that everyone thinks is dangerous, but is really just a sweetheart...it's so wonderful and accurate. And also she's the only person who was friends with him before and still remembers it, which counts extra.
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spinagon 25-Sep-20 08:10 PM
Bogeyman and goblin queen - perfect friends
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JayManiac 25-Sep-20 08:13 PM
It really does fit; man, if they'd been familiars that would've...well, it might not have worked out great for either, considering...lots of things, but it'd be far from the worst pairing.
“Blake!” Evan said, bouncing in place at a point behind the group. “Oh man! I’d give you a hug if I had arms and if I wasn’t on fire and if you weren’t so gross and bloody and is Rose okay?”
I love Evan. So much. He's the best.
agree 3
I tried to catch my balance, but even with support from Mags, I still dropped to one knee. More blood and blood loss. “This might not have been wise,” Ainsley said, belaboring the obvious. “Rule of thumb,” I said. I managed to get to my feet. “If I’m involved, wise isn’t the word you’re looking for.”
Blake is really out here making all the jokes I want to make about him. Stealing all our thunder. But honestly, the Rose/Blake split is an Intelligence/Charisma one; I don't think either have what I'd call...wisdom, exactly. It's split pretty evenly between the two.
although honestly in dnd terms, Blake has far more wisdom than Rose. He's got all the practical experience, the right instincts for living on the street, the survival and perception and insight
But when they say 'wise' here I don't think they're talking dnd. It feels like the kind that neither thorburn really...has
“I’ve pieced things together from what Isadora told me and what’s been said, but meeting you is another thing altogether,” Paige said. She seemed to center herself, and she focused on positioning and providing the light, though she didn’t take her eyes off me.
Oh yeah, they've never met from Paige's perspective! That's kind of cool, in that case!
“Aren’t you glad our grandmother put you dead last for succession?” I asked Paige. My voice was still broken. Partly mine, partly Rose’s. “Probably the nicest thing she ever did for you,” Peter commented. “Don’t think I don’t remember what you said, back then,” Paige said. “You’re right! Nicest thing I’ve done for you, too.”
Peter you utter shitbag. I hate how correct he probably is here.
Ilovethis 4
“Our goal is to clear the way,” I said. “Vestige kids, show us the path, help the others, but whatever happens, stay away from the sorcerer. His pipes pull you under his control. Evan? It’s very possible that includes you too.” “But-” “Be awesome. Stay on the perimeter. Hold back the threats. There will be work to be done here.”
i didn't even think about the pipes possibly controlling Evan- and while I find it unlikely, especially with all the fire elemental he currently is -it sure is a concerning possibility
“I tackle the biggest threat. Green Eyes? Cover my back and flanks.” “Yes,” she said. “Goblins,” I said… I paused. “Be goblins.”
“Can-” one goblin started. He hesitated, “Can I have… that?” He was pointing. Oh. Ugh. I pulled the article of clothing away from my shoulder, where it had caught on a length of wood. A bra.
You'd think that after reading this book for years at this point, I'd know to expect this kind of behavior from goblins, but it's like anytime they're not on the page I don't want to think of them at all, and these moments of 'ah, gross' can still get me every time.
I felt something stir within me. It felt like the birds had, moving within, but considerably larger. Rose was trying to push me to say or do something. Did she want me to give the goblin her bra?
You know, that's an interesting point- of all the people thatwouldn't give a shit about something like this, it makes sense that Rose might not, considering that that particular form of modesty is far more of a Blake thing. Enough of one that he's just gonna veto it. It's funny to think that in this entire book this is the first time that either of them has been in control of the other's body. It really makes it feel like a finale, like this has been something we've waited for the whole story.
`“You’re going to kill the monsters the Barber made because that’s what you do best. You are made for this. Be violent, be vicious, be wanton, you’ll probably never get an occasion quite like this where you’ll be encouraged to cut loose like this. Those creatures up there have been carved up by a demon, and they’re weaker, in many respects. Other stuff was highlighted as stuff was carved away, but Rose thinks of them as wretches. They’re weak, you pick on the weak. Be thorough, cut them down and put them down.” One or two goblins grinned at me. Hard to tell in the dark. “You know you’re dealing with goblins when a good pre-battle speech for the goblins demoralizes everyone else,” Mags said.
this is just hilarious. Concerning, and kind of sad- these creatures are victims in the same way Blake and Rose are -but there's truth to what Blake is saying. And Mags is here to put a lighthearted spin on all the horrible things that goblins are.
“Get into the practitioner’s tower,” I said. “Run interference if you can do it without dying, but focus on getting to a place where you can be practitioners and work your mojo. If it looks like you’re going to die, try to take a few of them down with you, or slow them down.” “You’re a hell of a lot more vocal than Rose,” Peter observed. “It’s almost reassuring, except for the ‘going to die’ part.”
yeah, Peter missed Blake. That's just what's happening. I'll bet he even missed the 'going to die' parts of Blake's plans, which have always been part of Blake Plans by nature.
“Do tell,” Lola said, sounding less than pleased. I suspected the pressure was getting to her. “I did,” I said. “Remember that we can do this. That’s the basis behind the plan. The demons are essentially Faerie. Everything is Faerie.”
YES! Yes, yes, and YES!
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JayManiac 25-Sep-20 08:56 PM
“I’m sorry that I said it,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over my protest, the words tremulous where the alcohol affected them, “But it’s got to be said! You’ve lost it!” “I’m not crazy,” I said. “We challenge them the same way we challenge glamour. This is about belief. It’s about breaking from the conventions that shackle us. Humans and practitioners have a massive amount of power, and this is why the lawyers are doing what they’re doing. Rose and I caught on, but we didn’t buy into their deal and jump on board with them. Johannes caught on, and Faysal and the lawyers both went after him to take advantage of it. Humans are architects of change, and this threatens them to the point that they have to respond. They’re worried, and what we need to do is make those worries justified.”
This is everything. While maybe not the central theme of the book at large (which has, by my measure, been something akin to 'get off of your ass') this sentiment of human-central belief and the power to change the workings of the universe via thought has absolutely been the central theme of this liveread, and of my stance on Pact from very near the start, once I realized the axioms the Otherverse seemed to pivot on. The thesis statement of many things I write has always been to empower fantasy as a tool to examine reality (and accuse all of science and philosophy and religion of using more limited, shittier versions of said tool). Essentially: it's all Faerie, it's all glamour. This, this is why pact is my favorite book. And if I'm being honest, I wasn't entirely sure that it would land where I did, concerning this particular philosophy. I've always though of my own stance as overly optimistic, idealistic- and maybe it still is -but i'm beyond happy to see it here, in the text itself, before the finale. To know that this message is what's at stake, as we move into the final battle.
side note: Blake and I have the same argumentation style, and I relate to this so hard. I was once told by a classmate in a seminar that my style of discussion is: say something that's utterly ridiculous and makes everyone in the room think you've gone batshit crazy...and then once you have that attention, take the idea and walk everyone through the steps it took to get there, and why it actually makes more sense than it would appear. If any of you have watched my worm videos- particularly the finale of my metanarrative worm trilogy -then you can probably confirm that this is my style to a tee. Hell, I've probably used it once or twice in this liveread (probably more) and I know I used it in All Pact Up when I called Johannes a youtuber~ anyhow, it was just endlessly amusing to see our main character argue my favorite thesis in the world to argue, and to do it in exactly the way I would've.
“Easier said than done,” Mags said. “Hell of a lot easier said than done,” I said.
And that's the thing, this is why I don't think that this book is gonna end on this idea being overly idealistic or optimistic: because it's not an easy solution. Having it doesn't just solve all the problems or mean that there won't be sacrifices. It's as complicated as belief itself.
This is still something we have to win. A truth we earn. (edited)
“Push forward, do what you can. Keep an eye out and your mind open for possible chinks in the armor.”
Alright, giant Jay Moment of Validation is...not over, but not all we're focusing on. We're still only halfway through the chapter XD
how many of you were waiting for me to get to that part?
“And some of us will even do it while wearing bras on our heads!” the small goblin cried out. Rose nudged me. Fuck it. I hooked the bra strap from the bundle of torn clothes I had under one arm and tossed it to the goblin, who cackled merrily.
This is, hands down, the oddest moment of triumph this book has handed to me. I felt that this was a victory, but I cannot for the life of me wrap my head around why. I mean, I know why: it's that blake is still learning to let go and collaborating with Rose, and breaking free of his conventional mentality that bras should matter at all which is all hells of in line with the speech he just gave, but...gods, when you put all those conventions back it's a really strange moment to feel such pride at
“It’s his demesne,” Lola said. “He gets to decide the layout. That we got this close and got stopped… it’s…” “A massive cockblock,” Peter threw in. “I was going to say deliberate,” Lola clarified. “It’s both,” I said.
And peter gets to keep being delightful, which I'm going to keep pointing out, possibly at the expense of time spent on other parts of the story, because it's just that fun
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Ishamoridin 25-Sep-20 09:09 PM
Yeah it's been fun seeing you say "everything is Faerie" knowing that line was coming up
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JayManiac 25-Sep-20 09:10 PM
I cannot believe y'all kept your mouths shut
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Ishamoridin 25-Sep-20 09:10 PM
How could we not? I wouldn't dare impinge on the moment you found it yourself
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jsoh 25-Sep-20 09:11 PM
"It's both, " I said
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JayManiac 25-Sep-20 09:11 PM
XD
very nice pull
it's pact; it's always both
I also like this revelation by Blake as a contrast to Rosalyn's "Everything is Demons" mentality
like, trying to break the mold or not, that line of thinking is just the wrong one to bring to this situation; it's the thing that gets you all killed because you give the demon that much power
“Oh, the demon doesn’t want a church so close to home? Who’d’ve thunk it?” Peter asked. Ainsley elbowed him, and he shot her an annoyed look. “Stop doing that. Seriously. I’m not good for much more than joking around and offering very basic observations to you jerks, in case you lose sight of the forest for the trees or the trees for the forest or however it goes. Until you come up with something better for me to do, let me have this.” “If Blake is right,” Paige said, “Then you’re an important tool here. You’re more human than any of the rest of us. That counts for something.” He opened his mouth, and she cut him off. “And yes, I did call you a tool. Grow the fuck up. I’m not in the mood for it.”
Holy shit, I just made fun of my tendency to point out Peter's dialogue needlessly and the book was straightup like "Nope! Actually it's very important to be keeping track of how he sees things and why that matters!" I mean, I suppose I'm not complaining that the book has suddenly decided to validate my decisions regarding what parts of it to focus on.
(edited)
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JayManiac 25-Sep-20 09:30 PM
I knew that Green Eyes and Evan were engaging in the fight, but I still let the bundle of clothes fall and reached for Ainsley.
So all of Rose's clothing gets either destroyed, or removed and then dropped here, which is fascinating; it reminds me of the conversations we've had about Awakening, and the idea that you remove all your clothes to represent yourself in your identity, without the spirits and connotations of the clothing you wear. I can't help but tie that thread (pun all sorts of intended) to what's happened here
The goblins were here and there, doing just what I’d ordered them to. Where some of us struggled in the chaos, the goblins reveled in it. They were completely and utterly at home in the midst of all this. They cut and butchered, found weak points and went after them with no hesitation. Just the opposite. With eagerness.
Well at least they're having fun
Watching Blake try to fight in Rose's body is so much fun
It wasn’t like the Abyss, I noted. Where the Abyss had been almost eager to destroy and wear away, this was utterly nihilistic. Bleak, more than savage. The wretches destroyed themselves as much as we destroyed them, and it didn’t matter in the slightest, because they covered the streets around us, as far as I could make them out.
Remember how I was like "hey, after the abyss I'm curious to see what hell is like"?
meh
I could go without
I reached the lawyer, and I didn’t get a chance to swing at him, nor the hellhound he was trying to offer Evan up to. I swung for the chain. He knew in an instant, what I’d done.
Aahahahahahahaha wonderful
You'd think he'd be a more careful diabolist
considering that it's probably something like this that got him into the lawyering business anyhow
I twisted and broke the machete’s blade. I stabbed him with the broken remainder. Spikes impaled my hand. The machete changed.
I'm surprised at the triumph I feel with this moment
This battlefield kind of reminds me of the Hyena, actually
a bunch of carved up Others and Souls posing danger to our protagonist in the demsne of something with a touch of demonic power?
seems pretty familiar!
Which makes it all the more fitting that Blake is the one to deal with it
We have to remember we can do this, I thought. The others were there, ready to enter the building, but in the instant they got that far, blades appeared to block the door, like crossed spears to wall the others off. The Barber was going to do everything it could to dissuade us of that notion.
Ilovethis
What a chapter; I'm absolutely living for that payoff/setup in the middle there
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JayManiac 02-Oct-20 02:00 AM
Thanks so much for reading along!! The middle of this week became very busy very unexpectedly, and I know I want to dedicate the proper time to finishing pact off right- if not in one big read, then at least on consecutive days and with half a week left to spend writing videos about it uninterrupted. I should be back monday to bring this liveread to a close; I really appreciate that you took the time to read through, and I'm very glad that it's been worth it. See you all soon!
bulba 8
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JayManiac 05-Oct-20 09:37 PM
Each of the blades erupted from the ground as if it was stabbed up and through the surface by something that dwelt just below us. Twice as tall as any of the denizens here, rusty, scuffed, but horribly sharp, roughly two out of the three blades were left coated in blood as they tore through members of the crowd, the occasional set scissoring closed with sprays of blood and dust.
And we're back into the fray once again- it's been far too long, so let's finish it off right this week! We have Rose, Blake, our Seven Samurai, a humanist theme and a triple-threat practitioner/demon/angel, representing the three most powerful forces of the System that our protagonists are up against. And it's going...poorly, as per usual.
sharkhi 5
A ring of blades at the edges, ever-closing, and a barrier to block our entrance to the building.
And a fray it appears to be; I don't know how much I'll be able to pull for the fight itself, unless something catches my eye, but knowing me that's bound to happen anyways
We were being bound. Like bound by like. Humans and others caught up in a sea of humans and others.
Humans are, I would think, the force besides dragons that doesn't have an opposite, since they act as the 'anchor point', the creators of such opposites. I know I've mentioned it before, but binding something with its like or its opposite is a really good way of forcing magic to go up against magic on its own terms, or be less effective; it's a very effective balance for the entire system at play.
But I got the message, even if I didn’t understand it. Give up. With that thought, Rose relaxed. She didn’t push, and she didn’t hit me with the memory again.
Ah, if you could figure out the exact thing to say to blake that he could never abide by, this may in fact be it.
A half-second later, the effect really started to take hold. One wretch swung a punch at another that was in its way. The aurora flared, much as water might splash if one punched a tranquil pool. The fist came away battered, a finger bent in the wrong way. More explosions of light rippled around us, clusters and sporadic bursts both.
Oh? Finale, is that you?
Metal gauntlets dug into my back. Wood and bone broke, and I felt the light ripple out, retaliating. It didn’t prevent the harm, it only punished it.
Ahahahaa, this is so much Fun; I'd always wondered how exactly something like isadora could weaponize karma, other than in the more abstract sense that people like Malcolm the Benevolent could. This is a very succinct concentration of that idea- observable harm being punished in kind.
I could see the tie to the sphinx. Set a rule, with very clear, fair consequences. Hurt others, get hurt in kind.
The idea that she sets up an ultimatum that gives her power over those who break it is a very fun reflection of the karmic system in general.
A goblin with a bra for a hat pounced onto her face while she was distracted, and was summarily punished, thrown off by a bright flash.
small note, but lightens the mood; I know I should be rooting for this goblin, but it's so much fun to see it go flying in my mind's eye
I found her, on the ground and writhing to try and stay away from others. Where her tail touched flesh or scales hooked on clothing, the light spat at her, sparks that burned and made her smoke.
It's also a good precursor to this unexpected effect; the light is still a reflection of karma, and with it comes karma's problems: It holds grudges, it doesn't care about case-by-case basis, it's just a mechanical rule that's in place for the visage of fairness.
Time slowed, and we slowed with it. The blades were already rising as the effect took hold. Our momentum stayed constant, but our brains operated at a normal speed. It was almost like a dance. Seeing the blades appear, moving as if we were swimming underwater, to get ourselves out of the way.
This is so good- of course a magic fueled by story would have a slow-motion button.
All around us, the forest of the Barber’s blades had all snapped shut. Many of the wretches that had been cut several times over were in shapes that barely resembled people. Too flimsy, too bent, broken, pre-existing wounds turned into other features. A break in an arm now a joint, entrails now some mechanism for a glacially slow advance. Too numerous now to simply be a crowd, many climbed and hung off the blades, like monkeys in trees. They were slick with blood, and in the curious light, the blood looked nearly black.
I wonder how many of these are filled with more material and become Others, and how many just kind of dissolve into the apathy and nothingness, reduced to their components or siphoned into something else?
Peter was staring at me. I had to double check that I hadn’t been cut so deep that there was a double of me. “Thanks,” he said.
peter showing the barest bit of gratitude is a win in my book
Peter was helping Ainsley and wrestling with the block of wood. I seized the block myself, sticking the Hyena through a gap in my midsection to sheath it before bringing the block against the blades that blocked the door.
Ahahahahahahahaa, I'm sorry, he just finds the part of his stomach that most resembles a belt loop and just "it goes here now"
this is a wonderful little image
Peter ducked, readying to move under, and the blade moved. I reached out, too late to be effective, but Peter was already backing away. The blade dropped, sliding down, cutting into the ground at the base of the door, where Peter would have been if he were crawling through. A feint, on his part. He shot me a grin. “Predictable!” “Stop being smug and get inside!” Paige screamed.
he really is perfect for this system, where all of his manipulation tactics will in fact work on the primordial forces of the world, given some tinkering
lol 2
I wasn’t in the best shape, either. The holes which I’d opened up in Rose’s torso, arms and legs were raw at the edges, she was bleeding, and I was in pretty poor shape as well. The damage done to my body wasn’t healing. There was no reserve of power to draw on, here. Whole sections of my exterior body had been torn away, and Rose’s body was exposed. More than ever, we were like two very different jigsaw puzzles, pieces hammered and jammed into place in a way that wasn’t meant to be.
Ilovethis
Something E&R have been pointing out in DiP, where I'm listening, has been the moments where Blake and Rose act antithetical to their typical methods in order to help each other out, and I've noticed things in that context more and more, recently. I mentioned that it was incredibly un-blake to give up, there, but he did do it, however much something inside him seemed to wrestle with it.
The idea that they're fitting together anyways, despite not being meant to, has a very pidgeon/chessboard vibe that I greatly appreciate.
Mags was already shaking her head. “I was watching. They’re clear.” For all the suspicion she’d just displayed, Paige looked genuinely relieved.
I shouldn't be surprised that pact managed to capture such zombie apocalypse feelings towards its conclusion
“One of those calls was getting hurt to save my life,” Peter said. “Thanks again, by the by.”
Peter's commented on this no less than three times since it happened- the original thank you, the mention of blake being cut, and then this. I take it to mean that it was a moment of clarity and actual gratitude, but maybe that's a bit too optimistic
Paige, apparently, had a different interpretation. “Why the hell did you go and do something stupid like that?” A joke. Not enough to elicit laughter, but a few people smiled.
Yeah, yeah, this is great
“We learned something,” Lola said.
Oh good, someone was paying attention to things other than the grit and grime of the fight itself
“Demons suck,” Evan chimed in. “Demons with a dem-whatsit suck more. I’m too tired to pronounce stuff.”
and it wasn't evan
lol 3
but we love him anyways.
“And I’m assuming Rose is still there and she’s listening,” Lola said, very patiently. “There’s a lot we can learn from what someone doesn’t say. What they don’t do. This is Duchamp manipulation one-oh-one here. He attacked us last.” “What does it mean?” Paige asked. “The way the blades appeared, targeting us last, it’s very basic rules for exercising force. It’s how you do enchantments on stuff that’s resisting you. Establish a perimeter, establish a precedent for influence, then exercise it. He couldn’t use the blades to attack us until he’d used them elsewhere. Peter was one of the last ones he attacked.”
I did wonder about that- it's a very foot-in-the-door strategy- I knew salesmen were all either enchanters or demons. It's very cool and very fitting that even this late in the story I'm still missing magical effects that parallel social conduct and psychology; we're pulling out all stops. If you want to figure out how the Others and Practitioners work, ask a pickpocket, ask a salesman, ask a media specialist or psychologist. The rituals are all about the convincing, all about the argument, all about the little tricks that get people to give in, or agree with you.
Ilovethis 2
“Oh, this is my chance to be sarcastic, right, since you guys can’t?” Peter asked. “That’s encouraging.”
You're doing great, peter
keep at it
“I’m pretty fricking surprised there aren’t more threats inside,” Mags said, looking around. “No blades, no Others. I was expecting a bigger confrontation right here. Why? What does this mean?” Lola shook her head. “Don’t know.” “I have suspicions,” I said. “I can share them on the way up. We can’t waste time. Mags, Green Eyes, Peter and Paige, with me.”
There's something I'm missing, but I don't know exactly what it is
I'm sure I'll kick myself in a few minutes
“You’re getting an important job,” I told him. “Yeah, that’s what they always say in the movies and junk. They give the kid a kitsch role to shove him into the background. Sorry, nope, I don’t buy it. You’re telling the truth, because you have to, but you’re also fibbing.” “Evan-” “Nope! At least have the decency to tell me straight to my face. I’m done. Played my role.”
You tell him!
“What are we doing?” Ainsley asked. “If we don’t make it. If the connections break and you’re certain we’re not here anymore, hit the building. Tear it down, burn it down, I don’t know. But topple the damn tower.”
It was Sauron's final blow- toppling towers is just a very symbolic thing, it probably even acts as an antenna for Barbatorem's influence
It took me a bit of courage to convince myself to say it. “Thanks for helping us get this far. We’ll be counting on you guys.” Evan gave me a one-wing salute, wing to forehead. I did the same with the Hyena.
bulba
“I think Johannes might be resisting. In another part, I’m wondering if the Barber is struggling in the same way Rose and I are.” “Struggling?” Mags asked.
While this is a final trifecta that can't exactly be (worm)bullied to death, that makes sense- as does the idea that taking it down would require understanding of this story's themes. I'm not surprised that it might be stuck in some similar stasis of use, here. Just a less cooperative one.
“It would weaken the hold,” Paige said. “The Barber’s power inside, the places becomes less Johannes.”
not an obvious enough answer that I'm kicking myself for not getting it, but I sure am here for it- the thought that they might just have to topple a balance, instead of toppling a demon
“And I’ve got two fists and chutzpah,” Peter said. “For all that’s worth.”
It's worth all the magic in the world in my book!
perhaps the most important thing one can have
And I’ve got Rose, I thought. More of a double-edged sword than the Hyena.
You do seem to have a masochistic sort of taste in tools, techniques, and strategies: you tend to employ those that are certain to also hurt you.
To the great sphere which was covered in teeming masses, giving me a close-up of the shapes there. Lesser demons, crawling and clambering over one another. To the sphere of fire and ruin, where the tracks and trails of the magma’s glow wrote out something that could have been an alien circuit board, a pattern that seemed to speak to my gut, promising nothing good. A third and fourth pointed to darkness, and it went a step beyond even the darkness that Rose had feared would lift her off her feet. It drew away and ate at afterimages of light that danced across the eyes, making even fleeting glances feel like they were giving something to those places and that those places would never give it back.
Ilovethis
I love that demons are able to invoke such varried senses of pure awful
The dragon framed it, wings furled. Bifurcated, nearly cut in half, but not quite, much of what I saw was the cross section of a dragon’s internals, elemental energies and white-hot scaled flesh bleeding heat and energy into the air, framing the sorcerer. The sorcerer sat on the throne that Johannes had been sitting in when I’d first seen him, in my visions of Jacob’s Bell. One half of the dragon’s head was to his left, one half to the right. One of his leg was propped up on the seat, his arm resting on a knee. The shears dangled carelessly from his fingers.
If there isn't art of this somewhere, I will be sorely disappointed; sweet cheezits, this is such an awesome image
Right, I thought. Just have to unseat the king from his hill. Which doesn’t actually win us the fight. It only helps. “Fuck,” Mags said.
Ahahahahahahha so very well put.
Ilovethis 3
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JayManiac 05-Oct-20 10:39 PM
Of course! If there are any lingering questions that you'd like me to touch on, or things that you want me to keep in mind throughout this last section of the story, feel free to pass them along during the breaks between 'reads!
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JayManiac 06-Oct-20 12:11 AM
It does land well here, because of her attention to swearing, and because of the scene explored here. I think this is likely one of the better uses, but I can get the cumulative problem, though I can't think of any other specific examples
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JayManiac 06-Oct-20 02:14 AM
We watched as the Barber held the shears to one side. The fire that leaked out of the exposed cross-section of the dragon’s head came out in tendrils and lines, and those tendrils and lines touched the metal, slower and more fluid than arcs of electricity, but conducting all the same. The metal grew white hot, cooled far too rapidly as the tendrils grew hair-thin and disappeared, another reaching out to touch another part of the blades. Drinking in power.
This is a lovely way to set the scene here for a confrontation that I can't even really begin to predict. They have no chance- by my estimate -at a head-on assault against any of these three, much less the whole mess of them, so...they could try talking to the barber? Calling him a cunt? Getting him to flood the tower with too much of his essence, supplanting johannes causing his plans to fail?- wait, hold on, that's not a horrible idea, not that he needs to do that to do a helluvalot worse than kill them.
Damn it all. Alright. Alright. Fuck. How were we even supposed to approach this?
Took the words right out of my mouth.
Everything he’d done here had been different. Passive, standing back, laying traps, striking from oblique angles. Like a practitioner.
Alright, we're making it very clear that the mindset we're dealing with is, ultimately, Johannes', from a strategic perspective. Considering that Johannes might've been among the craftiest practitioners in Jacob's Bell (as acknowledged by an actual angel) and for a good radius besides...well, it kind of does feel like we're back to square one. Oh, and don't think I missed the connection that Blake is currently an Other posessing a practitioner, while Barbatorem is the other side of that coin.
“You are not Johannes,” I said. The sheer emptiness of this place meant my words didn’t resonate. My own voice sounded too quiet to me, even as I spoke in louder, confident tones. “I reject your power and your claim to power. You’re a twisted creature belonging to some other long forgotten realm and time, you’re not something to be recognized or respected.“ I managed to inject a fair bit of vitriol into my voice.
Looks like they're going with plan "call him a cunt" then! This is honestly probably the tack I would go with- not if I had the time to think, but if I were actually here and forced to come up with a solution: make a confident, vocal assertion that captures attention and lets the stance be known.
“You wear a human’s skin now, but even before that, you wore a form you drew from our heads. You’re wearing a mask under a mask. Your only power is the power we damn well give you.”
In particular: an assertion that makes you sound a little bit batshit crazy, but that you believe wholeheartedly.
“Blake.” It took me a full two seconds to identify the speaker. I almost thought it was one of my companions, my ability to intuit direction warped by the nature of sound, here. But, even as I dismissed that thought, I thought it might be Faysal, behind Johannes and the dragon.
Oh shit
this just got a lot more fun
He tilted his head to one side, as if trying to read and interpret me. It wasn’t a comfortable position for a human. He righted his head, and hair fell across his face. He didn’t move it.
I'm getting itchy just thinking about it; demons really are the worst
(as a heads up, might not finish this chapter today; I don't have a whole lot of time left, but I'll pick it back up tomorrow)
“I am,” he said, and he said the words with a confidence that matched and maybe even outstripped my own defiance. “I’m Johannes, and I’m something older.”
fuck, fuck fuck- craftiness aside, he's also the most charismatic bastard for miles around
and we've got an audience of spirits who are already on his turf, that blake and the gang need to convince of their argument
“I’ve seen out their eyes,” the Barber said. “Their memories. Their experiences. I’ve seen how the world is put together, and what it is. The world is meant to be consumed. By resisting, we’re only making it worse. We’re a horse with a broken leg, and the best thing to do is put it out of its misery, because it only gets worse from here on out.”
Shit, he's even starting off with a pretty strong argument- I don't believe a word of it, but practitioners are pretty much the worst to argue with, and he's pretty much the best practitioner we know of...I'm aware that, as the spirits, I'm only giving this thing more claim to the argument, so I'll stop now
“You don’t sound like Johannes at all,” Mags said. “He had faith. He was optimistic, even if I didn’t like how he did things, he believed in humanity. Establishing a system.”
I am pretty easily swayed back to our protagonists' side of the argument, though
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A bird 🐦 06-Oct-20 02:32 AM
CharmanderHi
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JayManiac 06-Oct-20 02:33 AM
I can't help but think that if the barber doesn't think he's gonna get more power by talking to them, he's just gonna do what he could've done minutes ago and just kill them personally
so if they win this argument, or even if they look like they're getting close, they might suddenly find that they have a much more immediate problem on their hands
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A bird 🐦 06-Oct-20 02:34 AM
Three very immediate problems, really
agree 2
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JayManiac 06-Oct-20 02:35 AM
three, but also one
huh, I wonder if any other system has to explain a being that is three beings, but also one being?
Ilovethis 1
🤔
The Barber, the Son, and the Holy Idiot
oopw 3
“I know better,” he said. His words, like ours, simply ended with each utterance. No bouncing echolocation, no warmth. They were sounds made with our lips, teeth, tongues and throats.
I don't know if this is meant to harken back to johannes' use of microphones, as a further clue to the reader that this really isn't johannes, but as someone who's tried very hard to get soundproofed raw audio that reverb can be added to later, it certainly reminds me
“Yet,” he said, “The end approaches in fits and starts. You might think that you want more existence, but if you truly felt it, if you believed it deep down inside, then that would tip the scales. If humanity was truly on the side of creation and progress, he-” The shears pointed at the angel behind him. “-he would be winning. He would be stronger than I am.”
well...shit.
I'm very annoyed at how good a point that might just be.
I mean it's still bullshit, but it's some pretty convincing bullshit
we looked at the universe and decided to categorize it in terms of entropy for a reason- deep down, we kind of do believe a bit more in the forces of destruction than we do in those of creation, whatever we might profess
“That’s disingenuous,” Paige said, speaking up. She’d found her voice. “There’s history to take into account. It wasn’t so long ago we were all getting sick and blaming it on humors or miasma. Human existence has sucked. My existence sucked-” “And,” the Barber cut in, “I’m sorry to say that before the end of the night, it’ll turn out worse than you’ve ever conceived of.”
the barber 'cutting in' here is a really fun play on words, and fits well with this easy deconstruction.
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A bird 🐦 06-Oct-20 02:47 AM
I'm sorry to say
suspicious
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JayManiac 06-Oct-20 02:48 AM
I think that- as the entity he currently is -the barber has gained the luxury of saying statements that are true to johannes, as well as statements that are true for itself
working theory, anyhow
“No,” the Barber said. He fixed his dark non-eyes on her. “Your life only got better because you left it behind you. You threw yourself into the realm of Others, adoration of a centuries-old creature doomed to be among the last of her line. You threw yourself into studying her and how to be useful to her, and you abandoned your human life to do it. You’re a coward, Paige Thorburn. You live for balance, truth, justice and order, and you are none of these things.”
weelllll, shit. I know that's the second time I've said that in three exerpts, but that is some very hurtful stuff that...well, I'm not joking when I say it would take a lot for anything but a demon to say.
except for peter
peter would probably say that if he were in the mood.
The Barber looked at me. “You had the right idea. Attack with words. Establish the facts, then use them. If the tables were turned and you were the enemy, me as the one who didn’t know any better, it’s what I’d do. I can show you how fragile you are before I destroy you.”
yeah, okay, but it falls into the very classic villain thing: if they truly had no chance, why are you even talking to them!? Will it solidify your hold if you win? Or is there just some chance that they beat you here, that you're trying to avoid by arguing? It's almost certainly the former but I'm really hoping for the latter.
“You as a collective. Humans. Mortals and Others. I’m trying and apparently failing to convey that this has all been decided. I can see it, and I’m speaking out of the goodness of my heart, as Johannes Lillegard, because I want to spare you the disappointment. You can’t deny that this is reality.”
there is, of course, the more disturbing possibility: that Johannes is speaking the truth, that this isn't all the barber, that somehow in a few hours they actually managed to break him
in which case our protagonists are trying to argue against an argument that persuaded the most humanist of practitioners we've ever seen
He went on, “You can’t tell me that all is well and that you have hope, when you’re planning to die. You intend to give up your existence to someone you well and truly know is a sad, lonely, shadow of yourself, devoid of passion. No. You have no place to say anything to me. If you try to win over any subtle powers that are listening, you’re going to fail badly. You have no ground to stand on.” Why the fuck did he have to be able to talk, damn it?
Okay, that's pretty funny, even if it's just a tad devastating
“I think that sentiment is enough answer to why you have no grounds to challenge me, you and Blake are birds of a feather, after all,” the Barber said. “Mags, I don’t think I even need to say anything to you, after the long conversations we’ve had. That only leaves Peter. Unless you think a goblin would be a better voice for humanity.” He said Peter with such contempt.
Oh dear.
I think that the fate of jacob's bell and possibly a good chunk of the rest of the world
might depend on peter
that's terrifying, and so exciting
If there's something we've established over the past couple arcs, it's peter's ability to call people on their bullshit in a way that's direct, to the point, charismatic, and devastating
now we see if it can stand the test
He’d declared that victory for his side was inevitable, even if we won here. Humanity was instinctively helping his side, and each of us here had no ground to stand on if we wanted to say otherwise. Except for Peter. “It’s not like I really got to know you, but I don’t remember you being this big of a dildo when you weren’t playing host to some scissors-demon,” Peter said.
Peter to the fucking rescue
sharkhi 4
“Petty insults. A small mystery, how I didn’t lose my faith in humanity before the demon opened my eyes.” “Fuck that,” Peter said. “Petty insults are an art. So is talking out your ass, and you’ve acknowledged that.”
Ilovethis
alrighty, that's about the time I have today, but I'll be back tomorrow morning to wrap the chapter and crack the next one
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A bird 🐦 06-Oct-20 03:09 AM
Thanks for the read!
Look forward to it to a frankly concerning degree
same 2
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JayManiac 06-Oct-20 03:16 AM
Sure! the bid for questions/things to think about on the final leg of the story reamains active, and shall until my liveread ends.
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A bird 🐦 06-Oct-20 03:18 AM
Oh that's easy. Barberhannes is the antagonist. He's wrong, in a way that the protagonist is inherently aligned to. How?
Does that include Faysal and Johannes proper?
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JayManiac 06-Oct-20 03:21 AM
That's a fun one: i don't have it all worked out just yet, and honestly that might be a video in and of its own, but my preliminary answer is that Pact, to reflect its multifaceted theme, required a multifaceted final antagonist, each aspect of which represents and champions some aspect of the theme.
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Wildbow 06-Oct-20 03:21 AM
I like that
I'll pretend it was intentional and thought out.
lol 5
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JayManiac 06-Oct-20 03:24 AM
pretend hard enough, and it just might be true; besides, whoever said the conscious bit had to do the thinking, for something to be intentional and thought out?
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JayManiac 06-Oct-20 06:36 PM
A very good question indeed. Peter- well, on one hand he's the best person to make this argument, because he's shown himself far more than proficient when it comes to tearing down everybody's bullshit. On the other, he's the worst person to make this argument, because- at first glance -he's not a particularly optimistic person. His reason to fight for the town seems to be along the lines of a certain other Peter's reason to save the galaxy:
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jsoh 06-Oct-20 06:37 PM
hes the best one present to make the argument because he can be dishonest
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JayManiac 06-Oct-20 06:37 PM
That too XD
So I suppose there are a couple ways that he could go with this: 1. I hear ya, man- we're all pretty shit, but also: I don't wanna die, so fuck you. Which would be..an interesting argument, considering things. Barbahannes claims that everyone's just out to run away from their problems and their existences, nothing gets better, might as well just end it now. Peter just refusing that ultimatum and reaffirming a desire to live, and a willingness to fight for it might win them a couple points in the argument, but I don't think it's enough to topple any towers
2. however, there are other ways you could take this, and I know what mine might be. As xkcd once put it:
Ending it all is only better if existence is suffering, and it's just...not. Like, demonstrably not.
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jsoh 06-Oct-20 06:49 PM
it is! but its also a lot of other stuff
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JayManiac 06-Oct-20 06:50 PM
I think we all went through that moment in fourth grade when we were walking back from the principal's office having missed lunch, and just spontaneously realized that nothing mattered and that life had no meaning and that we were all gonna die- okay, maybe that's a bit general, but I don't know when the average existential crisis is. But I thought about it for a whole day before going home, and I eventually figured out that I would have fun, and that was a worthwhile purpose.
the series of thoughts that assailed me throughout computer lab, social studies, and enrichment before 3:30 when were all allowed to go home finds itself repeated in the history of philosophy: after postmodernism and nihilism we get post-postmodernism and optimistic nihilism
the xkcd comic works for now, but the one I was looking for was: nothing matters, we're alone in the universe, someday everything will be ground to void...so it's okay for you to eat that entire cake.
Just like everything else in pact: this demon is drawing upon the power of a social construct, in this case nihilism. So we can defeat it by similar means: by achieving a faith in humanity that isn't out of naivete, but is derived from choosing to interpret one's worldly experiences in a way that turns out to be optimistic
I'm not sure if Peter's 'there yet' on his journey, but we're probably about to find out.
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JayManiac 06-Oct-20 09:16 PM
“I can see straight through you, Peter Thorburn,” the Barber said. “Backward and forward. The benefit of an eye for ruin and having a practitioner’s Sight at the same time. Don’t even pretend that you have any faith in humanity. You dwell in the darker recesses of it, and you know deep down inside that when your charm fails you, you’ll plunge deeper still, to your own detriment.”
Alright, here we go, Barbahannes is really going for the jugular here, pointing out a couple irritatingly good reasons that peter is ill-suited to make this argument. Either he gives humanity and optimism a bit more credit, or he risks giving the Barber a whole lot of points in the win column. Or he finds a third route, which may or may not be lying out of his ass because he's a human and he'd best enjoy that luxury while he's got it!
“Ouch,” Peter said, unflinching.
I love this, I can hear him say it with the sarcastic confidence of someone who's already ripped himself bigger ones than even a demon could deliver, and isn't particularly impressed. Johannes is using the theatrics, but Peter undercuts the atmosphere that's being built in one word.
“But who the fuck are you to decide that this is about the now? Because I think that’s the demon talking, not Johannes. There isn’t a single person here on this towertop who doesn’t look back at yesterday and think about how much it sucked. Sure. I might dwell in dark recesses of humanity today, but maybe I get to enjoy a certain girl’s more pleasant-” “Ahem,” Paige cut in. “-tomorrow,” Peter said. “Even if it’s not for ourselves, necessarily, we’re all looking forward. Bumps in the road or no, we wouldn’t be here if we didn’t think there was something better in general, later on. Right?” “Right,” Mags said. Paige was nodding, as was Green Eyes. “Damn straight,” I said.
Hell yeah
What an argument- I expected it to be much longer (as suggested by the long-winded way that I decided to answer) but it gets the point across, and while it's not exactly the point I was making, it's got a bit of the same post-nihilist, hedonistic themes across it, while being more to the point, and more relevant to the argument at hand. He's arguing against their belief in betterment and optimism, Peter's sniping back at that particular critique, rather than all of nihilism.
Was this where he uttered a command to Faysal? Or threw the shears to close the distance? We’d answered his challenge, so to speak. “You know, don’t you?” he asked, the question abrupt.
Blake is very very aware of what I am: that as soon as Babs isn't getting as much out of this as he's putting in, he can just end it. I think the gang's best chance is to establish with the spirits that if Barbatorem attacks or signals his creatures to, it means he's lost the argument unless he firmly establishes otherwise.
Because then it'll look a bit cheap if he just ends them without seeing the challenge through
“When all’s said and done, the Abyss will spread, and it will swallow all things. It’s the next step in humanity’s progress. Left untouched, things will advance, progress and change until they tumble over a cliff. That is what waits for humanity as a whole, in the interim. The things you call demons wait beyond even that point.”
This is what we call a minor pivot, where you don't respond to an argument that there's no good response to, and just continue making your point with a new angle like it never even happened. A major pivot would be introducing an entirely new topic that's barely related, but much as I'd like to accuse Babs here of that kind of Shapironicism, he does bring it back more effectively.
It's really the conversation chapters that take me the longest to read- I can blow through a battle in like half an hour with infrequent commentary that essentially amounts to "well that was cool" but conversations are another beast entirely- and it's been quite fun to read a book where they're treated as the very real conflict that they are. After all, one has a lot more important conversations in any given day, than important battles to the death.
“It’s fine,” I cut him off. My own gaze was just as level as his. “I’m not worried. We’ll find a way to make it work. I’ve gone out of my way to reject tradition, the ties of the past that bind us. Why the hell would I let anyone dictate the particulars of the future?” “Why indeed?” the Barber asked. “The practitioner you’re currently possessing would do well to keep that in mind, when she considers how faithful you are to the promise you made her.”
Dammit, dammit! That was so good, but he found a way to twist it against them anyways! The surge of triumph followed by frustration that just assailed me is half the reason I read stories.
I felt Rose react. A sharp movement, too fast and violent, as she did the equivalent of snapping her head around, paying full attention. It tore something. Created a schism.
Fuck, they were doing so well
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JayManiac 06-Oct-20 09:46 PM
I’d left him an opening. He took it. He was backing up. He snapped his fingers, and he pointed with the shears, a sweeping gesture. The dragon roused. Suddenly alert, hostile.
But they kind of slipped up, in letting him take control and engineer himself a graceful exit from the argument
It’s because I believe in changing destiny that I’m walking this road, damn you! Rose got the message, processed it, and seemed to realize she was holding me back. I had control again. I rushed in his direction, Hyena in hand, as the fire reached the dragon’s bisected mouth.
This is such a cool scene- and an angle of attack that I suspect a lot of our protagonists forgot was there, because I think I did, at least a little
The only piece of cover available was the one the Barber had given himself. With no other choice, I was heading straight for the Barber, even as the flame closed in to my left and right.
I mean, but getting him to this point is still kind of a win, maybe? He didn't lose ground, but neither did...you know at this point I'm just gonna start calling these guys the thorburns+, because there are 4 thorburns and 2 non thorburns here so if there's gotta be a connecting thread it's probably that.
Thorburns+ didn't scede ground or lose the argument, so that counts for something, I hope
Someone was screaming, male but still a high pitched, ragged sort of sound. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t the Barber.
Ah shit; I really don't think that's faysal, but I hope it's not peter
It closed instantly, knitting together with those black, leech-like masses. Just as the Barber had been damaged but never actually hurt. Never debilitated. But, as efforts went, it perhaps made him a fraction of a percentage point less Johannes, a bit more Barber.
Oh lords, that's what we're hoping for?
White light consumed him. My hand closed over nothing. Faysal.
I hate it when the BBEG just casts dimension door and yeets out of there when none of the party has counterspell
The screaming I’d heard earlier was getting louder. It was Mags, her goblin in tow. A goblin, short, fat and wrinkled, was clad entirely in armor that looked like it had been made with some sheet metal clippers and liberal time spent in a junkyard.
You know what, that's a possibility that I hadn't considered, but that I'm quite grateful for!
“Why didn’t you use him earlier!?” I called out. “He’s a coward!” “Fuck you!” the goblin retorted.
Goblins are the saving grace of sanity in pact- they do just the right amount of tension relief when needed
He was leading the dragon to the stairwell. From there, all he had to do was fill it with fire. The others wouldn’t be able to hold it off. They just weren’t equipped for it. Have to remove a threat. Can’t do anything about the angel, the Barber is too careful… My eye fell on the dragon.
Of all the books to include an aspiring dragonslayer, I really didn't think Pact would be the one
I stabbed the part that looked most like a heart. I saw the dragon wither, staggering away.
but here we are!
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Sebastián 06-Oct-20 09:59 PM
A wooden dragonslayer. Don't forget that part
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JayManiac 06-Oct-20 09:59 PM
Yeah, really not the most effective strategy if you ask me
As I turned, I saw that the Barber had answered my stab with a cut of his own. He’d finished cutting the Dragon. Now whole, its sickened and dying half killed by my sword, the Dragon rested against the wall. Patches of flame surrounded me, and the Barber faced me, weapon at the ready.
Ah shit
Well, he can't keep cutting that dragon forever
onto the next chapter!
No way I could move fast or far enough to get away before the dragon could spit its fire at my back. The dragon’s fire was less concerning than the Barber, who was ready to use its demonic implement on me and Rose both.
Like I said, not as much to say during the more combat-oriented bits, but they're certainly gripping
My eyes stared at his, fully aware that the dragon was moving in my peripheral vision. Turning on the two practitioners that were fighting a short distance away. On the Barber and I. Did you cut off the portion that was more bloodthirsty, in favor of the side that was more obedient? Because I don’t think he’s following orders. And you’re not in a position to give them.
First of all, that would be cool, but I'm sure he could put bloodthirsty and obedient on the same side if he wanted- could've been a quick choice, though- this is a fun way for the battle to go
His hands were occupied. Both held the shears. I spotted the pipes dangling from one of his wrists, attached by a fine chain, but couldn’t reach for them without sparing vital leverage. Tantalizing. Almost bait.
It's moments like this that have been set up really well by the likes of padraic, and how we see the most experienced Others using little subconscious cues to manipulate people into certain actions- the fey are much better at it, but Babs seems to have the theory down.
“Go, Buttsack!” Mags ordered. “Fuck you!” Buttsack replied. “You’re bound!” Mags said. “Fuck you, you lunatic! You’re fucking crazy! Call me forsworn! Nothing’s gonna happen that’s worse than me going out there!”
Ahahahaahhahahahahaha this should've been expected, honestly- it doesn't come at a particularly opportune moment, but it's welcomed nonetheless.
No, the dragon pointed its snout straight up. Well, I suppose this was how dragons dealt with dragonslayers who thought they were clever, occupying the same blind spot as Green Eyes.
One of my favorite parts about this battle, is that we still have to worry about the physics of liquid fire. Also Paige's law magic has come in pretty clutch for the second time
“I know you’re there, Blake,” I heard the Barber call out. “I can see you with the Sight.” The walls rattled. I paused mid-climb to maintain my grip. He kept talking. “I negotiated with the Barber. They aren’t about suffering, per se. They aren’t evil. That’s an affectation we gave them, just like the human shapes and symbols were. Once my eyes were opened, I understood it all. I saw the issues, I saw where we stood, in the midst of it all, and all I had to do was ask. It’ll only be able to do its work in a small area. Jacob’s Bell, Mags’ hometown, Port Hope, a sliver of Toronto. I’ve asked it to be quick. Merciful.”
Making the same mistake that Mara did, in the end: that there's something more primordial and real than those human shapes and symbols. That there's anything beyond the smoke and mirrors but another layer of the same. Demons exist because we categorize destruction, and they're evil because we equate the two. Also: interesting to note that Mags' hometown still exists, for now
side note: I know why everything else is on here, but why Port Hope? Unless that is Mags' hometown, but the structure of the sentence doesn't seem to suggest it
“You’ll all be snuffed out like a candle flame. Absorbed into the… what you see above. Time and space and id and ego won’t mean anything, there. They’ll become momentary and endless, existent and abstract. Compared to what we face every day, even on good days, it’s the kindest thing. To not be.” There was a note of humanity in his tone at the end of it all. I looked up at the great spheres above us.
You know, this might just appeal to buddhists, which makes me wonder not for the first time what the Practice might be like on the other side of the world -but regardless, these are western thinkers- I don't think they're gonna take very kindly to the idea of not being
“That isn’t you speaking, Johannes!” I heard Mags.
Yeah, I gotta agree there- Johannes is like peak individualist capitalist dream.
That's probably a note on which one could challenge the ownership of the demense: the motivations of siezing it, and the use it's had until very recently
She tugged. Not at a memory, or a feeling, or an idea. Not at an experience of an internal structure within me. At me.
ah, is our time up so quickly?
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spinagon 06-Oct-20 10:24 PM
Once my eyes were opened
More like cut open
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JayManiac 06-Oct-20 10:28 PM
XD
nice catch
My expectation was for Rose to summon her strength, to take over again, ready with the names at the tip of her tongue. She didn’t. Deep within, she met me.
Aahaahahahahaha yes, yes
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spinagon 06-Oct-20 10:29 PM
Time to invoke speaking as a free action
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JayManiac 06-Oct-20 10:31 PM
ah, yes, the dnd equivalent of pausing the skyrim menu on the back of a dragon and eating sixty wheels of cheese
I do like when stories get to use inception time to hash things out, particularly when it has a kind of price like this
“For this. Right here. We can’t budge him. He’s strong, he can go wherever he wants, and he has a damn dragon. Do you have a plan for this?” “In part,” she said. “I’ve gathered names. I could use them, given a chance. Bogeymen. Dug through the recesses of my memory. Stuff I looked at online, stuff I looked at in books that I might have left in the mirror world, when we changed places. They’re not ones we’ve summoned and used up.”
Please please please defeat the big bab with the power of reading
not just because it'll validate a substantial chunk of my recent existence
“No,” she agreed. “No, they won’t. And even getting that done is hard. I’m… not assigning blame. But you’ve kind of left my body in bad shape. If I take it over, I think I’ll be in too much pain to do anything. It’s not… not me, but basic humanity. Agony is a thing.”
Pfft
"agony is a thing" is one of the most Rose statements that could've been made
has the same energy as "I kind of got shot"
“Your humanity. I need some of it. Maybe most of it.” “Take it,” I said. She stared at me. “Take it,” I said.
Dammit
blobsobglasses 3
dammit I didn't know we were doing this now!
I thought we might at least have a chapter or two
although honestly, we've had blake for much longer than we should've, considering all the crap that's happened to him
“Okay,” she said. “There’s a tangential benefit here. Because there’s not really much of you left, it’s not very useful. You won’t default to a human shape.”
Please just transform into a bird, it would be everything
I reached out, and found anchorage along Rose’s arms and shoulders. I found the skin of my face, not yet taken, scraps of meat that had lingered here and there, and stretched it all out as far as it would go. Rose hadn’t patched up the holes in her own body. She was light. I gave her wings. I was the wings. I had an idea of how to glide, to fly. I used it.
That's even better
My vision was distorted, skewed. I could see from the crooks of Rose’s elbows, where the wood was thicker, recesses in the knotting, overlapping mess of wood serving as eye sockets, in the absence of flesh. Both eyes too far apart.
This is so strange, but I absolutely love it
I'm beyond surprised at my ability to even picture it
“The Welder,” she whispered. She scratched a circle into the wall, then a name. “Once known as Gunter Veit. I name you and I call you. You’ll find few fires hotter than these. Follow the orders my allies give you. Fight the dragon, distract the man with the black-scarred face.”
And we've got one last cast of bogeymen to boot- I don't know if I'll pull them all, but like E&R, I can't seem to get enough of this template.
“Bristles,” Rose said. She scratched out the name. “Here boy.” The fifty-pound animal that came out snarled and snapped, biting at me on the way out. Once a dog, it was more scar tissue than anything else, from burns to tire treads. Weapons and tools that had apparently been used to try to kill it stuck out of its back, sides, head and shoulders, like spines from a porcupine. The dog that wouldn’t die, apparently.
Holy shit, I have no idea why I never considered the idea of the bogeydog- it seems so obvious -but somehow this still caught me off-guard. If we can have a bogeysweatshirt, why the hell not a dog that went down in legend as a kind of monster? It's so good
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Elliot (Boy) 06-Oct-20 10:45 PM
From the bleachers: “There’s one you gotta pull though”
Never mind it’s already done
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JayManiac 06-Oct-20 10:45 PM
Alright, I can't pull everything, but there was no way I was missing bristles
“Faceless woman,” Rose said. “Resident of Jacob’s Bell. If you’re out there, we need the help.” “Ah, that’s what you’re doing,” the Barber spoke, his voice still worse for wear. Rose’s eyes snapped upward. “Too close to home, that one,” he said. “She’s sworn to stay out of my realm. Cause for me to say no.”
Dammit, I was excited for her
makes a lot of sense that the locals would be less effective though
fun that rose always had the power to call on her, if needed
Rose moved, slashing at the word as it disappeared, “Everyone, anyone! Denizens of the Abyss, I carve your names with one of your own! Hyena, Thorburn Bogeyman, Rose Thorburn, novice scourge! Thrice over, we are of the Abyss, and we plead your help! If you are near, if you can hear-” “Enough,” the Barber said.
Aw, I was excited for that too! After this entire book, a whole arc in the abyss, can't we have the big bad undone by 'attack of the random bogeymen'?
“Dog,” Rose said. “Faysal has to be a dog to be controlled by the pipes. Even if we didn’t see him, he’s a dog somewhere. It’s a weak point, just like Johannes is. I think I know where he is.”
A concerning note when you just summoned bristles, no?
thonk 5
“I hereby declare that you are not Johannes Lillegard,” Rose called out. “You do not have his face. You do not have his voice. You do not have his rapport with his familiar! You corrupt his demesne and-” The ground split. Rose threw herself to one side. A blade had sprouted. From the rooftop. Oh, fuck. He was being serious. The ruse of pretending to be Johannes was paper thin, now.
Ahahhaha, this is so much fun to watch- not a whole lot to say, but the abstract/concrete parts of the conflict work really well in tandem here
“You don’t have his face, you don’t have his voice!” She repeated herself. “You are not Johannes! Johannes would not bind his familiar like this! He would not corrupt his demesne! Johannes would use the flute, not the shears! On all three counts-” Another near miss. I moved to shield Rose, but she avoided it herself. “You are not Johannes!”
sharkhi
She twisted, kicking the flat of it. Discredited. Even the demesne doesn’t believe in Johannes anymore. The blade broke as if it were made of glass. Rose stumbled, staggered, and half-spun in the air as she practically fell in the seat.
Ahahahaahahaa this is wonderful
She’d taken the hill, in a manner of speaking. But taking the hill didn’t mean anything if we couldn’t keep it long enough to matter.
Let's roll right along then- I might not have the time to finish the next chapter, but I can get started
In short, it was Mags, Paige, and Peter on one side. Buttsack, the Welder and the Nurse were there as well, though the goblin had been gouged by the blade, the Nurse injured in the prior encounter with the dragon. Ms. Lewis, the possessed lawyer with two deep wounds in his chest, and the chauffeur that had taken us to Toronto, and the Barber, on the other side. The Barber was only a short distance from the throne. Closer than anyone else. The Barber surveyed the situation, taking it all in, while the others fought to get closer to Rose, one eye on Ms. Lewis, who loomed above them, perched on the fallen Dragon.
👀 👀 👀
“Sic ’em!” she hollered. Bristles leaped from the wall above, a solid twenty-foot drop, slamming into the demon. The Barber stepped back for balance, it was able to stay standing by leg strength alone. The hound’s exterior was heavy with the arrows, makeshift spears, knife handles, darts, a spade, and any number of other tools, making it something of a mess, and each of these weapons proved an obstacle or additional hazard as it clawed at the Barber’s chest and arm, fighting for leverage.
Excellent- waiting until the barber could no longer use johannes' implement to cue Bristles is a good move
There were shouts, orders, a jumble of noises. The Welder and Nurse stepped forward to meet him, while Buttsack cowered, unable to retreat entirely because of the blades that now blocked the stairway.
You're doing great, buttsack, keep at it
With one hand, he raised the pan pipes to his lips, and he played.
Maybe he can use them?
Animals did exist in the Abyss, that was true. So did Others. The dragon-bat-goblin thing I’d seen was such a case. But Others were derived from man. To continue along that journey wasn’t so strange. For something to become an effective Bogeyman, had it taken on enough elements of humanity to resist the Barber? Or had it never been human in the first place? A human, treated like a dog, abused, finding his way to the Abyss, where it continued a journey to become doglike, but not a true dog?
Oh fuck, that's awful- which ever way we go. I still think that the pipes might work on something that was treated like a dog and currently resembles one, which is the argument that I'm using to hope that it's not that. Still. Poor Bristles.
“The Abyss has a claim to all places left unowned. As agent of the Abyss, I move to expedite this claim,” Rose said. The Barber’s head snapped up, looking at her. “Johannes is finished, and with him go all ties that anchor this demesne to this world.”
Rose is really stepping into her role as scoorge- a step up from diabolist in the world's terms, so good on her! And it lets her make this, frankly, pretty badass argument.
“This place can go when Jacob’s Bell goes!” Ms. Lewis called out. “By three points of similarity, this place is anchored! By the vestiges, echoing the people, by location, echoing the place it grew from, and by the bloodlines that are both here and there, knitting this place to that! Inexorable, intertwined, the two cannot be separated. When one falls, so shall the other!”
Ah, shit- practitioners really are the worst, aren't they
“Go, Buttsack, or we all die!” Mags shouted. “Fuck yourself with a fork!”
Dammit, Buttsack- practitioners may be the worst but you are scoring no points for goblins here
“I will give you thumb drives, you sorry excuse for a goblin!” Mags roared the words. The Welder was forced back again, his arms hugging the Hellhound’s muzzle, and he inadvertently kicked Mags in the side. Still, she managed to get out another two words. “Of weird stuff!”
Sigh
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Elliot (Boy) 06-Oct-20 11:09 PM
bulba
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JayManiac 06-Oct-20 11:10 PM
He sprinted for the Barber, and drove the base of the shield into the backs of the Barber’s knees.
and in the most goblin of attacks, he went
eh, wasn't a nut punch, so not the most goblin of attacks
but a pretty goblin attack, as they go
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spinagon 06-Oct-20 11:12 PM
Barber: Hinder me? Thou fool. No living man may hinder me! Buttsack: But no living man am I! You look upon a goblin, fuckstain.
lol 4
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JayManiac 06-Oct-20 11:12 PM
Buttsack deserves to be immortalized as a doof emoji
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Elliot (Boy) 06-Oct-20 11:14 PM
Haha he was my avatar pic for almost a whole year
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JayManiac 06-Oct-20 11:14 PM
what picture did you use!?
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Elliot (Boy) 06-Oct-20 11:15 PM
Lemme grab it
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spinagon 06-Oct-20 11:15 PM
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JayManiac 06-Oct-20 11:15 PM
XD
Right!!! I remember that!
truly, the only acceptable outfit to immortalize him in
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Elliot (Boy) 06-Oct-20 11:18 PM
We really should get a (Pale) Turdswallow emote
agree 2
A buttsack emote would be fun though
Not the hero Jacob’s Bell needs, but the hero it deserves
lol 1
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JayManiac 06-Oct-20 11:20 PM
That is...harsh, but fair
just like what Rose is about to do!
Rose went on, her voice rising as she spoke. “Jacob’s Bell will be removed as a place, and all that is happening here is evidence as to why. The Practitioners here will die or leave, one and all. Let this be the first of dominoes to fall, on both counts! I am of the Abyss, and I am of Conquest, and from this seat, I deem this done!”
This is such a victory that doesn't quite feel like one. I suppose that falling to the abyss is better than falling to demons, and Rose's speech is pretty damn awesome, but oof- call me crazy, but I kind of liked Jacob's Bell
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Elliot (Boy) 06-Oct-20 11:23 PM
Wow I only just realized- Barber: don’t you see, everything will be consumed by The Abyss Rose: huh, good idea. Hey Abyss come get us now.
thistbh 4
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JayManiac 06-Oct-20 11:24 PM
XD
Paige created a brilliant flash of light, and everything went white. The light served to blind everyone present, myself included. Buying us time.
Don't mind me, just writing this down as a homebrew dnd ability because it's very cool- everyone gets to reposition and prepare things, but attacking is punished, probably by psychic damage -for a turn or two; maybe casting it at higher level extends the duration by a round or two. I've been playing too much dnd.
“I was diabolist,” Rose said, and she rose from her chair. She’d left traces of a partial handprint in the metal of the chair’s arm, and the print glowed faintly, as her gleaming white fingers did. “I’m now a servant of the Abyss.” She faced down both of the demons and the chauffeur both, stepping forward. “I think,” she said, “I’m qualified to tell you to get lost.” She swept her hand to one side.
Seat of Power is a wonderful trope that I'm not even sure anyone's specifically noted as a trope yet
I wanted to act, to respond to situations as they arose, but that wasn’t a power I had anymore. Rose had taken on titles and roles, she’d adopted parts of me, and she was versatile. Able to call the maimed Nurse to her side, a temporary bodyguard. Mags had Buttsack. Paige… I suppose Paige was supposed to have Peter, but he’d collapsed, lying on his back, eyes open.
Well that doesn't bode well- I really hope he's alright?
“That won’t be long at all,” Ms. Lewis said. “You know, this all could have been so much tidier.” “We’re not the sorts to do tidy.”
the pidgeon, the chessboard and I agree
“Things are the way they are for a reason. What have you really gained, Rose? At the end of all this?”
A number of statements could be made to be antitheses to Pact and its messages, but "Things are the way they are for a reason" is certainly one of them. It's a pact-truth, no less, as the idea that it's a good reason is only implied, and entirely false.
Peter. Earlier he’d fallen. Now he was up, active. One arm was useless, the other held a chunk of stone from the broken edge of the rooftop. He was at the wall of blades that had been erected around Faysal, prying.
Ugh
do we have to free him?
fiiiiine
He noticed that we, our enemies included, had realized what he’d done. He redoubled his efforts, no longer trying to be subtle or quiet. He smashed. “Bullshit! Bullshit shitty assed bullshit fakery!” Two blades broke in one swing.
Ahahahahahaahahaha I love him, he's learned the rules of this world so well
A demon against a normal human. “Fuck you!” Peter shouted.
Peter the Goblin Queen has a nice ring to it, don't you think?
The creepy man in the ill-fitting suit from the Tenements stepped out from the other side of the wall. I’d bound him and sent him out to pursue our enemies, and here he was. The Barber saw him. Too late to react. The man in the ill-fitting suit stepped to one side, then pushed. A simple, stupid one-trick bogeyman pulling out his trick. Defenestration.
HOLY SHIT
I DID NOT EXPECT HIM TO COME BACK
Ilovethis 4
E&R MUST'VE ABSOLUTELY LOST IT
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spinagon 06-Oct-20 11:32 PM
The Defenestrator strikes again
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Elliot (Boy) 06-Oct-20 11:32 PM
I’m losing it all over again tbh
thistbh 2
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JayManiac 06-Oct-20 11:33 PM
I was just listening to a DiP from 15.1 this morning when you guys were like "huh, remember defenestration man?" and I was so sure he wouldn't come back for some reason but here he is
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Elliot (Boy) 06-Oct-20 11:36 PM
Yeah by this point I was pretty sure he was gone too
Had him lumped in with Pauz and the bUrbies for the Pact 2 wishlist
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JayManiac 06-Oct-20 11:38 PM
little did you know, bow was playing the long con- not that long of a con, but a con of a perfectly unexpectable length
Peter summoned his strength and threw himself at the cage again, stone in hand. The cage shattered, and in the midst of that breakage, the diagram that sealed Faysal’s form broke.
s/ yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay. I mean seriously, I think this is probably a good thing? But every time faysal shows up and we're like "oh thank lousy fuckin Righteousness, this guy's here and he's gonna help this time" he's like "Sike! You thought I couldn't be a bigger asshole, but you were WRONG". Maybe this time will be different.
The movement seemed to prompt another rumble. This time, it didn’t stop. One more anchor point gone. Johannes’ lack of claim was undeniable. “Man, Angels are assholes,” Paige said. “He couldn’t stick around long enough to contribute?”
Yeah, much as I'd love to criticize sphinx, Isadora is by far my favorite Right-Inclined Other we've seen.
Rose stared up at Ms. Lewis from her position on the ground. Rose smiled. “I didn’t want to do this, you know, given the consequences. I was so close to being free of my debt, being free,” Ms. Lewis said. “Orn-” Mags struck her in the teeth with the pipe-shotgun. “So don’t,” Mags answered.
What an end to that chapter- I really like Ms. Lewis as an antagonist, as a small note. As it turns out, I couldn't stop trying to finish the chapter, so we did in fact get all the way through!
I'll be back tomorrow, to wrap it all up
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Elliot (Boy) 06-Oct-20 11:41 PM
sharkhi
Thanks for the reads Jay. I’ve been having way too much fun reliving this finale through these reads
same 4
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JayManiac 06-Oct-20 11:43 PM
Of course! And thanks for coming along for the ride! (although I have to ask: do you, like, sleep?)
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Elliot (Boy) 06-Oct-20 11:45 PM
Sometimes
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JayManiac 06-Oct-20 11:45 PM
I suppose it's enough...hmm
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Ishamoridin 06-Oct-20 11:46 PM
Sleep is for the week(end)
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JayManiac 06-Oct-20 11:46 PM
-Metronome implement -Seems to be awake at all hours Conclusion: Elliot is a chronomancer
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JayManiac 07-Oct-20 05:02 PM
oh shoot, I had no idea, thanks for letting me know!
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jsoh 07-Oct-20 05:18 PM
simply speed read all of pale in 4 days like clarence did, the madman
psyduck 4
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JayManiac 07-Oct-20 05:23 PM
he did fuckin what
I guess that's what doing a longer-form podcast does to you
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JayManiac 07-Oct-20 09:03 PM
Alright, it's the home stretch, everyone: let's do this!
The Abyss was ruthless, and our surroundings were coming to pieces in fast motion. Cascades of dust flowed off of every surface, accompanied by flakes, chips, and fragments, a hundred years of wear and tear occurring over seconds. Where the surfaces were flat, such as the rooftop, the same dust and fragments danced as the surroundings rumbled and vibrated. Were it any lighter it might have risen as thick clouds. Any heavier, and it would have formed an almost liquid pool.
First of all, what a way to get us back into things: I think most of the tension has alleviated since the Barber is dealt with and Ms. Lewis seems to be on her way there, but we've still got threats, and we're still being treated to the mildly heartbreaking scene that is said alleviation.
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spinagon 07-Oct-20 09:05 PM
sharkhi
sharkhi 3
bulba 1
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JayManiac 07-Oct-20 09:06 PM
“We need something to tie her hands with,” Rose was saying. She was, out of everyone, closest to the ground. “On it,” Mags said, “Gimme a second… grab her?” “Grabbed,” Peter said.
The rhythm also seems to be pretty resolution-y; everybody bouncing off of each other here is a series of fun notes. I think part of the reason I love Peter is that he's so...efficient. He's an asshole, but not to the point that it gets in the way of the goals. Since he's such a dick and it's on purpose, he knows exactly when to quit in a way that lesser assholes couldn't hope to manage.
“You’re like a superhero, a tool for every job,” Peter commented. The chains rattled some more as they were wound around the pinned Ms. Lewis. “Damn straight,” Mags said. “Except I use guns, not some stick.” “Respect,” Peter said.
You know, it makes a whole lot of sense that these two would get along; I've even suggested that they should share a profession! I'm very here for this friendship.
I know Pale doesn't follow Peter as the main character- and it's a decision that I'm absolutely behind because I've always said I didn't want a direct sequel to pact.
However.
lol 2
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spinagon 07-Oct-20 09:08 PM
Mags's gun is a stick, though
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JayManiac 07-Oct-20 09:08 PM
if we did get a direct sequel, he'd be my top pick
a fair point, spinagon
a fair point
I also wonder who she might be referring to here; batman doesn't use a stick...I guess there's just an iconic superhero in their fiction that does use one?
and also has a tool for every job?
“Use your scarf as a gag?” Peter suggested. “F that. My scarf is staying with me, thank you very much.”
Yeah, we don't want to go making ms. lewis the girl with the checkered scarf- that would be a net loss for mags, at a time when one of the other things she's anchored to (the town itself) is...currently not gonna be much help.
when it comes to staying out of the abyss, at least
“Alright, well done. Now help me up,” Rose said. “Try sounding a little less bossy while you ask?” Peter suggested. “I’ve been clawed open by a hellhound, possessed and hollowed by my inhuman alter ego, my head’s been rearranged and the only reason I’m still conscious is that I’m drawing some power from Conquest. I’m going to be ‘bossy’, so shut the fuck up, Peter.” “Wow,” was all he said. “Maybe try saying please shut the fuck up?”
He's so much fun
“Buttsack!” Mags called. “Get your ass over here! You too, Stumpy, I know you’re playing dead. Come, or you might not get another chance to leave.”
I'm very glad that buttsack survived the finale
also, not a bad idea from stumpy here- if likely a shoddy execution
“He’s alive?” she asked. My eye moved. “Oh! He’s actually alive… in a manner of speaking.” “I need him,” Rose said. “Let’s go, before the building does.” My view was a warped one, wobbly. I had little volition, almost no ability to move of my own accord.
Nooooo.....I somehow wasn't really thinking about how exactly Blake was...existing at this point, but I hope they find some way to give him wings again.
They were so worn out, but we’d found the light at the end of the tunnel. There was hope. Only a little bit further, and we won.
Okay I get the sentiment, blake, but maybe try not thinking shit like that until we are out
Grandmother had created Rose and I to work against the system. A snarl or a tangle in the pattern. She hadn’t predicted the future, I was pretty sure; this degree of collateral damage was likely beyond her expectations, especially if we counted Toronto, but she’d achieved her goal.
In the end, they certainly did manage to knock over a whole bunch of the pieces
and take a gigantic shit on the board 😢
“Green!” Evan greeted the mermaid as she came down the stairs. “What happened? Where’s Blake? Is everyone okay? Is the world going to end? What’s- Lawyer! And Rose! Rose, you’re hurt! Where’s Blake?” “Mags has him,” Rose said. “The-” “That’s not Blake, that’s wood!” “-Barber-” Rose said. I moved. “That’s moving wood! It’s Blake!” He flew over to me.
bulba
He's alive thank the lords- this reunion is wonderful
agree 1
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Ishamoridin 07-Oct-20 09:23 PM
I adore Evan's U-turns
agree 3
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JayManiac 07-Oct-20 09:23 PM
The entire city was… I might have said it was smoking from every surface, but the smoke flowed down. Already, the upper floors of other buildings had started to break down, rooftops sinking or sloping.
This is a really cool image to remind us of what kind of deterioration is happening
He threw it, aiming for us, except the ground beneath his feet cracked as he finished the motion. Too far forward, too far down. The sickle sank into the road, point first. The ground beneath him caved in further. A crater, with him at the bottom. Heads turned. All eyes were on Rose. Her hand extended, fist clenched.
And the final note that even the barber isn't a threat right now, to ensure
“Just… be safe. Head down, eyes closed. Ride on someone’s shoulder.” “With Blake! He’s kind of shoulderish! With fingers, and an eye. But I don’t discriminate.”
Ilovethis
“Don’t look directly at it. Resist any bait,” Rose warned. “Don’t look at it in surprise, don’t look back, don’t wonder. Keep moving forward.”
I love that the story has, entirely naturally, constructed a beat that harkens back to Orpheus' treck up from the underworld, and we just get to enjoy that narrative parallel without it feeling ham-fisted at all
Of course you don't look back at the underworld, else the demons jump into the reflective surfaces that are your eyes and come to slaughter you and your companions
In the moment the scream reached its peak, Johannes died. Every member of the group flinched as he popped, the container of the human body no longer enough for what dwelt within. The contents banked against the sides of the crater, dusting the group. “Good,” Noah said. His eyes were fixed forward. “I wouldn’t call it good,” Rose said, her voice tense. “But I get the sentiment. Keep moving. Don’t look.”
Alas, poor Johannes. Gods, what a complicated mess of a character
Tk. Tk. Tk-tk. Ainsley shot Rose a look, and it was one of alarm. As justifications went, Rose’s was pretty thin. But saying so would be more dangerous than anything. It could break the spell, or sunder the confidence of the lesser members of the group.
And just like Orpheus they're ever tempted to look back- in this case, tempted also to disbelief, to the pessimism that could be their downfall. This is such a wonderful moment, a final challenge to believe in their victory.
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spinagon 07-Oct-20 09:31 PM
Maybe in pactverse Nightwing is the big buck hero
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JayManiac 07-Oct-20 09:36 PM
I'll be honest that was my first thought
My next was daredevil
neither of them are particularly gadget-oriented in the way that batman is, though...the mystery lives on
“Trust,” Rose said, and her voice didn’t have the slightest sign of weakness. “Believe.”
Ahahahaaaaaaaaa Ilovethis
She's following, Orpheus- so long as you have faith
There were more crashes, more explosions of dust, another roar. Further back. He was mired. Caught, to be swallowed up.
sharkhi sharkhi sharkhi
they did it
I swear if that shitbag faysal tries to take credit for all this crap because throwing babs into the abyss was his original plan I'm gonna stab that fucker with a pair of scissors
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jsoh 07-Oct-20 09:40 PM
it's
totally his plan. he got everything he wanted
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JayManiac 07-Oct-20 09:41 PM
uh huh
zero unforseen things that filthy no good demon-empowering humans had to save his ass from
“You’re sure?” “She’ll come after us again, otherwise.” Mags shifted her grip. Ms. Lewis struggled, and I could sense the hesitation on Mags’ part.
Ooooo, yeah...that's kind of a must. She's such a cool antagonist; I remember I actually liked her a lot when she first appeared, because she's just so good at that. Pure charisma-casting warlock.
“Buttsack, do you-” Buttsack didn’t wait for the question to end. He hauled on Ms. Lewis’ belt, driving his shoulder into her stomach, and tipped her. She fell sideways, into the dip, a ditch toward the center of the road.
A lot of people are playing various roles in finally taking her down, and I'm very glad that buttsack is one of them. It just makes sense
certianly worthy of being elliot's pfp
team goblin is valid
“You need a punchline,” Evan said. “Rules.”
Yes
yes
he's right, Rose, you gotta
I can't wait to gm PactDice just so I can be entirely justified in penalizing my players for not saying something cool in situations like this
“I was thinking,” Rose said. She watched Ms. Lewis’ continued struggles. Debris half-covered the woman’s face, and the slab of pavement had driven halfway through her torso. She worked, all the same, to try and worm her way up and free, futile. “You want this Demesne, Lewis?” Rose asked. “It’s all yours.”
Oooooo
That's a good one
same 1
Also I love that evan is just exploiting the rules so he gets to watch cool moments happen; it's what I would do in his place
“They’re gone,” Lola said. “The lawyers on the other side. The demons. I don’t sense the connections.”
Oh good; you know, I was kind of hoping they'd take down the lawyer conglomarate, but I suppose they brought Ms. Lewis down and that's as much of a win as they were probably ever going to get.
“The other lawyers will come after you,” Mags commented. “By your own logic-” “Their logic,” Rose corrected. “By their logic, which you outlined just now, it’s too costly to leave you be. You represent something.”
Yeah, that too- and I don't think you saw them going all out, either. Not sure what a more powerful demon might look like by pact's standards or how you'd ever beat one, but...who knows, we might find out? Then again, Pale seems to be leaning away from the explicit demons thing, which I'm all for, since it gives me a wider variety of Others.
“That’s part of it,” Rose admitted. “Got to look after Jacob’s Bell. That’s our most pressing problem. Evacuate the citizens, clear it out, clean up the mess. Too much damage done for it to be salvageable. I think Alister will be willing to work with me to coordinate. Each of us on different sides of the divide, if we have to.” “I’m glad you’re still thinking of my cousin,” Ainsley said. Rose nodded, smiling lightly. I gave her the ability to care for others. Will that be enough?
I'm hoping so; Rose's path forwards is far from unambiguously easy, with how much she's drawn on conquest and the abyss, but I have hope for it.
“But it’s not just the Scourge stuff,” Rose said. “I was thinking of writing a diabolic text. Taking after grandmother Thorburn, maybe.” A few heads turned. “Need to challenge ideas, change attitudes. If I can put the right words to paper, disseminate the books, I can hurt them worse than we could repeating this fight a hundred times over,” Rose said.
And I love that this is the conclusion to it: that she decides to put the thorburn voice out there and fight the battle in people's minds. They've got a monopoly, a stranglehold on diabolism, but I have hope that she can fight through that, too. Maybe one of our Pale Protags will find a book written by the...nicer? Rose Thorburn? probably not, but we can hope.
and- I know that wildbow's books stray away from the heavily political in some regard, to the point where the ideas can be explored but it isn't really part of the story -but I still love this as a nod to what pact is, on some level: words that fight that battle, in the minds of those who read it. It's a meta-element that I think works really well. and hey, I think I can say pretty certainly that it changed my life, so we're getting somewhere.
Come to think of it...the meta-element might be a part of the key to accomplishing this. Rose needs to reach the new generations of practitioners with these words: why not buy DiabolicPages.com and start writing there? Others are- as Johannes shows -a little slow on that particular uptake.
“I feel obligated to say something or do something,” Lola said. “But nothing’s coming to mind.” “We just spent far too long fighting because we were supposed to,” Rose said. “Because your families are supposed to hate diabolists, and I was a diabolist because I was supposed to be. Fuck obligations. Go to your mom.” Lola nodded. She turned to go. “Thanks, by the way,” Rose said.
Ilovethis
That was a very graceful way of dodging that obligation, spirits-wise. And I think Rose is right, maybe the unsaid things: that they worked together despite being from different families, that the new generations of duchamps and thorburns don't have to justify and hedge their connections and cooperations, that they're free to pursue the things they care about without fear -will mean a helluvalot more than anything she was supposed to say.
“Long story,” Mags said. “One I’d tell if I didn’t have my dads to look for. And a Faerie to look for. What happens to the Faerie who were exiled here when Jacob’s Bell ceases to be?” “Depends on how things were worded,” Rose said. “I’d guess they get to slip the noose until the individuals who exiled them hunt them down.”
Hmmm, seems like Rose might not be on the right track there
My only evidence to that point would be that: if it were true that the town being destroyed would let padraic and his cronies slip free, then wouldn't they've been working towards the destruction of the town?
Unless they were expressly forbidden from doing so for that very reason
but at that point, why not designate a binding that they couldn't break just because the town doesn't exist anymore?
“I’ll relocate soon, I think. But this looks like as good a place to rest as any. Peter? Go with Ainsley. Help her get to Alister, get her patched up.” Peter glanced at Ainsley, then back to Rose. “Sure. You’re really okay?”
I swear any time this guy shows the barest thread of decency I'm 2000% on-side for his redemption
he'd be so good at manipulating me I don't even want to think about it
“You’re not all that bad for a Thorburn,” he said. “Surprisingly high compliment, coming from you,” Rose said. “I know, right? But I can lie, so I figure I should get the most out of-” He winced as Ainsley elbowed him. “Geez! I’m wounded, don’t go doing that!”
Oh Peter 🙄 you like them, quit pretending
“You had a good moment back there,” Rose said. “Freeing Faysal. That was… heroic. It made the difference.” Peter smirked. “Don’t let it go to your head. I’ll be in touch, once I figure out how to manage it.” His eyebrows went up. “And the scary thing is, I think I almost look forward to a call from family.”
That is terrifying. I wonder what his plan is? Awaken? Continue as a Blackguard?
Honestly he's the one I'm most interested in when it comes to the future of these characters- Mags is a pretty close second
“We were friends once, before Blake and I were separated into two individuals,” Rose said. “Close, you, me, and Molly.” “Yeah?” “Yeah.” “I wish I remembered.” “Like I said to Peter, I’ll try to keep in touch.”
❤️
I also love that each of them left in roughly the order we met them in-story
The moment Paige was out of sight, Rose collapsed. Noah tried to catch her, but he wasn’t big enough or strong enough to support her weight. It made for an ugly, awkward fall.
That...makes a whole lot of sense
“Green Eyes,” Rose said. “I’m not going.” “I wasn’t asking you to go,” Rose said. “I’m asking you not to kill me.”
ah, yeah...that is a fairly dire concern, I imagine.
“Wait, what?” Evan asked. “No! We won! This isn’t a bad end! We fix Blake, we fix me, Rose triumphs, happy, happy, happy!”
Oh, Evan
this is the happy end
But that doesn't mean happy all the time, and it doesn't mean you get absolutely everything you wanted.
Ahhhhahhaaa
“She’s going to eat Blake, consume whatever humanity or flesh he’s got to try and patch herself up.” Evan went still. Shocked into silence.
just really twist that knife in there, make it hurt a bit more
“Green! Green!” Evan cut in. “Come on!” Green Eyes was bristling. Fingertips digging into the pavement. Her fins flared. “Do it for me? For the nugget?” Evan asked. Slowly, the fins relaxed. The tension went out of the fingernails.
💚 greeneyes 💚
the fact that they were friends, enough to matter- it's something that the story's been careful to never let us really be sure of until this moment, and I'm kicking myself just a little for never realizing how well that was being set up.
“Damn it, damn it, damn it,” she said, reaching down to break, digging for the flesh that remained. Then all went dark.
what a wonderful and terrible reflection
Okay, I think I'm done crying now. I don't know what the epilogue could be: a Rose chapter? An Evan one?
Wind, the purr of the engine, they blended together to make a white noise. His brain worked to make sense of it, and it created something very close to music, feeding into an almost zen-like sense of ease. Not quite relaxation – he felt a tiny bit of fear with every car he passed, knowing how fragile a motorcyclist could be in an incidental collision, felt pure exhilaration running through him over the simple fact that he was on the road.
Oh? a snap-back to Ross doesn't seem quite right...someone who got the spirit of Blake, somehow?
It was fresh air. When he breathed, it felt like more oxygen got to his lungs. There was a vague high that came with it. The cars around him had none of that. Some had their windows rolled down for the summer, but it was an attempt to escape the heat. When they looked out their windows, it was through just that – a window. He had unrestricted vision in every direction. His body temperature was perfect, the wind sapping away the heat that soaked into the dark fabric of his jacket.
It's a wonderful image, and a heartbreaking one to see after...well, after Blake
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Sebastián 07-Oct-20 10:39 PM
hahaha! going straight for the epilogue? I can relate.
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JayManiac 07-Oct-20 10:39 PM
I said we'd finish today and we're gonna finish today
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Sebastián 07-Oct-20 10:40 PM
Oh totally. When I read Pact I don't think I even blinked before hitting that next chapter
What did you think about the closing words, though? as a reflection of Pact's opening.
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JayManiac 07-Oct-20 10:42 PM
fitting, certainly
I can't parse all the feelings right now, but I think whatever they were meant to do, worked on me
so I'm satisfied
“Thank you,” she said, squeezing him tight. “For convincing me to do this.” “You’re very welcome,” he said, smiling. He shifted his grip on her until one arm encircled her lower back. He faced the surroundings with her. The water, the trees, and a distant ghost town with far too many trees blocking the view. Sating curiosity without quite satisfying it.
Ah
Aaahhhh
“I asked, last time I was around. Rumor is that it was something about contaminated water. Dumping way back when, leeching into the town’s infrastructure. I guess it was too expensive to salvage. I don’t know the full story.”
I know where we are, at least, or where we're near. It's very fun to see how this looks from a human perspective, how it's squirreled away so that very few people think to find it. One of those hidden places, close to the cracks in reality.
“Why the trees, though?”
I hope the answer is that the briar girl finally got her marsh, got to use the town as a sort of compost
So that some new things could grow
“We could go back and see if there’s a road we could take to go take a look?” she suggested. “Shall we grab some food, first, miss Deidre?” “Yes,” she said, without hesitation. She smiled. “Definitely.”
Can't help but think that the spirits are...nudging things, just a little bit
If people think of going closer, something comes along and they just...don't end up doing it
It's a very fun phenomenon, very in-line with how the magic has always worked
“You said there was one place you wanted to stop by, after Toronto but before Ottawa. Process of elimination…” “Ah, yeah. This is the place.” “You never said why. If there was a better view of the town, that’d be neat, ghost towns can be cool, but there isn’t.”
Also cool to get some more geographics as we're nearing the end of the book- nothing specific, but a general area
Dominic licked his lips, rolled his shoulders, clearing his throat. “Stop making such a show out of it.”
Huh, pretty sure that's the first time I've heard that in pact- we're definitely dealing with a human
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spinagon 07-Oct-20 10:52 PM
Nice to return to a human perspective for an epilogue
agree 3
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JayManiac 07-Oct-20 10:53 PM
No sooner did he have the burger in his hand when a bird appeared, surprising him enough that Dominic almost dropped his lunch. “Hey!” he said, a short laugh escaping his lips. The bird was circling him, going a mile a minute. “Hey! Little guy!”
👀
The bird stopped in the next heartbeat, settling on his forearm. A sparrow, a fraction smaller than most sparrows he’d seen.
Evan?
Or....maybe even...blake?
“Little guy came with me part of the way through the states last summer,” he said. “What? No way.” “Rode with me. Lost him a couple times, but he always caught up to me. I think he just really likes motorcycles. I think he’s someone’s pet, or he was.”
shoot, that doesn't narrow it down at all, they both really like motorcycles
thistbh 2
“Okay, I have to admit, that is pretty funny.” “I didn’t think he’d go this nuts,” Dom confessed. “I don’t think his peanut brain can wrap his head around the idea of there being two motorcycles in one place.”
Aahahahahaaaaaa this is wonderful whatever way we interpret it
🥜 2
🧠 2
“Nah, no,” he said. Almost without taking his eyes off the trees, he pulled off his jacket and put it with his backpack on the seat of his bike, then headed down the path. Being still, without the benefit of the wind and the motion of the bike, he’d accumulated a bit of sweat.
👀
but also evan, please do not lead this guy straight into the abyss
he does not deserve
He heard a laugh. A girl’s. He stopped, and he approached with a little more care. A murmur, the girl’s voice, words inaudible. A chirp. The sparrow. He stopped. She was sitting by the water, back to a tree. He couldn’t be sure if it was an old woman or a girl with platinum blond hair bleached whiter by the sun, but the voice, the laugh, and the fit of the seafoam colored sweatshirt she wore suggested the latter.
greeneyes 5
Ah yes
greeneyes
sweatshirt
The girl was gone. Small waves lapped up around where she’d been. “Uh,” he said. His heart was pounding, and he couldn’t put words to why.
Bogeymen can do that to people, yeah
almost surprised she didn't turn, just a little to let him catch a glimpse
a girl's gotta get hungry, after all
and if she can't eat her best friend...
well, fear is an important part of the food pyramid
The little sparrow bounced with excitement. The larger one remained where it was, ruffling its feathers momentarily, almost seeming to ignore Dom altogether. Its attention was on the trees.
Now there are two sparrows!
We don't have to wonder anymore
I'm guessing the first was, in fact, Evan
just seemed like his personality and vibe- he probably didn't chirp twice just to not give the game away
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spinagon 07-Oct-20 11:00 PM
🐦
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JayManiac 07-Oct-20 11:00 PM
But blake is a sparrow this is the best ending there could've been
agree 2
Dom looked at the larger sparrow that had perched on his bike. Unlike the small one, it seemed to be more focused on the surroundings than on him, or even the bike. It had feathers sticking up here and there, and it was a little dirtier. A small bit of branch was stuck in the plumage at its front. It looked like a sparrow that a cat had hacked up and left on the forest floor. Still, it had looked very similar last summer, too.
Aahahaha yes
there's our boy
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spinagon 07-Oct-20 11:02 PM
And he gets to ride the bike, somewhat
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JayManiac 07-Oct-20 11:02 PM
grimy and branch-y and everything
yes! he gets to ride the bike
“I don’t want to call it Ugly,” Dom said, not taking his eyes off the little creature. “It saved my life. Maybe.”
👀
“Getting to that. The speed I was going, where the car was, the incoming traffic, I had that moment where I realized it was all going to go in a bad way, no matter what happened. Then, bam. Bird that was riding with just flies off, slams into the side window of the car. Scares the shit out of the driver, they correct, and I don’t die.” Deidre looked at the bird.
And he's still himself. Well versed in motorcycle safety, and with a boneheaded, self-sacrificial way of helping! He's himself. He got what he wanted.
He trailed off, looking at the bird, and saw it staring at him. Very still. As quiet as the smaller one was animated. Deidre hadn’t said anything, so he elaborated, “…I was going to say guardian angels, but…” “But?” He thought of the white haired girl he’d glimpsed, the way she’d disappeared. The ‘guardian angel’ thing had been an amusing thought before. Now it felt a little less like an idle thought.
These guys are better than angels
Angels are assholes
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Elliot (Boy) 07-Oct-20 11:06 PM
Yeah how dare
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spinagon 07-Oct-20 11:06 PM
Guardian vestige
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JayManiac 07-Oct-20 11:07 PM
“How about we loop back, see if we can’t take the other road and head down to explore the little ghost town, satisfy your curiosity?” he asked her. “Then we can head on our way.”
mmmmmmm howboutcha don't?
I say
fully aware that I would 100% want to explore the creepy ghost town and get swallowed
“Come on,” he said. The birds didn’t move.
You guys'd better save this idiot before he falls through
“It’s like… you hear about animals reacting before an earthquake hits. You said it was groundwater contamination. Maybe they sense something wrong down that way, so they’ll instinctively refuse.” “Maybe,” Dom conceded. “Poisons in the air?” Deidre offered a shrug. She had very nice shrugs. “How committed are you to going this way?” “Not very,” she said. “If I’m being totally honest, I had a bad feeling, like the one you described. Nothing I can reason or explain, but-” “But a bad feeling,” he said. He sat up straighter. “Good enough. On to the highway, head to and through Ottawa, find some spot between there and Montreal to settle down for the night?”
yeah, that feels about right- thank you spirits, and thank you Blake and Evan
It would fall behind eventually, he knew, but it would always catch up somehow. If it got tired, it would take advantage of his stopping for gas or food to catch a ride, somewhere where the wind wouldn’t throw it loose. In Dominic’s peripheral vision, the sparrow was joined by its smaller companion, and the two drifted out in the general direction of the lake. The way got clearer as they got further from Toronto and the annoyance of the slower traffic around the ghost town. He smiled, accelerating, content to be leaving it all behind. Last Chapter The End (Afterword)
Beautiful
absolutely beautiful
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Elliot (Boy) 07-Oct-20 11:10 PM
apensob
thistbh 1
Thanks for reading Jay! Your live reads of this story were an absolute joy
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JayManiac 07-Oct-20 11:11 PM
I'm so, so, so happy I did- though I might not have meant for it to take quite this long XD
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 12:00 AM
Thank you so much, everyone- this read was an absolute blast...if a 'blast' could really be said to describe something which took well over a year
And a particular thanks @A bird 🐦 for inspiring it in the first place, of course
sharkhi 2
CharmanderHi 1
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 01:08 AM
I'm so glad to hear it
as for the questions: several of those answers will be worked into a kind of pact-reflection video that I kind of always knew I'd have to make, so I'd stay tuned for that in the next few weeks
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Elliot (Boy) 08-Oct-20 01:12 AM
Heck yeah!
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 01:13 AM
The first two are the ones that'll probably have to wait for that, because those are some big answers
But in the meantime: 3. I really liked Peter throughout the back half of the book, to my utter surprise- but not so much that I could quite call him the best over Mags.
4. There's just so much I wish we had the chance to explore more of, Practices other than the Abyss and Diabolism. It's a cheap answer, perhaps, because it's not hugely specific, but it's the truth. I'd love to see if all fae are like padraic, or if he stands out among them; I want to find out which gods of the old world are still around, and how they get interpreted; I want to find out about Practical traditions we never heard of here, and how they play into the systems we are familiar with. And as simple as it sounds: I do want to see a protagonist who actually obtains a familiar, an implement, and a demesne, so we can see that journey through.
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Elliot (Boy) 08-Oct-20 01:21 AM
(Reading Pale will put you on the Path to some stuff like this!)
🥁 3
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 01:23 AM
(I hoped that might be the case, and I'm gonna have to hold back from starting right away (because there's been a lot of buildup of books I need to read, that I hope to get through before starting another liveread))
(currently the plan is: I cannot start reading pale, until I upload my reflection on Pact)
agree 2
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Elliot (Boy) 08-Oct-20 01:23 AM
That makes sense
Also as much as I immediately want you on the Pale wagon it’d be unfair on Pact to move right on I think
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A bird 🐦 08-Oct-20 01:24 AM
I'd totally be happy with a Poke interlude tho
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 01:25 AM
that can certainly be arranged at some point
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Elliot (Boy) 08-Oct-20 01:25 AM
Yeah Poke is... maybe 2-3 Pact chapters in length?
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 01:25 AM
I'm dying to know what the fuck everyone means by 'incest wizard'
and hoping all of my guesses are very very wrong
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Elliot (Boy) 08-Oct-20 01:26 AM
lewdbulba Benny boi
Poke the hilarious bit being that incest might be less gross to some people than Ben’s actual relationship status
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Sebastián 08-Oct-20 01:27 AM
I don't know what you're talking about, he just likes trashy girls.
lol 1
aPS_angry 1
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 01:28 AM
that reminds me: another interlude will be searching '||' in this channel
lol 2
and providing fun commentary, hopefully
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 01:36 AM
5. I have compared myself to the fae, and been compared many, many times by my friends. I don't think it's totally on the money, but glamour makes so much inherent sense to me- I physically fist-pumped when Blake said `Everything is Faerie' because it's how I've been thinking of it the whole time. I also very easily see and intuit connections, understanding spirits and karma (at least I hope so, after this read), so I think I'd best be suited as an enchantress- one of those all-around disciplines. I'd use glamour and enchantment in roughly equal amount, tossing in some shamanism and luck magic to boot, hopefully getting to a place where I could eventually deal more broadly and diversify my powers like Johannes did. Honestly, I'd probably be best off if I could bind a Fae as my familiar, so that I could focus on enchantment and dabble in the side-disciplines like shamanism and karma while still having a ready, active source of glamour at my disposal.
Would I die before I accomplished one lick of this? Almost certainly! But would I try anyways? Well, the character I've compared myself to most is Johannes, and that bodes exactly as well as you'd expect.
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Qaysed 08-Oct-20 01:36 AM
unfortunately searching || doesn't seem to work
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 01:37 AM
fiddlesticks
I'll just have to comb through and find em myself
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A bird 🐦 08-Oct-20 01:39 AM
It's funny because everything is Faerie is simultaneously saying everything is bullshit and everything is meaningful
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 01:41 AM
which is exactly my life philosophy
Also, skimming a search of my name in the deep in pact channel, and...ho man, I appreciate the vote of confidence, however misplaced it may have been XD
😄 2
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A bird 🐦 08-Oct-20 01:44 AM
Now that you're done, it's worth pointing out that the metaphor of power as currency coupled with Blake's particular situation really informs the tone of Pact. Blake isn't the average experience, nor is Johannes, nor is Mags. Blake essentially inherited millions of debt and a history of grudges from the Mafia
His experience of the world was particularly hostile. Dying horribly is less of a threat for the average Jay. Much more likely to get metaphorically lashed to an extractive grindstone and/or never truly get ahead financially power wise
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 01:48 AM
Which is all an interesting point, although I'll push back that the Knights are an example of even dabblers potentially wandering into those fates worse than death
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Elliot (Boy) 08-Oct-20 01:48 AM
Well the biggest gate for the average Jay is getting into the world, really. Someone needs to bring you on.
Not everyone’s unlucky enough to have a Rose Snr or Goblin Queen bring them in, but not everyone’s fortunate to have a dynasty to slot into either
I’d love to hear more on what you think Fae represent btw Jay.
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 01:53 AM
Agreed on all counts, Elliot. But also, more to the point of why I wouldn't get as far as my ambition: Unlike the Knights, who were fairly low-risk actually, I would probably be a bit more serious about the practice. I think myself competent enough to bind a faerie as a familiar without accidentally giving them my name or my soul or my asshattery. If all went well, my power would grow in the very way that Karma rewards: confidently throwing myself into risky situation after risky situation with the self-assurance that I could handle it. If I didn't die, I think I could get fairly powerful by playing the game and doing so in style. But much more likely, I miss something and pay a very steep price.
5a: I haven't really thought of demesnse, but I have two ideas for implements that could certainly work. the first is something I brought up ages ago: I still think the mechanical pencil works very well, for many of the reasons I originally thought of it (searching 'mechanical pencil' will take you there). But recently I've also considered the microphone, especially as I've been getting more and more into voice acting. I'm good at expressing myself through my voice- it's something I was trained in from shortly after I could talk -and I can easily shift sounds to suit my needs. Acting, too: getting into character, bringing them forth -would be very synthetic with glamour and enchantment.
It would likely depend on how my approach was working, and what it could benefit most from
who would've thought someone who writes scripts and then reads them aloud would choose a writing implement and a vocal implement as their top two picks!?
Both choices, also, last much longer than a computer or phone. Some microphones can outlive humans, and they're not made to be disposable like phones are
and I've had the same 5 mechanical pencils since 3rd grade
I know which mic and which pencil specifically I'd pick, and neither is more than a foot away from me as I type this
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Elliot (Boy) 08-Oct-20 02:03 AM
A mic is interesting - I wonder what kind? I’m just wondering if there’d be a sociocultural association more with singing than other general performance, and if that might have any impact
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 02:05 AM
It might, but when I said I was taught to use my voice from a very young age, singing is the context, so I wouldn't mind that connotation. Once you know how to use your voice to sing, though, it's easier to translate to things like voice-over and acting
the mic I have now is technically for singers, but I've used it to record pretty much all my videos
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Elliot (Boy) 08-Oct-20 02:07 AM
Oh if singing works then it’s not a worry
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 02:09 AM
singing to me, feels like the parts of Pact where blake or dom describe riding a motorcycle: freeing, agile, joyous. Voice acting is much the same, though it takes a lot more energy out of me.
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Elliot (Boy) 08-Oct-20 02:10 AM
My singing is described by others how Blake describes The Abyss (edited)
lol 1
same 1
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A bird 🐦 08-Oct-20 02:10 AM
Which is all an interesting point, although I'll push back that the Knights are an example of even dabblers potentially wandering into those fates worse than death
I don't wanna detail the Implement conversation, but who said the Knights were dabblers before they went into the factory?
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Elliot (Boy) 08-Oct-20 02:11 AM
Ah, the old pre-Ur Knights hypothesis
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A bird 🐦 08-Oct-20 02:12 AM
I love the microphone implement idea, btw. Specific but useful, clear messaging, career coded
agree 1
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Elliot (Boy) 08-Oct-20 02:14 AM
Also leaning into performance/theatre is a (perhaps high risk but) solid strat
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A bird 🐦 08-Oct-20 02:14 AM
Modern to the point that I'd be concerned about the hit to power, but I think it'd be worth it even if it did shake out as a bit of a loss
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 02:15 AM
Thank you! It's like the implement that the McElroys would use, if they were pratitioners
I think microphones would be less of a hit to power than, say, an iphone
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A bird 🐦 08-Oct-20 02:16 AM
An iPhone is literally the DO NOT DO THIS example, to be fair
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 02:16 AM
it is XD
most newer technology has the 'disposable' aspect to it
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Elliot (Boy) 08-Oct-20 02:17 AM
I love the monthly “could I use my iPhone as an implement” threads on reddit, don’t know what you mean
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 02:17 AM
Ahhahahahaa; that's...concerning
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A bird 🐦 08-Oct-20 02:18 AM
I think microphones hit that perfect sweet spot of representing technological progress of modernity while also being something that has existed long enough to be older than living human memory
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 02:18 AM
agree
they're around 150 y/o, so pretty much as sweet as that spot gets
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Elliot (Boy) 08-Oct-20 02:19 AM
clearly the megaphone is a better choice though
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 02:19 AM
I could see a goblin queen with a megaphone
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A bird 🐦 08-Oct-20 02:19 AM
Plus they're impossibly current
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 02:19 AM
gods what a power move
agree 1
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Elliot (Boy) 08-Oct-20 02:19 AM
Haha I was about to say the same thing about goblins Jay
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 02:21 AM
HEY, FUCKSTICK, GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE LIKE YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO- OH DON'T YOU GIMMIE THAT BULLSHIT NOW! HEY, NO RUNNING IN THE HALLS!! ASSBLASTER, I'M LOOKING AT YOU!!
lol 1
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Elliot (Boy) 08-Oct-20 02:21 AM
(I was going to ask my usual “goblins or fae?” question earlier but it seemed unnecessary here) (edited)
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 02:21 AM
Unfortunately, while I understand your preference, I cannot agree
besides
we've seen so, so many goblins
but we only have one really solid example of the fae
maybe the rest are different 🙂
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Elliot (Boy) 08-Oct-20 02:23 AM
How dare you belittle the rat fae from Jojo’s interlude
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 02:24 AM
you're right; that level of depth was practically unprecedented
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Wildbow 08-Oct-20 02:25 AM
Sorry to be off topic, but out of curiosity, is Pale a thing you're jumping into right away, or are you going to digest for a bit? And what have you picked up about it, in terms of details, expectations, etc?
lol 1
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A bird 🐦 08-Oct-20 02:25 AM
(currently the plan is: I cannot start reading pale, until I upload my reflection on Pact)
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Elliot (Boy) 08-Oct-20 02:27 AM
Me: Jay should digest Pact and not rush into Pale Also me: PALE PALE PALE
thistbh 1
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A bird 🐦 08-Oct-20 02:29 AM
I want Jay to step into the hyperbolic time chamber and produce a year's worth of Pact content today, and then immediately proceed onto a Pale liveread
Which I feel is perfectly reasonable
lol 1
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 02:29 AM
That's a barely-exaggerated version of my plan, if I'm being totally honest
which is...perhaps concerning, but I can do it
lol 2
I would absolutely love to catch up, so I know that I can't take too long
after my pact retrospective is up on the youtubes I plan to jump in, using the time I spend writing, voicing, and editing it to read various other things
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Elliot (Boy) 08-Oct-20 02:31 AM
(Don’t push super hard like you tried to for APU though! I still feel bad about that) (edited)
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 02:32 AM
hey, no, that was my series of questionable decisions
I think I'm better off moving at a fair clip for a while, which I can do now that i'm not in school
instead of trying to read 2 arcs a day at 2 hours a chapter
...on the other hand, I could be caught up by sunday...
it's so close.....
...and yet so mathematically ill-advised
As for things I've picked up: almost nothing. We have three protagonists who wear different masks for some reason; they're hired by someone/thing to look into someone/thing, and there's at least one more goblin and one more fae, so familiar faces. I hear that it shows surprising restraint when it comes to the more horrible sides of the practice, waiting until the first or second interlude to drop that particular ball? Which is fun.
Other than that, I'm absolutely green on it, nothing spoiled
sharkhi 1
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Elliot (Boy) 08-Oct-20 02:40 AM
Since you brought up hours per chapter, just a heads up that Pale chapters are significantly longer than their Pact counterparts. And also somehow denser!
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 02:40 AM
Oh gods dammit
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Elliot (Boy) 08-Oct-20 02:40 AM
This is undoubtedly a good thing, but it did lead to me needing to adjust my own live read time estimates
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 02:40 AM
that was my biggest fear, I hope you realize
After comparing worm/ward I figured it might be the case, but still
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Project Waffler 08-Oct-20 02:42 AM
They're significantly longer than even Ward chapters. I think the average is somewhere around 9k at the moment. But I'm pretty sure Pale has the top 3-5 longest chapters WB has ever written.
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A bird 🐦 08-Oct-20 02:43 AM
Pact has a blistering pace, but Pale is a Matryoshka doll of content
agree 1
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Elliot (Boy) 08-Oct-20 02:44 AM
Last I checked the average was just over 10k, and from memory Pact’s was around 5-6k, so yeah. Spoiled for content we are!
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 02:44 AM
incoherent madness-choir demon screaming
it's already taken me longer to read pact than it took wildbow to write it
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Elliot (Boy) 08-Oct-20 02:45 AM
I know it may be a ways off, but can someone ping me if/when Jale reads starts? I usually have pale livereads muted on account of being behind new chapters
agree 1
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 02:45 AM
and that was the wildbow of many years ago/ I have no chance of catching up
That's an interesting point: I'm not sure how I feel about a more crowded channel, so I'll look into what my options are for livereading when the time comes
I don't suppose I could con ironreach into giving me a channel...
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A bird 🐦 08-Oct-20 02:54 AM
Also worth mentioning is that Pale liveread channels are not necessarily Pact spoiler safe. We have multiple Pale only readers (edited)
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Elliot (Boy) 08-Oct-20 02:55 AM
Is that true? I know megafire uses it
I can’t imagine keeping my live reads pact reference free. That’s most of my comedy material! (edited)
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 02:56 AM
same, I imagine
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A bird 🐦 08-Oct-20 02:56 AM
Yeah, Dawn in particular was very vocal about it, being one of the Pale only readers
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Project Waffler 08-Oct-20 02:56 AM
The Ironreach liveread channel is good for spoilers all and tends to be pretty dead.
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A bird 🐦 08-Oct-20 02:58 AM
Do you not remember heading up your Twitter livereads with "I can't promise to not spoil Pact in my 'in the moment' reactions," Elliot?
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Elliot (Boy) 08-Oct-20 02:58 AM
Yeah exactly
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 02:59 AM
shivers; I could never liveread on twitter
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Elliot (Boy) 08-Oct-20 02:59 AM
I just copied Scott’s formula. I’ve never tried anything else
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A bird 🐦 08-Oct-20 02:59 AM
I think it'd be as simple as doing the standard making space, Pact + Pale 2.4 spoilers here thing
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Elliot (Boy) 08-Oct-20 03:00 AM
It’s the only thing I use Twitter for too, I have no idea if I’m doing it wrong or anything
Twitter threads make no sense
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 03:00 AM
I do enjoy the twitter livereads; I remember when I would be caught up on all of scott's
I could never use it, just because of...mostly long-windedness and a tendency to write essays after every piece of dialogue
but I suppose you save the essays for the 'cast
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Elliot (Boy) 08-Oct-20 03:01 AM
Oh haha yes that is a problem. I often have to remove a word or shorten one to fit in 280 characters
Or just do the old (1/4)
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 03:09 AM
(1/37)
lol 1
thistbh 1
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Elliot (Boy) 08-Oct-20 03:10 AM
It’s also less interactive, which is a bummer sometimes. Even when people do reply on twitter, it’s just not a place to have conversations. I mostly try to keep my eye on the discord for responses here
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 03:10 AM
Yeah, that's an aspect of livereads that I can't really go without, and I like to keep it all in one place
Oh, also! Something I've been meaning to ask: if I were to set up a time in the next few days that I would be around on ironreach voice to chat more about pact, is that something people might be interested in? A sort of 'Jay Live, Read (past tense)'?
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A bird 🐦 08-Oct-20 03:13 AM
I most definitely would be, but timezones necessitate a weekend for me to be there
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Elliot (Boy) 08-Oct-20 03:14 AM
Yeah time zones permitting, I’d try to be there
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Wildbow 08-Oct-20 03:28 AM
I'd be down, depending on schedule
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Ishamoridin 08-Oct-20 03:28 AM
Yeah that sounds fun
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 03:30 AM
weekend might be the right time to do it then: if we started at ~2-3 PST on Saturday would that work for people?
agree 2
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 05:10 AM
Iirc, i think if i do Sunday then it's no longer the weekend for the Australians?
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A bird 🐦 08-Oct-20 05:10 AM
I can actually do Mondays
Dunno about Elliot though
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JayManiac 08-Oct-20 05:16 AM
I'm also not sure if I can do sundays; I've got a dnd campaign that afternoon
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JayManiac 10-Oct-20 01:39 AM
As a reminder for everyone who can make it (and an apology to those who can't) I'll be hosting a fairly casual post-pact discussion in the ironreach voice channel in approximately 22 hours and 22 minutes! (edited)
That's 2:00 PST; i'd love to see all of you there, as schedules permit, so feel free to hop in whenever you can
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Wildbow 10-Oct-20 01:41 AM
Is this more of an overview, a Q&A?
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JayManiac 10-Oct-20 01:45 AM
Good question! A bit of both, I think. I'll be answering questions and asking plenty- I'll have a couple discussion points but nothing close to a script. I enjoy getting to discuss things in real time, and it's something I haven't gotten to do with people here- All Pact Up excepted, of course -so I thought I'd make time for it.
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Sebastián 10-Oct-20 01:46 AM
Any plans on recording it?
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JayManiac 10-Oct-20 01:52 AM
If that's something everyone would be alright with, I certainly wouldn't mind having a recording for people who can't make it and in case I say something that I want to make a video about later
But if it'd put people off, I wouldn't want it at the expense of that
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Elliot (Boy) 10-Oct-20 01:52 AM
Do I bombard you with ask question before or during?
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JayManiac 10-Oct-20 01:56 AM
either or- if people can't make it, they're certainly free to post questions here or even pm them to me beforehand -or even if you just want to write them down so we make sure we get to them. That said, off-the-cuff is equally valid! You can even pretend that you thought of them prior, but wanted to surprise me!
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JayManiac 11-Oct-20 12:03 AM
Going live! Hope to see you there!
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Wildbow 11-Oct-20 12:04 AM
Just getting pluged in
Also waiting for a delivery so am juggling a few things, bear with me for a couple min
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JayManiac 11-Oct-20 12:08 AM
you're good, don't worry!
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JayManiac 11-Oct-20 01:51 AM
Thank you to everyone who was around for that! I had a whole lot of fun, and I hope you guys did too- as always, I'll be around to answer further questions here, and for those of you who weren't able to make it, I should hopefully have the recording up to be shared in the near future (if anyone who was on at the time is uncomfortable with that, let me know and I can keep it private). This was a brilliant end to a powerful journey, and I hope to see you all along for the next one 💛
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JayManiac 13-Oct-20 03:08 AM
It has come to my attention that not reading pale is an extremely difficult and mentally trying task that I may not be able to continue
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A bird 🐦 13-Oct-20 03:08 AM
Completely understandable
I'd love to see a 0.0 liveread
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Elliot (Boy) 13-Oct-20 03:09 AM
(Don’t forget Poke if you need something to tide you over)
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Wildbow 13-Oct-20 03:09 AM
Heh
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Elliot (Boy) 13-Oct-20 03:09 AM
I specifically think we’ll have a lot of fun watching you live read poke if you choose to
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Wildbow 13-Oct-20 03:10 AM
Problem with Poke is it's on a cliffhanger until I'm done pale.
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JayManiac 13-Oct-20 03:10 AM
when you've just been sitting there, in suspense, looking at the 'experience kennet' brochure and the awakening supplies listed there for the fourth time today you begin to accept that willpower may not in fact be in the cards
lol 3
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Elliot (Boy) 13-Oct-20 03:11 AM
Unfortunately I don’t know if I’m physically capable of saying “don’t read Pale” and I think I’m not alone, so idk if you’ve come to the right place for help
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Wildbow 13-Oct-20 03:12 AM
I'm pretty happy with how that brochure came out.
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JayManiac 13-Oct-20 03:12 AM
It's so enticing
I can't help but imagine what might be happening under the surface of it all
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Elliot (Boy) 13-Oct-20 03:13 AM
Fantastic introduction to the potential of the Extra Materials too
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Wildbow 13-Oct-20 03:16 AM
Though a cliffhanger, poke does offer a brief introduction to (no jays) Toadswallow
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Project Waffler 13-Oct-20 03:17 AM
I'm pretty fond of the about page. Though, again, not gonna be much help on the willpower front if you take a peek Jay.
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A bird 🐦 13-Oct-20 03:18 AM
We're a bunch of damn dirty enablers
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Elliot (Boy) 13-Oct-20 03:21 AM
Also Poke gives more insight into Mags, which is always nice
Also also goblin romance, which I cannot stress enough, will be fun for us to see Jay read
agree 3
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JayManiac 13-Oct-20 03:22 AM
I suppose I should start figuring out logistics instead of sticking to my plan. Should I read here (doof), Ironreach (Wutrona), or in my own server which does not yet exist (🪶)? There are benefits to all, but I'm curious what people are thinking. I suppose one could also consider (spoop) bother either doof or ironreach for a channel to fuck around in, but I'm not sure if/how I'd go about doing that.
doof 8
spoop 2
Wutrona 2
🪶 3
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A bird 🐦 13-Oct-20 03:23 AM
While I agree that Poke is the obvious next step, I can't help but feel that Jay is hook line and sinker for Pale specifically
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Elliot (Boy) 13-Oct-20 03:23 AM
I’m firmly in camp “either” between Pale and Poke
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A bird 🐦 13-Oct-20 03:24 AM
Pssh
Both
fine 1
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Project Waffler 13-Oct-20 03:26 AM
Hmm. Checking the pale livereads channel, it seems we haven't had a full chapter liveread since the 3rd of this month. And with Megafire having moved his Pale read to Ironreach, the doof channel might be the slowest already available channel at this point?
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A bird 🐦 13-Oct-20 03:34 AM
I think you'd have a hard sell getting your own channel in Doof, and probably Ironreach. Maybe IR if you spin it as a local content producers channel? You and Jade, maybe some GM's, Crispy
Was it Vilheim making music for Twig? (edited)
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Project Waffler 13-Oct-20 03:36 AM
Yes. And a Ward song as well.
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JayManiac 13-Oct-20 03:38 AM
I probably wouldn't be comfortable using such a channel for a liveread anyhow- I do agree that it's tricky territory
We'll see
Seeing as I have a dnd campaign starting in 20 minutes I shall likely have the willpower to hold out until at least tomorrow
if I held out until wednesday that could be an entire week between reading pact and reading pale- that's practically respectable
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A bird 🐦 13-Oct-20 03:42 AM
Plenty of time to make a video series on Pact, right?
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JayManiac 13-Oct-20 03:43 AM
Uuhhhhhh....glances at the one (1) video I have 2/3 of the script for...uh huh!
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A bird 🐦 13-Oct-20 03:43 AM
CharmanderHi
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Wildbow 13-Oct-20 03:47 AM
You could do a liveread of the about page
😄
Oh, 20 minutes might not be enough time.
And you should prep.
Have fun D&Ding!
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Elliot (Boy) 13-Oct-20 03:54 AM
I actually recommend checking out the about page before diving in
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A bird 🐦 13-Oct-20 03:55 AM
I insist
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Elliot (Boy) 13-Oct-20 03:55 AM
Idk maybe it was because we had nothing else at the time but Reuben and I covered it in Pale Reflections
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A bird 🐦 13-Oct-20 03:55 AM
Maybe you could do 0.0 first
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Project Waffler 13-Oct-20 03:55 AM
To be fair, we didn't get it until after the prologue, if memory serves
Or-maybe it was same day?
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A bird 🐦 13-Oct-20 03:55 AM
But both need to be read before 1.1
Well
They don't need to
But I want them to be
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JayManiac 13-Oct-20 04:05 AM
I have read the about page, back when Pale was announced, but I'll certainly do a re-live-read of it when the time comes
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JayManiac 13-Oct-20 06:25 AM
shit
whoops
well, I understand nothing
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JayManiac 13-Oct-20 09:29 PM
For the unaware, my Pale liveread begins now in the channel directly below this one, for the time being
sharkhi 5
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JayManiac 13-Oct-20 10:04 PM
It's going...as well as expected
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JayManiac 06-Jan-21 11:12 PM
One of my friends is on arc 10. She's in for a Time
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JayManiac 09-Apr-21 06:36 PM
If you do figure out how to do so, I'd very much appreciate having it in a more accessible format, all discussion included. I've tried to export parts of it before but it's never really worked for me for some reason.
The real tricky part is the one (or maybe 2?) chapters when Jade and I were reading at the same time
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JayManiac 09-Apr-21 06:46 PM
I've also been really enjoying the read- for similar reasons to Pale in Comparison. It's very interesting to see your takes on this stuff after having read Pale, like your possibly more informed take on awakening your friends. It's also just fun to revisit Pact and get to see where Wildbow introduced some ideas that he'd later go on to explore in Pale
ty 1
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Space stellHex 09-Apr-21 06:50 PM
My reaction to Blake awakening his friends has forced me to think more about what Miss did to the kenneteers
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JayManiac 09-Apr-21 06:53 PM
Discussion question for Pale Reflections (when it's relevant): When is it ethically valid to Awaken someone as a practitioner?
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Space stellHex 09-Apr-21 06:53 PM
Avery and Verona, at least, are both probably in a better place than they would be otherwise, but she still introduced 13 year olds to a world of overbearing strictures and mortal peril (edited)
I'm sure she didn't expect Nicolette's meddling or Bristow's power plays, but it's hard to believe she didn't expect anything like that to ever happen (edited)
Her portrayal as calm/collected, knowledgeable, and empathetic conflicts with this action
So I've got to be Missing something
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JayManiac 09-Apr-21 07:13 PM
I mean...just for starters, she knew about the HC, so that's already a terror she's subjecting them to, even if they aren't participating. I agree, it's a bit of a conundrum, but let's look at it from another angle: Miss' goal is to reform the structures of power to be more equitable, which includes reforming practitionerdom at large. The best way to do so, in her estimation, was to Awaken a group of practitioners herself who were tied not to families or bloodlines, but to a group of largely cooperative Others willing to participate in this reimagining of the relationship. I think this is a good point at which to stop and evaluate the validity of her plan. Is it ever ethical to Awaken people for a cause such as this? Should she have simply found established practitioners such as Charles to fill the role? What if no such options existed?
I think we can agree that her goals here are noble- establishing the precedent of working on empathetic terms with a group of practitioners, thereby taking meaningful step towards repairing the relationship. So do you have a problem with Awakening new ones at all, and why? Also consider that Awakening new practitioners allows you to build that cooperation into their role as practitioners, establishing a version of being a practitioner that is inseparable from the change you want to see.
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JayManiac 09-Apr-21 08:14 PM
From there, the next thing to consider would be: given that her goals are morally justifiable, is her choice of the Kenneteers immoral to complete them? I admit that I may be biased in this. If you can't tell from my videos and from the everything about me, I've long been an advocate of not necessarily letting age become a concrete obstacle to consideration. '13 year old' is a category that we give far more sway to than I think it deserves. Because yes, they can be shitheads, or irresponsible, but they're all at different stages of development in different areas, and some of that development isn't necessarily 'good'. People on that kind of cusp of adulthood can have the audacity to believe they can change things, the willingness to accept new ideas. And many of them are no less capable of critical thinking and decision making than many adults.
I must stress that not every 13 year old is smarter and more capable of responsible decision-making than the average adult. I'm just saying that the mere fact of their age doesn't make them incapable. And in fact, it offers many benefits in this situation: -kids are likely to be underestimated, for all the reasons we balk at employing them. -13 year olds especially have the audacity to demand respect and consideration, but also the ability to offer it in ways that many adults lack. -as a demographic, 13 year olds are 'outside' of a lot of the structures of society that the rest of us have already been conditioned to accept, and are often far more capable of questioning it. -kids get the summer off, financially supported so that they can focus the whole of their efforts on the practice- an employed adult wouldn't be able to.
With all this in mind, Miss ensured that she was picking not just any 13 year olds, but the ones that she considered capable of handling that responsibility as a group. Avery is far more empathetic than the average adult, Verona is far more aesthetically adept than the average adult, Lucy is far more socially conscious than the average adult as demonstrated by Pale comment sections alone. This isn't a coincidence. Miss picked kids who were victims of the structures of power, because they're more capable of analyzing and confronting those structures. And she empowered them to overcome that oppression, by granting them the privilege that practitioners are offered.
We avoid endangering kids or giving them responsibility because we as a society think them incapable of responsible decision-making, and value the freedom and powerlessness of childhood too much to rob them of it. They should be allowed to be kids, is the prevailing sentiment. But were Verona, Avery and Lucy really allowed to be kids regardless? They were victims of these structures in ways that already robbed them of their childhood. Would it really have been a better life for any of them, if they'd been left to live the rest of those five years? And is it really so crazy that Miss would believe- deep down -that allowing them to be defined by the current trajectories of their lives, browbeat by society into their roles until they'd lost all the potential of their youth, was a far worse fate than what they were likely to face with the Practice? She tested them to make sure they wouldn't forswear themselves flippantly, she informed them of the risks as best she could and she trusted them in a way our society as a whole is still reluctant to do. She gave them each other, she gave them as much power over their own lives as she could, and she gave them the future of the world before the world could take away those sparks of goodness. And that's a decision I can get behind.
thistbh 1
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JayManiac 09-Apr-21 08:23 PM
But it's also worth mentioning...I mean, I have to admit, at the beginning of Pale Miss' sacrifice stood out to me as a bit odd. Because it didn't seem to 'accomplish' much in the grand scheme of things. It didn't get Avery out of the FRT or anything, and after watching Kennet fall apart without her...it just seemed like so much to give, for so little. But now I think I do understand it, because I think in some sense you're right, Stell. She did take that risk and she did endanger them and while she doesn't regret that decision...but I think the FRT was a moment of clarity for her, a realization that she hadn't necessarily estimated all the risks correctly or made an unambiguously 'good' decision. I think Miss is kind, she is empathetic...and in that moment, knowing that kennet would struggle without her...what mattered most was making up for that mistake. What mattered most was that Avery was experiencing something terrible and traumatic, as a result of Miss' plan, and she knew could do something to make it better. So she did.
Ilovethis 1
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Space stellHex 09-Apr-21 08:33 PM
while I know think i understand Miss a lot better, I can't fully get behind your rationale
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JayManiac 09-Apr-21 08:37 PM
(ooo good- I love when that happens)
👍 1
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Space stellHex 09-Apr-21 08:42 PM
because while i agree people tend to overstate the impact of age, I think you're understating it. And your rhetoric takes the implicit position that adults couldn't have any of the qualities that kids do -- exceptionally responsible and self-aware kids are considered, but not especially disenfranchised and free-minded adults.
Maybe Miss did the best she could with the resources and knowledge at hand, but in an ideal world she would awaken older practitioners and help the trio in ways that didn't also endanger their lives
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Megafire 09-Apr-21 08:50 PM
As an Other, can she?
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JayManiac 09-Apr-21 08:50 PM
Maybe. But this isn't an ideal world, and i think Miss also saw the opportunity to free and empower three kids who were each on the precipice of becoming inseparable from the systems that surrounded their lives.
agree 1
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Megafire 09-Apr-21 08:51 PM
Like, we've seen that Awareness isn't exactly anything worth striving for either.
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Space stellHex 09-Apr-21 08:52 PM
Others can impact the lives of Innocents without making them Aware, can't they?
even if only in small ways
when Blake's friend group first met Evan they were like "Wow, cool trained bird"
as a straightforward example
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JayManiac 09-Apr-21 08:54 PM
I think I don't have a great understanding of why you think older = better here at all.
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Space stellHex 09-Apr-21 08:55 PM
it's not about whether an adult Miss's Practioners would do a better job or not
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JayManiac 09-Apr-21 08:57 PM
But then...why? The kenneteers childhoods weren't stolen by miss, they were stolen by a system which creates bigotry biases and Brett. Leaving them in those situations was not the merciful thing to do either.
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Space stellHex 09-Apr-21 08:57 PM
it's about whether kids whose personalities haven't been completely baked in yet should get ptsd
hmm
I'm definitely operating under an axiomatic "hurting a kid is worse than hurting an adult" and I'm having trouble justifying that assumption
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JayManiac 09-Apr-21 09:00 PM
...weren't you arguing that especially open adults willing to change their beliefs and personalities existed too? How would traumatizing that adult be...better? Like, Miss needs people who are still open to change...so if that's the disagreement then that's the disagreement
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Megafire 09-Apr-21 09:00 PM
Would just introducing Avery to Lucy and Verona have done as much for them as the Practice did?
Like, that Alpy!nightmare Verona had seemed... eerily plausible, without the Practice.
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JayManiac 09-Apr-21 09:02 PM
It was kind of the perfect way to draw them together, because of who they are as people. Verona needs to work with Avery on her special interest and thus learns to care about Avery.
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JayManiac 09-Apr-21 09:41 PM
I don't think it's a bad assumption to be making on the whole, but I think that the reason you're disagreeing with Miss is because you're thinking axiomatically and she tries to approach the world without those axioms. We all process time and development differently. Age is something society accepts as being indicative of development, because we've created the need to measure it via our laws and customs but that just...isn't how people work? And when approaching things from a developmental angle rather than a numerical one...well, assuming development for a slightly more linear and straightforward thing than it is for a moment, Miss needs practitioners in a certain stage of development wherein- as you mention -their ways of approaching the world are not as 'baked in' yet. This makes them susceptible to trauma. It also makes them the right people to do what she thinks is right. If your argument is that she should've chosen people who have that quality, but are numerically older, the only thing I think that changes, is that it makes us feel slightly better...and for the same reasons, makes things more difficult and dangerous for the Kenneteers as their opponents are less prone to underestimate them.
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